Conclusion

This final chapter provides a conclusion to the book. It summarizes the theoretical argument and core empirical findings of the book and points out how these contribute to the literature on regime support and its sources. Reviewing the implications of the study’s findings, it revisits the initial question of how stable the world’s democratic and autocratic regimes are likely to be. It also derives policy recommendations for those interested in fostering democratization and/or democratic consolidation. Finally, it suggests directions for future research wishing to build on the present work to take.

Levels and sources of regime support in democracies and autocracies

This chapter presents the results of the empirical analysis of levels and sources of citizen support for democratic and autocratic regimes. The analysis proceeds in three steps. First, it compares the levels of regime support in democracies and autocracies. It shows that levels of citizen support, while varying considerably across individual countries, are roughly equal between democratic and autocratic regimes. Second, the analysis investigates the individual-level sources of regime support. It finds evidence that the same set of individual-level sources affect regime support in democracies and autocracies and that they do so in virtually the same way across regimes. Third, it addresses the system-level sources of regime support in democracies and autocracies. Using multilevel structural equation modeling, it observes effects of three of the four system-level sources in both types of regimes; yet, these system-level sources do not affect regime support in the same way in democracies as in autocracies.

Sources of regime support in democracies and autocracies

This chapter develops an explanatory model of regime support applicable to both democracies and autocracies. The explanatory model includes both individual- and system-level determinants and explicates how these interact in shaping regime support. On the individual-level, it integrates culturalist and institutionalist explanations of support to arrive at five central sources of regime support: political value orientations, societal value orientations, incumbent support, democratic performance evaluations, and systemic performance evaluations. On the system level, it draws on social psychological theories of attitude formation and identifies four sources of regime support: macro-cultural context, macro-political context, actual systemic performance, and level of socioeconomic modernization. Recurring to the fundamental differences between democracies and autocracies, the explanatory model expects the individual-level processes forming regime support to be universal across regime types, but effects of system-level sources of regime support to vary between democracies and autocracies, due to indoctrination and propaganda distorting the attitude-formation process in autocracies.

Introduction

This introductory chapter develops three core research questions for the book: How widespread is citizen support for the respective regime in democracies and autocracies? What individual-level sources is regime support based upon in democracies and autocracies? What system-level sources affect regime support in democracies and autocracies? Pointing out the relevance of political support for regime stability, it argues that answering these questions can contribute to assessing the stability of both democracies and autocracies. Following a brief review of the literature, it outlines the theoretical model proposed in the book and gives an overview of the research strategy, case selection, data, and methods applied in the empirical analysis.

Conceptualizing political support in democracies and autocracies

This chapter conceptualizes political support in democratic and autocratic contexts. It first sets the basis for a comparison between democratic and autocratic contexts by defining both democracy and autocracy and outlining the fundamental differences between the two types of regimes, both in terms of institutional structures and functional logics. Taking into account how the different institutional structures and functional logics of democracies and autocracies affect the structure of political support, it distinguishes between three levels of political support: political value orientations, regime support, and incumbent support. Discussing their consequences for the stability of democratic and autocratic regimes, the chapter identifies regime support as the most consequential attitude for regime stability.

Data and methods

This chapter prepares the empirical analysis by approaching the key methodological issues associated with a global comparison of regime support and its individual- and system-level sources in democracies and autocracies. It presents the study’s case selection, regime classification, and research strategy. Drawing on survey data from six cross-national survey projects and macro data from various sources, it introduces the data employed in the empirical analysis. The chapter continues to describe the operationalization of the main variables and explicates how regime support can be measured in a comparable way across regime types as institutional confidence in government, parliament, police, and army. Finally, it discusses the validity of the data in light of the challenges associated with conducting survey research in autocracies.