Some scholars warn about democratic disaffection of young people potentially leading to processes of ‘democratic deconsolidation’. Conversely, others interpret young people's preference for non-conventional forms of participation as a manifestation of democratic renewal. We surveyed respondents from nine European countries and analysed differences in attitudes of opposition to democracy across age groups and how these preferences shape political mobilization. Our findings show that the youngest adult group is no less supportive of liberal democracy than older age groups. Second, although attitudes of opposition towards democracy decrease political mobilization, this association is independent of age. Thus, young people's critical views of democracy rarely translate into apathy for democracy. Finally, our results provide insights into intra-generational democratic attitude differences by showing how young people's individual attributes are likely to crystallize into different value configurations and patterns of democratic engagement over time but within specific contexts.

Democracy movements in authoritarian regimes usually fail and are repressed, but they may still affect attitudes and norms of participants and bystanders. We exploit several features of a student movement to test for enduring effects of social movements on democratic attitudes. College students were the core of the movement and had wide exposure to the ideas and activities of the movement, as well as the suppression of the movement. College-bound high school students had limited exposure to the movement and its activities. Time of college entry could in theory be manipulated and endogenous, so we also use birthdate as an exogenous instrument for enrollment year. Applying a fuzzy regression discontinuity, we test for the impact of exposure to the movement on long-term attitudes. We find significant attitudinal differences between those in college during the movement, and those who started college post-movement. These results are strongest for alumni of the four universities that were most connected to the movement.

Social prejudice constitutes an unwillingness to associate with individuals whose cultural or racial background differs from one's own group. Such prejudice is a particularly thorny problem in the context of democracy, which requires citizens to minimally respect such differences. In this paper, we assess the relationships between these attitudes and support for democratic institutions. Using World Values Survey data from 1995 to 2011, we find that prejudice toward cultural, ethnic, or racial “others” reduces the value that white Americans assign to democracy. We also find white Americans who exhibit these attitudes are more likely to dismiss the value of separation of powers and are more likely to support army rule. These findings imply that exclusionary rhetoric targeted toward non-white groups is accompanied by lower baseline support for democracy. We close with a discussion of how our analyses inform the study of Americans' attitudes toward democracy

Using the 2012 European Social Survey (ESS), this article provides the first comparative analysis of how conceptions of democracy differ between men and women in 29 countries, and how this relates to their overall satisfaction with and support for democracy. Women tend to consider less important those aspects of democracy that privilege male resources and power, such as representative institutions, political parties, and the media. Instead, women assign more importance to those aspects of democracy that are less prone to reproduce gender inequalities, such as those related to direct participation (i.e., referenda), public justification of government decisions, and the protection of social rights. These differences are small in size but are comparable to the effects of other individual-level characteristics such as income or education. Finally, gendered differences in conceptions of democracy are not associated with different levels of democratic support. Men and women are most supportive of democracy where they are able to develop differentiated views about which aspects of democracy are most important for them.