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RESEARCH PRODUCT
Where Democrats Disagree: Citizens’ Normative Conceptions of Democracy
Nils D. SteinerClaudia Landwehrsubject
021110 strategic defence & security studiesSociology and Political Sciencemedia_common.quotation_subject05 social sciences0211 other engineering and technologies02 engineering and technologyDemocracy0506 political sciencePolitical economyLawPolitical science050602 political science & public administrationNormativemedia_commondescription
While support for the essential norms of liberal electoral democracy is high in almost all developed democracies, there is arguably also a gap between democratic aspirations and democratic practice, leading to dissatisfaction among citizens. We argue that citizens may hold very different normative conceptions of democracy which are equally compatible with support for liberal democracy, but lead to different expectations where institutional design and democratic practice are concerned. Satisfaction with democracy may thus depend on congruence between such normative conceptions and institutionally entrenched norms. Drawing on survey data from Germany with a comprehensive item battery on attitudes towards democratic decision-making, we identify four distinct factors leading to disagreements over democratic decision-making. We explore how these are related to personality, styles of cognition and political attitudes, and show that different expectations arise from them, such that regime support is affected by the normative conception(s) of democratic decision-making individuals subscribe to.
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-09-25 | Political Studies |