Where Democrats Disagree: Citizens’ Normative Conceptions of Democracy

Abstract

While support for the essential norms of liberal electoral democracy is high in almost all developed democracies, there is arguably also a gap between democratic aspirations and democratic practice, leading to dissatisfaction among citizens. We argue that citizens may hold very different normative conceptions of democracy which are equally compatible with support for liberal democracy, but lead to different expectations where institutional design and democratic practice are concerned. Satisfaction with democracy may thus depend on congruence between such normative conceptions and institutionally entrenched norms. Drawing on survey data from Germany with a comprehensive item battery on attitudes towards democratic decision-making, we identify four distinct factors leading to disagreements over democratic decision-making. We explore how these are related to personality, styles of cognition and political attitudes, and show that different expectations arise from them, such that regime support is affected by the normative conception(s) of democratic decision-making individuals subscribe to.