What citizens think about and expect of democracy

What is it about?

Citizens have different ideas about democracy. We explore these different understandings of democracy using survey data from Germany. We show that a person's personality and age are related to different understandings of democracy. Citizens also prefer different decision-making procedures, such as referenda, expert commissions or citizens forums depending on what ideas about democracy they have. Finally, attitudes that we label "populist majoritarianism" and "anti-pluralist skepticism" are associated with lower satisfaction with democracy and political trust.

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Why is it important?

At present, there is a lot of concern about the state and future of democracy. It seems that some groups are not only dissatisfied with specific policy decisions, but question the very rules of decision-making - the procedural consensus - that democracy rests upon. Our paper shows that citizens have very different understandings and expectations of democracy, some of which are associated with dissatisfaction and low trust in existing democratic institutions. These attitudes might make citizens susceptible to either political alienation or mobilization for anti-system parties.