Abstract
What do citizens think democracy is and what factors contribute to its meaning? Previous works on the public understanding of democracy have shown that, overall, citizens see democracy in “minimal” terms. However, advanced democracies are complex and encompass several elements other than elections and freedoms. This article uses the European Social Survey module “Europeans’ understandings and evaluations of democracy” and multilevel item response theory models to build a measure of the meaning of democracy in terms of multiple attributes and to account for individual- and country-level variation. The findings show that the meaning of democracy can be seen as a continuum, and that middle-aged educated men who are interested in politics, have extreme ideological positions, and are engaged in civic organizations include more elements in their idea of democracy, and that the cross-country variation in the meaning of democracy mostly depends on democratic performance.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
See Goertz (2006) regarding the contrast between “extension” and “intension” of concepts.
Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Slovenia, Slovakia and Switzerland. Albania, Kosovo, Russia, and Ukraine were excluded as non-democracies (Freedom House 2015). Ideas of democracy in consolidating or in non-democratic regimes may depend on a “logic of learning”, deriving from experience with actual democracy (Dalton et al. 2007). Israel was excluded as a non-European country, while Cyprus and Iceland, as small democracies.
The tenth attribute included in the conceptualization—satisfaction with democracy—is not considered, as it is not a component of democracy, but rather an evaluation.
The ESS includes an item measuring “responsiveness to the citizens” (see Morlino and Quaranta 2014 on responsiveness), which however presents a high number of missing values as it is preceded by a filter question.
The ESS includes an item measuring “freedom of expression”. As for the case of responsiveness, this item is introduced by a filter question, which leads to a high number of missing values.
See the next section on dimensionality.
On this point, see also Quaranta (2013).
An alternative strategy would be changing the threshold for such dichotomization, with the consequence of not being able to identify necessary attributes of democracy. However, it has been shown that changing the threshold does not improve the scale, indicating that under-reporting due to the potential avoidance of extreme responses seems not to be a problem (Kriesi et al. 2016).
Others find as well that the meaning of democracy is unidimensional (see Ariely 2015).
Respondents between 18 and 80 years old are selected.
Inflation is measured as the year-on-year percentages change in average consumer prices; unemployment is measured as the number of unemployed persons as a percentage of the labour force; deficit/surplus is measured as government revenue minus total expenditure as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product; growth is measured as the annual percentage growth rate of GDP. See Khramov and Lee (2013) for further details. Data come from the International Monetary Fund (2014) and the European Commission (2013).
All variables are measured in 2010.
The following model could also be estimated as linear (Clinton and Jackman 2009).
The discrimination parameter \(\beta _{j1}\) is constrained to be positive (Fox 2010).
The “direct” aspect of democracy, referendums, is not assigned to any testlet.
For an introduction see Jackman (2009).
The testlets are assumed to be independent (Fox 2010).
The hyperparameter \(\sigma _{\xi }\) would be redundant if no hierarchical information were included in the model, as it would be fixed at 1 (see Clinton and Jackman 2009).
The model is unidentified. To identify it \(\xi _{ik}\) is normalized so that \(\xi _{ik}^{*} = (\xi _{ik} - c)/m\), where \(c = \bar{\xi }_{ik}\) and \(m = sd(\xi _{ik})\). This normalization has consequences for the parameters \(\beta _{j1}\) and \(\beta _{j2}\), which are transformed as follows: \(\beta _{j1}^{*} = \beta _{j1}m\); \(\beta _{j2}^{*} = \beta _{j2} - \beta _{j1}c\). The term \(\sigma _{\xi }\) is transformed into \(\sigma _{\xi }^{*} = \sigma _{\xi }/m\) and the term \(\sigma _{\eta }\) is transformed into \(\sigma _{\eta }^{*} = \sigma _{\eta }/m\). The individual- and country-level coefficients have to be transformed as well. The intercept \(\gamma\) is transformed into \(\gamma ^{*} = (\gamma - c)/m\); the individual-level coefficients become \({\varGamma }^{*} = {\varGamma }/m\); the country random-effects become \(\eta _{k}^{*} = \eta _{k}/m\); and the country-level coefficients become \(Z_{k}^{*} = Z_{k}/m\). These transformations are possible as they do not change the likelihood, given that \(\beta _{j1}\xi _i - \beta _{j2} = \beta _{j1}^{*}\xi _{ik}^{*} - \beta _{j2}^{*}\). On model identification see Bafumiet al. (2005) and Clinton and Jackman (2009).
