The fluid citizen: Mapping a new profile of the modern democrat

The democratic citizen today is different from those 20 or 30 years ago. Amidst the decline in turnout and party membership across most democracies, a crucial question is whether the change in procedural democratic engagement also means a rejection of the core ideals of democracy. Using micro and macro-level data in the World Values Survey (1981-2022) and the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (1996-2021) from 32 democracies around the world, this paper traces the patterns of generational variations of attitudes towards democratic principles and engagement with both traditional and contemporary democratic processes. In doing so, it sketches the biography of the modern democrat- a contemporary citizen whose political evaluations and procedural engagement is sensitive to the output of the democratic system. But she is a democrat, nonetheless, valuing the key democratic principles over other non-democratic alternatives. Trends from public opinion surveys also show that younger generations do not form stable political attachments with political institutions as older cohorts did – meaning they are more fluid. These results have implications for supply-side ailments of democracy rather than putting the onus of preventing democratic disconnect on citizens.