In 2012 How Europeans View and Evaluate Democracy assessed the Europeans' views and evaluations of the state of democracy after one of the deepest economic and financial crises worldwide. Against the most pessimistic “Zeitgeist,” the book found that there was overwhelming support for democracy in Europe, even if the breadth and scope of the citizens' demands for their democratic systems varied within and between countries. Importantly, with very few exceptions, the implementation of the basic democratic principle of free and fair elections was well-evaluated across Europe. However, analysis also showed that there was room for improvement in many countries, according to the citizens' evaluations. Overall, in 2012, there were no symptoms of a democratic crisis in Europe.
Ten years and several crises later, the authors reassess how Europeans view and evaluate democracy, and that many changes that have occurred in the meantime. This book, How Europeans View and Evaluate Democracy Revisited, compares how Europeans view and evaluate democracy in 2021-22 and in 2012 based on surveys in 24 European countries. It shows that Europeans continue to be attached to democratic ideals and that they continue to be rather dissatisfied with the way these ideals are implemented in their country. The liberal-democratic model continues to enjoy great support, just as it did a decade ago, and there is also support for additional models of democracy - for social, direct, and populist democracy. Surprisingly, the populist model turns out to be a complement rather than a substitute for the other models.
Mónica Ferrín is Researcher at the University of Zürich, where she works in several projects related to citizens' attitudes, behavior, and citizenship. She also collaborates with Collegio Carlo Alberto.
Hanspeter Kriesi holds the Stein Rokkan Chair in Comparative Politics at the European University Institute in Florence and has previously taught at the universities of Amsterdam, Geneva and Zurich. He was the director of a Swiss national research programme on the ‘Challenges to democracy in the 21st century’ from 2005–12.
Besir Ceka is Associate Professor of Political Science at Davidson College.
Ruxandra Comanaru is Research Fellow at the European Social Survey ERIC HQ.
Rory Fitzgerald is Director of the European Social Survey, and an academic at the School of Policy and Global Affairs of City, University of London.
Enrique Hernández Pérez is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and a fellow at the Democracy, Elections, and Citizenship (DEC) research group.
Michał Kotnarowski is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Claudia Landwehr is a Schumpeter Fellow at the Institute of Political Science at the Goethe-University Frankfurt / Main. She has previously been a junior research fellow at the University of Hamburg and an academic visitor at the Australian National University and Harvard University. Her research focuses on theories of democracy and justice and, more recently, on the distribution of healthcare in international comparison. She has published on deliberative democracy, communicative interaction and health care rationing.
Félix Lévesque is a graduate student at McGill University.
Levente Littvay (Levi) is Professor of Research at HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Science Centre of Excellence.
Pedro C Magalhães is a Senior Researcher at the University of Lisbon, studying public opinion and judicial politics, with an emphasis on attitudes towards democracy, procedural fairness in governance, political behaviour, and survey methodology.
Radoslaw Markowski is Director of the Polish National Election Study at the Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences.
Sergio Martini (PhD, Universitat Pompeu Fabra) is a Research fellow at the Department of Social, Political and Cognitive Science, University of Siena.
Irene Palacios is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Maastricht University for the project ‘Democratic Representation across countries, context and time’. Her research interests are in comparative politics, quality of democracy, political representation, and democratic attitudes. She holds a PhD from the European University Institute (Florence, Italy) and, previously, she was a Research Associate at the Institute for Advanced Social Studies in Spain.
Pedro Riera is a Researcher at the European University Institute, Florence. He works on comparative politics, electoral systems and political behaviour. He is the author of 'Non bis in idem: voto escindido en sistemas electorales mixtos. Los casos de Nueva Zelanda en 1999 y 2002' (Revista Española de Ciencia Política, 2009).
Armin Schäfer is Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Mainz.
Dietlind Stolle is James McGill Professor in Political Science at McGill University.
Mariano Torcal is a Professor of Political Science at Pompeu Fabra University and the Director of the Research and Expertise Centre for Survey Methodology.
Alexander H Trechsel is Professor of Political Science at the University of Lucerne. He obtained his PhD in Political Science at the University of Geneva in 1999. From 2005 to 2016 he held the Swiss Chair in Federalism and Democracy at the European University Institute in Fiesole. In addition, he was from 2013 to 2016 Head of the Department for Political and Social Sciences at the same institute. Also, from 2012 to 2015, he was Faculty Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.
Bernhard Weßels is Professor at the Humboldt University of Berlin and Deputy Director of the Department “Democracy and Democratization” at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
