Not my democracy: conceptions, discontent, and participation in Europe

Abstract

Citizens differ not only in how strongly they support democracy, but also in what they expect democracy to be. Yet we know less about whether these democratic expectations shape satisfaction with democracy (SwD) and, through it, political participation (PP) in established European democracies. We first develop a mechanism linking citizens’ prioritized understandings of democracy (UoD) to SwD and unconventional political participation (UPP). Satisfaction with democracy is treated as an indicator of perceived congruence between citizens’ democratic ideals and how democracy works in practice. Second, we test this mechanism systematically in Europe using ESS Round 10 data, including almost 60,000 respondents in 31 countries. We find that (a) citizens’ conceptions of democracy affect SwD and (b) that SwD is a mediator for the impact UoD have on UPP.