Round 10 of the European Social Survey (2021-2022) included a rotating module on European’s understandings and evaluations of democracy, largely replicating a previous module applied in Round 6 (2012- 2013). At the time, Europe was going through one of deepest economic and financial crises on record. However, the results and their analysis showed that, in spite of very large variations in how Europeans evaluated the performance of their democracies, the way they conceived “democracy” pointed to a widespread support for liberal and electoral institutions, even if complemented with equally important demands for economic equality and, to a lesser extent, for opportunities for a direct say in policymaking through referendums and initiatives.
A lot has happened in the following decade, including a refugee crisis, referendums with unprecedented outcomes, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the war in Ukraine, accompanied by an underlying expansion of EU intervention in domestic politics. At the same time, radical right-wing parties have seen their electoral fortunes improve all over the continent, as the use of populist rhetoric deepened and increased. In countries such as Hungary and Poland, full fledged populist governance and a rule-of-law crisis has taken hold, with both domestic and Europe-wide consequences.
How have these developments affected Europeans’ views and evaluations of democracy? This session welcomes paper submissions addressing how views and evaluations of democracy in Europe can be mapped today and how they - and their underlying sources - have changed in this last decade, resorting to the rich and high-quality data of ESS’s Round 6 and 10. For Round 10, the original module was adapted to allow the measurement of conceptions and evaluations not only along the liberal democratic, direct democratic, and social democratic dimensions, but also along the dimension of populist democracy, a view that stresses vertical over horizontal accountability and a unrestrained responsiveness to a sovereign “people”. How has this enriched our knowledge about how Europeans understand “democracy” and evaluate the performance of their regimes?
We welcome papers both on the substantive topic - conceptions and evaluations of democracy in Europe, their causes and implications - and on the methodological challenges involved in assessing them.
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A parallel-run experiment: the impact of data collection mode on data
Ruxandra Comanaru, Rory Fitzgerald
City, University of London, United Kingdom
The Europeans’ Understandings and Evaluations of Democracy module was first fielded in the European Social Survey in 2012/13 before being selected as a repeat module for the 2020/21 round. In this presentation, we will first introduce the ESS, and then summarise the main design decisions that underpinned both the original and repeat module. We will then discuss the decision-making around which items to repeat and which to discard from the earlier module. Finally, we will discuss how the face-to-face ESS fieldwork was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic leading to delays in data collection. In addition to the delays, some ESS countries had to switch data collection from face-to-face (in-person and web interviews) to self-completion mode (web and paper self-completion) to remove or reduce face-to-face contact during the pandemic. Unlike Round 6, nine of the 31 countries used self-completion instead of face-to-face. The potential impact of this change on the analysis of the democracy module will be discussed, drawing on two parallel-run experiments conducted in Finland and Great Britain during fieldwork. We will compare the data collected using face-to-face methods with data collected via self-administered surveys. The results show that self-completion yielded significantly lower scores than face-to-face on the democracy scales, although the effect sizes were small. At the same time, we will show that the conceptual models worked similarly regardless of mode. The presentation will conclude that whilst ESS still provides robust comparative data, users should be aware of potential mode differences and the possible impact of disrupted fieldwork periods. Despite these issues, the ESS module provides one of the most in-depth, theoretically driven comparative pictures of Europeans’ Understandings and Evaluations of Democracy. The transparency that ESS provides for the quality of its data is a key asset of the infrastructure allowing users to conduct informed analysis and be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the data.
Assessing the dimensionality of regime support in cross-national and time comparing perspective
Pascal Kolkwitz-Anstötz1, Oliver Platt2, Aribert Heyder2, Peter Schmidt3
1GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Germany; 2Institute for Political Science, University of Marburg, Germany; 3Center for International Development and Environmental Research, University of Giessen, Germany
The ongoing discussion on “the crisis of democracy” is not a new one. It has been particularly revived and augmented because of widespread political, economic, and social changes and by the electoral success of right-wing parties as well as populists throughout the Western world. In recent years, democracy backsliding, distrust in democratic decision-making, and eroding satisfaction with the way democracy works has become evident not only during the corona pandemic, but especially in so-called “illiberal democracies”. Against this background, this year's elections in Europe and the United States are important touchstones that could have a major impact on democracy and its key institutions.
Given the extensive literature from the social sciences and the various empirical approaches, it quickly becomes apparent that not only the concepts associated with regime support, but also the terms itself and its use are by no means consistent. Moreover, the causes and consequences of (changing) notions of democracy as a form of rule are frequently investigated, but it often remains unclear whether certain indicators really measure the associated concepts (predictive and concurrent validity) or if the measurement models hold across countries or even within countries regarding different societal groups (e.g., at least configural and metric measurement invariance). Therefore, in terms of the conceptual diversity and multidimensionality, it is hardly surprising that the question of suitable measurement instruments traditionally occupies a central and by no means undisputed topic of discussion.
