Seeing the political climate change: Citizens' evaluation of democracy in contexts of backsliding

In the past decade, scholars have increasingly used citizens' evaluations of democracy as a benchmark for democratic performance. As 'microscope with a quality seal', surveys are considered alongside expert assessments. Contrasting with this optimistic perspective, literature on citizens' tolerance for democratic backsliding has questioned to which extent citizens are able to even recognize democratic backsliding and highlighted factors that may cloud citizens' judgement. In this paper, I bridge these two literatures to study whether citizens recognize democratic backsliding in contemporary Europe. Departing from the former literature, I look at changes over time which holds citizens to a higher standard than aggregate assessments. Departing from the latter, I look at large-scale trajectories of democratization and autocratization instead of assessing individual reforms via survey experiments. Building on the European Social Survey as well as original survey data, I show that while citizens' assessments show aggregate correlations with other indicators of democratic quality, they are not sensitive to democratic backsliding even in cases of protracted autocratization. Moreover, I show how party identification, political interest and education impact citizens' sensitivity to recognizing democratic backsliding.