IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/soinre/v121y2015i3p621-635.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Democracy-Assessment in Cross-National Surveys: A Critical Examination of How People Evaluate Their Regime

Author

Listed:
  • Gal Ariely

Abstract

Despite doubts regarding their validity and comparability, survey questions relating to the assessment of democracy remain a common feature of cross-national studies. This paper examines the way in which they are formulated in the World Values Survey 2005 by investigating their association with questions relating to a genuine understanding of democracy and the actual level of democracy in the countries surveyed. A multilevel analysis across 47 countries revealed that the level of democracy in a country is related to the relationship between a genuine understanding of democracy and democracy-assessment. While these relations are positive in democracies, they are insignificant in non-democratic countries. The implications of these findings for examining democratic attitudes across countries via the use of such survey questions are discussed. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Gal Ariely, 2015. "Democracy-Assessment in Cross-National Surveys: A Critical Examination of How People Evaluate Their Regime," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 121(3), pages 621-635, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:121:y:2015:i:3:p:621-635
    DOI: 10.1007/s11205-014-0666-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11205-014-0666-y
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11205-014-0666-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lipset, Seymour Martin, 1959. "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy1," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(1), pages 69-105, March.
    2. Gal Ariely & Eldad Davidov, 2011. "Can we Rate Public Support for Democracy in a Comparable Way? Cross-National Equivalence of Democratic Attitudes in the World Value Survey," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 104(2), pages 271-286, November.
    3. Kaufmann, Daniel & Kraay, Aart & Mastruzzi, Massimo, 2010. "The worldwide governance indicators : methodology and analytical issues," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5430, The World Bank.
    4. Wagner, Alexander F. & Schneider, Friedrich & Halla, Martin, 2009. "The quality of institutions and satisfaction with democracy in Western Europe -- A panel analysis," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 30-41, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nicholas T. Davis & Kirby Goidel & Yikai Zhao, 2021. "The Meanings of Democracy among Mass Publics," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 153(3), pages 849-921, February.
    2. Kai-Ping Huang, 2023. "Support for Democracy in the Age of Rising Inequality and Population Aging," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 166(1), pages 27-51, February.
    3. Irene Daskalopoulou, 2019. "Individual-Level Evidence on the Causal Relationship Between Social Trust and Institutional Trust," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 144(1), pages 275-298, July.
    4. Mario Quaranta, 2018. "The Meaning of Democracy to Citizens Across European Countries and the Factors Involved," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 136(3), pages 859-880, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mamdouh Abdulaziz Saleh Al-Faryan & Nikhil Chandra Shil, 2023. "Governance as an Interplay between Corruption and Polity: Conceptualizing from a National Perspective," Economies, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-18, February.
    2. Wagner, Alexander F. & Schneider, Friedrich, 2006. "Satisfaction with Democracy and the Environment in Western Europe: A Panel Analysis," IZA Discussion Papers 1929, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Heinz Welsch, 2022. "What Shapes Satisfaction with Democracy? Interests, Morals, and the German East–West Divide," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 163(1), pages 197-217, August.
    4. Lourdes ROJAS RUBIO, 2022. "Inequality, Corruption and Support for Democracy," THEMA Working Papers 2022-20, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    5. Ang, James B., 2013. "Institutions and the long-run impact of early development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 1-18.
    6. Glawe, Linda & Wagner, Helmut, 2022. "Is schooling the same as learning? – The impact of the learning-adjusted years of schooling on growth in a dynamic panel data framework," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    7. Gutmann, Jerg & Voigt, Stefan, 2018. "The rule of law: Measurement and deep roots," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 68-82.
    8. Ezcurra, Roberto & Zuazu, Izaskun, 2019. "Political equality and quality of government," MPRA Paper 96476, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Barbara Dluhosch & Daniel Horgos & Klaus W. Zimmermann, 2016. "EU enlargement and satisfaction with democracy: a peculiar case of immiserizing growth," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 27(3), pages 273-298, September.
    10. Alexandre, Fernando & Bação, Pedro & Veiga, Francisco José, 2022. "The political economy of productivity growth," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    11. Roberto Ezcurra & Izaskun Zuazu, 2022. "Political equality and quality of government," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(2), pages 269-293, May.
    12. repec:wsr:wpaper:y:2013:i:115 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Candau, Fabien & Gbandi, Tchapo, 2019. "Trade and institutions: explaining urban giants," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(6), pages 1017-1035, December.
    14. Kapeliushnikov, Rostislav & Kuznetsov, Andrei & Demina, Natalia & Kuznetsova, Olga, 2013. "Threats to security of property rights in a transition economy: An empirical perspective," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 245-264.
    15. Robert MacCulloch & Silvia Pezzini, 2010. "The Roles of Freedom, Growth, and Religion in the Taste for Revolution," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(2), pages 329-358, May.
    16. Rakesh Sambharya & Martina Musteen, 2014. "Institutional environment and entrepreneurship: An empirical study across countries," Journal of International Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 314-330, December.
    17. Kumar, Sanjesh & Singh, Baljeet, 2019. "Barriers to the international diffusion of technological innovations," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 74-86.
    18. Jian-Guang Shen, 2002. "Democracy and growth: An alternative empirical approach," Development and Comp Systems 0212002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Johannes W. Fedderke & John M. Luiz, 2005. "Does Human Generate Social and Institutional Capital? Exploring Evidence From Time Series Data in a Middle Income Country," Working Papers 029, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    20. Myint Moe Chit, 2018. "Political openness and the growth of small and medium enterprises: empirical evidence from transition economies," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 781-804, September.
    21. Haichao Fan & Xiang Gao, 2017. "Domestic Creditor Rights and External Private Debt," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(606), pages 2410-2440, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:121:y:2015:i:3:p:621-635. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.