'This is not a democracy': Societal characteristics and citizens' assessments of democratic quality

Amidst a contemporary global wave of democratic backsliding, citizens in many countries continue to support and vote for political leaders and parties that undermine democracy (e.g., Maerz 2020). This could indicate that many citizens are less committed to democracy than what has been commonly assumed. Recent studies suggest that citizen's are willing to accept violations of democracy in exchange for some other desired political outcome, such as partisan interests, salient political issues or political competence (Graham 2020, Carey 2020, Frederiksen 2022). Yet, others suggest that citizens support tolerate non-democratic behavior not because they do not care (enough) about democracy, but because they consider attacks on democracy as being inherently democratic (Grossman 2022, Krishnarajan 2022). For instance, it has been suggested that those who support strong-men such as Donald Trump hold a ``majoritarian view of democracy``, according to which attacks on institutions such as executive constraints and rule of law are not considered undemocratic if carried out by popularly elected leaders (Grossman 2022). Hence, rather than citizens being openly opposed to democracy, they may consider ongoing practices in their countries as being democratic in nature. These insights speak to the need to gain a better understanding of what citizens perceive as democratic and what factors shape citizens assessments of democratic quality. We shed light on these questions, by offering a systematic study of how various societal characteristics influence citizens' views on the state of democracy. While previous work on citizens' commitments to democracy have studied the (non-democratic) behavior and statements of hypothetical political leaders or candidates for office, we shift the focus to studying democracy as one trait at the country/societal level. This allows us to study how citizens assessments of democratic quality is shaped by a more complex, comprehensive assessment of various aspects of society, such as political factors, economic security, crime or cultural aspects such as diversity and gender equality.