The models are estimated using JAGS (Plummer 2012). Standard diagnostics are used to assess the convergence of the chain. One chain is run, preferring the strategy of “one long chain” over “shorter multiple chains”, as convergence issues are often a matter of inefficiency rather than of number of chains (Jackman 2009, 255–256). The chain is run for 50000 iterations with a burn-in period of 10000 and a thinning of 5, yielding 10000 MCMC draws. Blocking is used.
The numerical values are reported in the Appendix.
The intraclass correlation coefficient is 0.120 (95 % c.i. 0.067; 0.206).
Expected values are computed at the means of the covariates.
References
Almond, G. A., & Verba, S. (1963). The civic culture. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Altman, D., & Perez-Linan, A. (2002). Assessing the quality of democracy: Freedom, competitiveness and participation in eighteen Latin American countries. Democratization, 9(2), 85–100.
Ariely, G. (2015). Democracy-Assessment in Cross-National Surveys: A Critical Examination of How People Evaluate Their Regime. Social Indicators Research, 121(3), 621–635.
Ariely, G., & Davidov, E. (2011). Can we rate public support for democracy in a comparable way? Cross-National equivalence of democratic attitudes in the World Value Survey. Social Indicators Research, 104(2), 271–286.
Bacci, S., & Gnaldi, M. (2015). A Classification of University courses based on students’ satisfaction: An application of a two-level mixture item response model. Quality & Quantity, 49(3), 927–940.
Bafumi, J., Gelman, A., Park, D. K., & Kaplan, N. (2005). Practical issues in implementing and understanding Bayesian ideal point estimation. Political Analysis, 13(2), 171–187.
Bartolucci, F., Bacci, S., & Gnaldi, M. (2016). Statistical analysis of questionnaires: A unified approach based on R and Stata. Boca Raton: Chapman & Hall/CRC.
Beetham, D., Carvalho, E., Landman, T., & Weir, S. (2008). Assessing the quality of democracy: A practical guide. Stockholm: IDEA.
Birnbaum, A. (1968). Some latent Trait models and their use in inferring an examinee,Äôs ability. In F. M. Lord & M. R. Novick (Eds.), Statistical theories of mental test scores (pp. 397–479). Reading, Boston: Addison-Wesley.
Bradlow, E. T., Wainer, H., & Wang, X. (1999). A Bayesian random effects model for testlets. Psychometrika, 64(2), 153–168.
Bratton, M., & Mattes, R. (2001). Support for democracy in Africa: Intrinsic or instrumental. British Journal of Political Science, 31(3), 447–474.
Bratton, M., Mattes, R., & Gyimah-Boadi, E. (2005). Public opinion, democracy, and market reform in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bühlmann, M., Merkel, W., Müller, L., & Wessels, B. (2012). The democracy barometer: A new instrument to measure the quality of democracy and Its potential for comparative research. European Political Science, 11, 519–536.
Canache, D. (2012a). Citizens’ conceptualizations of democracy: Structural complexity, substantive content, and political significance. Comparative Political Studies, 45(9), 1132–1158.
Canache, D. (2012b). The meanings of democracy in venezuela: Citizen perceptions and structural change. Latin American Politics and Society, 54(3), 95–122.
Carlin, R. E., & Singer, M. M. (2011). Support for polyarchy in the Americas. Comparative Political Studies, 44(11), 1500–1526.
Ceka, B., & Magalhães, P. C. (2016). How people understand democracy: A social dominance approach. In H.-P. Kriesi & M. Ferrin (Eds.), How Europeans view and evaluate democracy (pp. 90–110). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cho, Y. (2015). How well are global citizenries informed about democracy? Ascertaining the breadth and distribution of their democratic enlightenment and its sources. Political Studies, 63, 240–258.
Chu, Y.-H., Diamond, L., Nathan, A. J., & Shin, D. (Eds.). (2008). How East Asians view democracy. New York: Columbia University Press.
