Who Doesn’t Want Democracy? A Multilevel Analysis of Elite and Mass Attitudes

Abstract

Despite its global rise in popularity, a significant number of people still oppose democracy. The current study evaluates three competing theories of opposition to democracy -developmentalist, culturalist, and elitist -using a series of multi-level regression models that combine individualand country-level variables. Results of our statistical analyses suggest that: 1) country-level indicators of social, political, and economic development are not consistently related to individual support for democracy; 2) macro-cultural factors have mixed effects on individual support for democracy; and 3) individual income and education have strong effects on individual support for democracy, but this relationship is mediated by country-level economic development.Specifically, we find that high-income individuals in relatively underdeveloped countries are more likely to oppose democracy than high-income individuals in wealthier countries. These results suggest that economic, social, and political development do not necessarily go together.

Young People's Attitudes towards Democracy and Political Participation: Evidence from a Cross-European Study

“…Siding with Easton (1975), considering that ‘democracies’ are ‘indecisive’, ‘aren't good at maintaining order’ or are a type of regime in which ‘the economic system runs badly’ clearly transcends the evaluations of the incumbents, and are thus not a specific form of political support. As discussed earlier, our indicators tap into Brandon Gorman et al's (2018) interrelated considerations of opposition to democracy: empirically, the items about economic efficiency and decisiveness connect preference for democracy to economic and social evaluations (developmentalist considerations); the desirability of maintaining order and living in a democracy rather than in another system focuses on societal values (culturalist considerations); and equality of minorities refers to the acceptance/rejection of egalitarian elements in a democracy (elitist considerations). Moreover, as the level of correlation between the five items is moderate (0.17 < Pearson's r < 0.56, based on a polychoric correlation matrix), we carry out a Principal Component Analysis, which offers a solution where one single component has an Eigenvalue above the 1.00 threshold (Eigenvalue = 2.30), accounting for 46% of the total variation.…”

“…Second, developmentalist concerns connect attitudes towards system functioning to economic and/or social evaluations. Finally, elitist concerns focus on attitudes pertaining to core principles – for example equality among citizens (Gorman et al 2018).…”

“…Some authors have claimed that these aspects pertain to two separate dimensions, referring to a general assessment of democracy and to the outcomes of democratic governance (Ciftci 2010(Ciftci : 1449(Ciftci -1450. However, these three aspects of diffuse democratic support tap into three types of concerns traditionally understood as relevant to an opposition to democracy (see Gorman et al 2018). First, culturalist concerns link attitudes towards regime desirability to societal values.…”