With the ESS 10, which replicates the democracy module first applied in ESS 6, an excellent opportunity is given to analyze different conceptions of regime support more profoundly across time and countries. In the module, a scale is included that taps different normative conceptions of democracy, that is, the liberal, social, direct, and populist model. Theoretically, it is assumed that these alternative models of democratic rule might be held by the governed, whereas they are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Instead, people might have individual views on certain democratic features and thus conceive or prioritize them rather differently which in turn has drawbacks on their regime preference and support. Regarding the two periods of fielding with a ten-year distance and rapidly changing conditions (economically, politically) as well as lasting demographic change, the issue of measurement equivalence as a precondition for substantive comparative analyses of regime support is increasingly relevant.
With our work we want to contribute to a better understanding of the concept of regime support by focusing on the comparability of the utilized measurements in the ESS 6/10. Consequently, we want to tackle the question how the notions of democracy can be mapped in European countries which is of utmost importance for evidence-based policies to understand and counteract anti-democratic developments. In doing so, we apply variable-centered approaches to asses construct validity and reliability (MGCFA, ESEM, Alignment), but also go beyond and additionally apply person-centered methods (LCA) as well as a combined approach (FFM) to investigate so far potentially undiscovered patterns.
Attitudes Toward Liberal Democracy in Poland: A Three-Wave Panel Study of Stability and Change
Ben Stanley
SWPS University, Poland
The October 2023 elections in Poland saw the populist-nativist Law and Justice (PiS) removed from power after eight years of controversial government characterised by substantial democratic backsliding. The victory of a broad pro-democratic coalition running the gamut from conservatives to socialists marks the potential beginning of the renewal of liberal democracy in Poland, but also carries with it significant risks. The new government faces the onerous task of repairing the damage visited upon Poland’s democratic institutions, in particular the judicial branch, but in conditions where the necessary haste may raise the risk of violating the very principles it aims to restore.
This paper investigates the stability and fluctuation of Polish citizens' attitudes towards liberal democracy through a three-wave panel survey aligned with the 2023 Polish elections. Incorporating several measures from ESS waves 6 and 10 along with other established measures of liberal-democratic attitudes, this study captures baseline attitudes towards key components of liberal democracy in May 2022, comparing them with attitudes immediately prior to the October elections, and then with attitudes six months after the election. These data make it possible to evaluate whether and how voters’ attitudes towards liberal democracy remain stable or shift following a change of government. Data collected for the first two waves suggest stability of attitudes, but, in line with recent research into “democratic hypocrisy” (Simonovits, McCoy and Littvay 2022), the third wave is expected to reveal greater tolerance of illiberal actions on the part of supporters of the new government. This shift towards greater tolerance for illiberalism is hypothesised to be more substantial among voters who have greater awareness of the changes the new government has implemented, and among those who evaluate these changes more positively. Conversely, supporters of PiS are more likely to show the opposite tendencies, becoming more intolerant of illiberalism in general, with awareness and negative evaluation of the government’s changes compounding their turn towards liberal-democratic values.
This anticipated divergence in attitudes underscores the complex challenges facing Poland's new government, which must navigate the fine line between necessary reforms and the preservation of liberal democratic principles. This study has implications for the broader discourse on democracy's vulnerability and vitality. The findings will contribute to understanding how shifts in political power affect public attitudes towards democracy, informing strategies for reinforcing democratic norms and institutions.
Cheap Talking Democrats? Unmasking the Sincerity of Survey Measures of Democratic Attitudes
Laurits F. Aarslew1, Pedro C. Magalhaes2
1Aarhus University, Denmark; 2University of Lisbon, Portugal
When survey respondents say that they support democracy and liberal-democratic institutions, do they genuinely hold such beliefs, or do they engage in ``cheap talk''? Democracy requires democratic citizens to function. Much research has, therefore, been devoted to understanding citizens' attitudes toward democracy. Disconcertingly, it has been suggested that while citizens say they support democracy, they might not firmly hold such beliefs. In this article, we report the results from three studies examining the extent of social desirability in surveys on democratic attitudes. First, we leverage exogenous variation in survey mode on ESS modules on democratic attitudes to estimate generalized difference-in-difference models in 24 countries. Second, we exploit a unique parallel run “quasi-experiment” in the United Kingdom and Finland, in which parallel sampling with different survey modes was performed. Finally, we fielded a double-list experiment in Portugal to estimate the prevalence of anti-democratic attitudes. We find little evidence that responses to questions about democracy are affected by social desirability pressures. Our findings have important implications for our understanding of democratic attitudes.
Democratic Ideals and Alternatives: Understanding Discontent with Democracy
Edward Freeland
Princeton University, United States of America
Disenchantment with democracy can arise from several sources that reflect very different priorities and values. As researchers ponder the significance of declining satisfaction with democracy (SWD), it is important to distinguish between dissatisfaction that stems from a weak commitment to democratic ideals paired with an openness to populism or non-democratic rule and dissatisfaction that stems from a strong commitment to democratic ideals paired with disappointment due to perceptions of corruption and democratic dysfunction. Conflation of these two types of dissatisfaction could lead us to overestimate the extent of democratic disenchantment and underestimate support for effective democratic reform. Using ESS data, this paper explores whether citizens who place themselves on the dismal side of SWD measures have very different reasons for being there. Using principal components analysis, we examine the extent of heterogeneity among those with low SWD scores to determine (1) the proportion of democratic idealists and (2) the attitudes, political behaviors and demographic characteristics that distinguish the democratic idealists from the pessimists.
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