Clarke, H. D., Dutt, N., & Kornberg, A. (1993). The political economy of attitudes toward polity and society in democracies European Western. Journal of Politics, 55(4), 998–1021.
Clinton, J., & Jackman, S. (2009). To Simulate or NOMINATE? Legislative Studies Quarterly XXXIV, 4, 593–621.
Clinton, J., Jackman, S., & Rivers, D. (2004). The statistical analysis of roll call data. American Political Science Review, 98(2), 355–370.
Dalton, R. J. (2008). Citizen politics: Public opinion and political parties in advanced industrial democracies. Chatam: Chatam House.
Dalton, R. J., Shin, D., & Jou, W. (2007). Understanding democracy: Data from unlikely places. Journal of Democracy, 18(4), 142–156.
De Boek, P., & Wilson, M. (Eds.). (2004). Explatory item response models. A generalized linear and nonlinear approach. New York: Springer.
Delli Carpini, M. X., & Keeter, S. (1996). What Americans know about politics and why it matters. New Haven: Yale University Press.
European Commission. (2013). Annual Macro-Economic Database (AMECO). Bruxelles: European Commission.
European Social Survey. (2013). Round 6 module on Europeans’ understandings and evaluations of democracy - final module in template. London: Centre for Comparative Social Surveys, City University London.
Ferrin, M., Fraile, M., & Rubal, M. (2015). Young and Gapped? Political knowledge of girls and boys in Europe. Political Research Quarterly, 68(1), 63–76.
Ferrin, M., & Kriesi, H. (Eds.). (2016). How Europeans view and evaluate democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fox, J.-P. (2010). Bayesian item response modeling: Theory and applications. New York: Springer.
Fox, J.-P., & Glas, C. A. W. (2001). Bayesian estimation of a multilevel IRT model using Gibbs sampling. Psychometrika, 66(2), 271–288.
Freedom House (2015). Freedom in the world. Available at: http://www.freedomhouse.org/.
Fuchs, D. (1999). The democratic culture of Unifed Germany. In P. Norris (Ed.), Critical citizens: Global support for democratic Government (pp. 123–145). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gallie, W. B. (1956). Essentially contested concepts. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 51, 167–198.
Gelman, A., & Hill, J. (2006). Data analysis using regression and multilevel/hierarchical models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Goertz, G. (2006). Social science concepts: A user’s guide. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Hernandez, E. (2016). Europeans’ views of democracy: The core elements of democracy. In M. Ferrin & H. Kriesi (Eds.), How europeans view and evaluate democracy (pp. 43–63). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
International Monetary Fund. (2014). World economic outlook. Washington: International Monetary Fund.
Jackman, S. (2000). Estimation and inference are missing data problems: Unifying social science statistics via Bayesian simulation. Political Analysis, 8(4), 307–332.
Jackman, S. (2009). Bayesian analysis for the social sciences. Chichester: Wiley.
Jamal, A., & Tessler, M. (2008). Attitudes in the Arab world. Journal of Democracy, 19(1), 97–110.
Kamata, A. (2001). Item analysis by the hierarchical generalized linear model. Journal of Educational Measurement, 38(1), 79–93.
Kaufmann, D., Kraay, A., & Mastruzzi, M. (2009). Governance matters VIII: Aggregate and individual governance indicators for 1996–2008. World Bank Policy Reseach Paper, 4978, 1–105.
Khramov, V. & Lee, J.R. (2013). The Economic Performance Index (EPI): An Intuitive Indicator for Assessing a Country’s Economic Performance Dynamics in an Historical Perspective. IMF Working Paper WP/13/2014, 1–60.
Kornberg, A., & Clarke, H. D. (1994). Beliefs about democracy and satisfaction with democratic government: The Canadian case. Political Research Quarterly, 47(3), 537–563.
Kriesi, H., Saris, W., & Moncagatta, P. (2016). The structure of Europeans, Äô views of democracy: Citizens, Äô models of democracy. In M. Ferrin & H. Kriesi (Eds.), How Europeans view and evaluate democracy (pp. 64–89). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kriesi, H.-P., Lavenex, S., Esser, F., Bühlmann, M., & Bochsler, D. (2013). Democracy in the age of globalization and mediatization. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Lagos, M. (2008). Latin America’s diversity of views. Journal of Democracy, 19(1), 111–125.
