The geography of autocracy. Regime preferences along the rural-urban divide in 32 countries

Abstract

ABSTRACT There is growing concern about a political divide between urban and rural places. Against this background, we evaluate the geography of regime preferences regarding a key aspect of democratic support, e.g. attitudes towards democracy and its authoritarian alternatives. We would like to find out whether possible rural-urban differences are due to different socio-economic situations, differing values or to the degree of political discontent of urbanites and rural dwellers. Using recent European Values Survey data from 32 European countries and over 30,000 respondents from 2017 to 2020, we show that rural residents are more supportive of authoritarian regimes than urban dwellers are. Moreover, our path analyses indicate that socio-economic and cultural differences between urbanites and ruralites are particularly crucial, while the political mechanisms cannot explain the spatial divide of regime preferences.