Abstract
AbstractDemocracies without democrats are not sustainable. Yet, recent studies have argued that Western citizens are turning their backs on the system of self-governance, thereby eroding the societal foundations of consolidated democracies. This study contributes to discussions about citizen support of democracy by (1) analyzing new cross-national survey data in 18 European countries that facilitate assessments of the temporal and geographical generalizability of previous findings, (2) disentangling age, cohort and period effects, thereby aligning the analytical methods with the theoretical arguments and (3) transparently reporting all evidence derived from pre-registered analyses to avoid cherry-picked findings. The findings show that citizens of consolidated democracies continue to endorse self-governance. Yet in some (but not all) countries, there is evidence of a growing number of ‘democrats in name only’, particularly among the young generation. These findings suggest a second phase in research on democratic fatigue that broadens the analytical scope for the multi-faceted nature of democratic support.
Highlights
Taking seriously the notion that ‘one of the greatest threats to democracy is the idea that it is unassailable’ (Carey et al 2019), scholars have responded to contemporary challenges to democratic principles and practices by revisiting a foundational question of modern political science (Easton, Gunnell and Stein 1995): what are the prerequisites for a stable and healthy liberal democracy, and to what extent are these conditions currently met? As any democratic system requires a sufficiently large number of citizens who want to govern themselves (Almond and Verba 1963; Claassen 2019), one strand of the literature focuses on citizen attitudes
A small decline in democratic regime preferences is visible in Denmark, but notable increases can be observed in countries such as Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom
Confidence in the institutions of democracy diminished in a few countries, by and large, the past decade was characterized by stability or rebounds of institutional trust in most countries
Summary
Taking seriously the notion that ‘one of the greatest threats to democracy is the idea that it is unassailable’ (Carey et al 2019), scholars have responded to contemporary challenges to democratic principles and practices by revisiting a foundational question of modern political science (Easton, Gunnell and Stein 1995): what are the prerequisites for a stable and healthy liberal democracy, and to what extent are these conditions currently met? As any democratic system requires a sufficiently large number of citizens who want to govern themselves (Almond and Verba 1963; Claassen 2019), one strand of the literature focuses on citizen attitudes. What remains disputed is whether these period effects merely affect short-term political orientations such as party preferences or whether they have begun to erode foundational attitudes toward democracy such as support for the principles of self-governing.
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