The evolution of support for democratic regime principles and its alternatives

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine the claim that “most people in almost every country worldwide prefer democracy over other types of regimes” against new data, so as to add to the global map of popular perceptions about their support for various regime types. We describe measured changes in levels of public support in 49 countries over four waves of the World Values Survey on three levels: country specific, regional–continental, and global. We found that levels of support for democracy are high and stable across most parts of the world; however, support for various alternate (authoritarian) regime types is steadily increasing and could threaten the extent to which democratic values are entrenched, especially in younger democracies. We conclude with an overview of some of the factors that could plausibly shape such perceptions at the level of the general citizenry.