Democratic Assessment Colored by Understandings of Democracy
This chapter examines the attitudinal consequences of popular understandings of democracy. In particular, we focus on the influence of this critical mass opinion on how citizens assess democratic practices in both foreign countries and their own societies. Mixed-effect regressions confirm that, ceteris paribus, people who have embraced the procedural understanding of democracy by prioritizing its institutions and procedures in protecting basic rights and liberty are more critical of China’s democratic practice but more favorable to that in the United States. Similar mixed-effect regressions reveal that, again, people’s different understandings of democracy significantly shape how they assess their own societies’ democratic practices. On average, people who prioritize the intrinsic values of democracy are less satisfied with their regime’s democratic practices and more critical in assessing their regimes’ democratic nature. Furthermore, even a full democracy still needs to deliver to win over people’s hearts and minds, thereby fostering its popular support.