Social origins of support for democracy: a study of intergenerational mobility

Abstract

Recent evidence suggests that popular disaffection with liberaldemocratic norms and institutions has been growing in different regions of the world, but studying the social origins of democratic versus authoritarian political preferences are especially relevant in countries with immature democratic practices. The main concern of this article is the association between intergenerational social mobility and support for democracy in post-socialist societies. I present a theoretical framework in which individuals' political attitudes are affected by their intergenerational social mobility experiences. I model this theoretical argument using two complementary data-sets and various multivariable and multilevel statistical techniques. The results indicate that intergenerational social mobility, particularly its subjective perception, has statistically significant links with attitudes towards democracy and that this association is moderated by the attained level of democracy in the country where an individual resides. This may suggest that studying social origins of support for democracy by means of intergenerational social mobility can be an important tool to understand the conundrum of democratisation and democratic backsliding in post-socialist societies.

What are the Trends and Explanations of Perceived Social Mobility in Poland?

“…Our interest in social mobility perceptions and their explanations is largely motivated by the potential impact of perceived social mobility on individuals' various life outcomes. In this study, we have only addressed the trends in, and explanations for social mobility, while future studies should investigate if perceived social mobility, beyond its health and wellbeing consequences (Gugushvili et al, 2022), also has implications for other areas of life, such as political and economic attitudes and behaviours (Gugushvili, 2016(Gugushvili, , 2020.…”

Intergenerational social mobility and the Brexit vote: How social origins and destinations divide Britain

“…There are two theoretical approaches to the intergenerational mobility effect. One approach in the literature sees a positive effect of upward mobility on individuals’ well‐being and preference for the status quo, and a corresponding negative effect of downward mobility (Gugushvili, 2020; Gugushvili et al., 2019). Indeed, the upwardly mobile may view their success as an indicator of the meritocratic nature of society, which may underpin their preference for the maintenance of the status quo.…”

Information About Inequality of Opportunity Increases Downward Mobility Perceptions: A Population-Wide Randomized Survey Experiment

“…Existing comparative research suggests that the effects of social mobility on health and wellbeing in post-communist countries are indeed more salient than in Western European societies ( Präg and Gugushvili, 2020 ; Kaiser and Trinh, 2021 ). The former countries have also experienced radical transformation of their political regimes, some becoming full-fledged democracies while others turned into oppressive authoritarian states ( Gugushvili, 2020 ). Recent research shows that in less democratic post-communist countries citizens acquire less information about inequality through state-controlled media channels and this practice has implications for population health ( Gugushvili and Reeves, 2021 ).…”