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Citizens’ preferences for liberal democracy and its deformations: evidence from Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2022

Pascal D. König Open the ORCID record for Pascal D. König [Opens in a new window]
Pascal D. König*
Affiliation:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA and Department of Political Science, TU Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern, Germany
*
E-mail: pascalkoenig@fas.harvard.edu
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Abstract

This paper sheds light on the prevalence and the correlates of citizen support for liberal democracy and four of its deformations: a populist, a technocratic, a post-democratic, and a majoritarian-relativist conception of democracy. Using original survey data from a representative German online panel, the findings provide systematic evidence on the multifaceted nature of citizens’ democratic preferences. Only few citizens are, for instance, populist without also being liberal democrats, and many endorse two or more deformations of liberal democracy simultaneously. Yet, these forms of overlap are not arbitrary but conform to conceptually posited relative affinities between these deformations. The examined conceptions of democracy furthermore differ in their associations with political support, ideology, education, and political interest. In addition to offering novel empirical insights, the findings also highlight why some measures may underestimate the complexity of democratic preferences.

Keywords

conceptions of democracycitizenssurveypolitical attitudespolitical supportGermany
Type
Research Article
Information
European Political Science Review , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , August 2022 , pp. 367 - 385
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of European Consortium for Political Research

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