Measuring Meanings of Democracy – A Multidimensional Approach

In recent years a broad range of studies have shown that the meanings of democracy (MOD) vary on the one hand between countries and regions, on the other hand within societies, too. The multidimensional approach in our paper is based on the assumption that democracy is an idea conceptualized by citizens underlying value orientations. It might be assumable that these value orientations do not only invariably refer to institutional ideas, but can also refer to varying participatory, economic or cultural conceptions of democracy. This in mind, we hypothesize that a realignment of MOD is taking place in the western world where value orientations of different societal spheres cumulate in a variety of MOD. These may have an effect on the satisfaction with and potentially the preference for democratic regimes and their specific arrangements. Therefore, we need new measurements that enable us to test such multidimensional meanings of democracy. Based on a representative survey conducted in the city of Würzburg/Germany in 2016 (n=486) we present first findings of our new multidimensional approach to measure these MOD. It considers liberal, egalitarian, participatory, economic, nativistic, and authoritarian aspects of democracy, which may overlap in various patterns. The results of the study hopefully will initiate new discussions about different MOD and conduct research not only in Germany but also in different world regions to gather new insights for cross-cultural surveys.