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Conceptualizing and Measuring Support for Democracy:A New Approach

Title / Series / Name
Comparative Political Studies
Publication Volume
58
Publication Issue
6
Pages
Authors
Claassen, Christopher
Ackermann, Kathrin
Bertsou, Eri
Borba, Lucas
Carlin, Ryan E.
Cavari, Amnon
Dahlum, Sirianne
Gherghina, Sergiu
Hawkins, Darren
Lelkes, Yphtach
Magalhães, Pedro C.
Mattes, Robert
Meijers, Maurits J.
Neundorf, Anja
Oross, Dániel
Öztürk, Aykut
Sarsfield, Rodolfo
Self, Darin
Stanley, Ben
Tsai, Tsung Han
Zaslove, Andrej
Zechmeister, Elizabeth J.
Editors
Keywords
public opinion
support for democracy
survey research
JC Political theory
Sociology and Political Science
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Oross-Daniel1-2025.pdf
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URI
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14018/27922
Abstract
Much of what we know about public support for democracy is based on survey questions about “democracy,” a term that varies in meaning across countries and likely prompts uncritically supportive responses. This paper proposes a new approach to measuring support for democracy. We develop a battery of 17 survey questions that cover all eight components of liberal democracy as defined by the V-Dem project. We then ask respondents from 19 national samples to evaluate these rights and institutions. We find considerable heterogeneity across countries in how our items cohere, especially in less developed contexts. Yet, those items that are more weakly connected with general support for liberal democracy tend to reveal the influence of political events and actors, arguably indicating weaknesses in political cultures. We further identify a concise subset of seven items that provide a reliable and valid measure of support for liberal democracy across our different samples.
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Place of Publication
Type
Journal article
Date
2025
Language
ISBN
Identifiers
10.1177/00104140241259458
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