Levine, D., & Molina, J. (2011). The quality of democracy in Latin America. Boulder: Lynne Rienner.
Lijphart, A. (1999). Patterns of democracy: Government forms and performance in Thirty-Six countries. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Luskin, R. (1990). Explaining political sophistication. Political Behavior, 12(4), 331–361.
Magalhães, P. C. (2014). Government effectiveness and support for democracy. European Journal of Political Research, 53(1), 77–97.
Mair, P. (2007). Left-Right orientations. In R. J. Dalton & H.-D. Klingemann (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of political behavior (pp. 207–222). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Marshall, M. G., Gurr, T. R., & Jaggers, K. (2014). Polity IV project, political regime characteristics and transitions, 1800–2014. Vienna: Center for Systemic Peace.
Martin, A. D., & Quinn, K. M. (2002). Dynamic ideal point estimation via Markov chain Monte Carlo for the U.S. Supreme Court, 1953–1999. Political Analysis, 10(2), 134–153.
Miller, A. H., Hesli, V. L., & Reisinger, W. M. (1997). Conceptions of democracy among mass and elite in Post-Soviet societies. British Journal of Political Science, 27(2), 157–190.
Morlino, L. (2009). Legitimacy and the quality of democracy. International Social Science Journal, 60(196), 211–222.
Morlino, L. (2011). Changes for democracy: Actors, structures, processes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Morlino, L., & Quaranta, M. (2014). The Non-procedural determinants of responsiveness. West European Politics, 37(2), 331–360.
Munck, G. L. (2016). What is democracy? A reconceptualization of the quality of democracy. Democratization, 23(1), 1–26.
Plummer, M. (2012). JAGS: Just another Gibbs sampler. Version 3.2.0. Available at: http://mcmc-jags.sourceforge.net/.
Przeworski, A. (1999). Minimalist conception of democracy: A defense. In I. Shapiro & C. Hacker-Cordon (Eds.), Democracy’s value (pp. 23–55). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Quaranta, M. (2013). Fuzzy set theory and concepts: A proposal for concept formation and operationalization. Comparative Sociology, 12(6), 785–820.
Roberts, A. (2010). The quality of democracy in Eastern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rose, R., Mishler, W., & Haerpfer, C. (1998). Democracy and its alternatives: Understanding post-communist societies. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Rose, R., & Shin, D. (2001). Democratization backwards: The problem of third-wave democracies. British Journal of Political Science, 31(2), 331–354.
Schedler, A., & Sarsfield, R. (2007). Democrats with adjectives: Linking direct and indirect measures of democratic support. European Journal of Political Research, 46(5), 637–659.
Shin, D. (2007). Democratization: Perspectives from global citizenries. In R. J. Dalton & H.-D. Klingemann (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of political behavior (pp. 259–282). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stegmueller, D. (2013). How many countries do you need for multilevel modeling? A comparison of frequentist and Bayesian approaches. American Journal of Political Science, 57(3), 748–761.
Thomassen, J. J. A. (1995). Support for democratic values. In H.-D. Klingemann & D. Fuchs (Eds.), Citizens and the state (pp. 383–416). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Treier, S., & Jackman, S. (2008). Democracy as a latent variable. American Journal of Political Science, 52(1), 201–217.
van der Linden, W. J., & Hambleton, R. K. (Eds.). (1997). Handbook of modern item response theory. New York: Springer.
Van der Meer, T. W. G., & Van Ingen, E. J. (2009). Schools of democracy? Disentangling the relationship between civic participation and political action in 17 European democracies. European Journal of Political Research, 48(2), 281–308.
Verba, S., Burns, N., & Schlozman, K. L. (1997). Knowing and caring about politics: Gender and political engagement. Journal of Politics, 59(4), 1051–1072.
Vermunt, J. K. (2003). Multilevel latent class models. Sociological Methodology, 33(1), 927–940.
Zukin, C., Keeter, S., Andolina, M., Jenkins, K., & Delli Carpini, M. X. (2006). A new engagement? Political participation, civic life, and the changing American citizen. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Quaranta, M. The Meaning of Democracy to Citizens Across European Countries and the Factors Involved. Soc Indic Res 136, 859–880 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-016-1427-x
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-016-1427-x