QoG lunch seminar with Pedro Magalhães

Authors:

Besir Ceka (Davidson College) & Pedro C. Magalhães (ICS-ULisbon)

Abstract:

In Europe, behind citizens’ overwhelming adherence to “democracy” when asked about regime preferences in surveys, lurk subtle — and sometimes not so subtle — variations in what they think such “democracy” should be. Using data from rounds 6 (2012) and 10 (2022) of the European Social Survey, this chapter examines the extent to which voters espouse four different views of democracy: liberal-democratic, emphasising free elections and limits to majority rule; direct-democratic, emphasising the participation of the citizenry in political decision-making through referendums and initiatives;  social-democratic, stressing, as intrinsic and desirable features of “democracy,” the reduction of poverty and economic redistribution; and populist-democratic, in which “ordinary people” — rather than “political elites” — are seen as the ultimate and unrestricted source of political authority. We suggest and test the hypothesis that people’s views about democracy reflect their more or less privileged position in vertically stratified societies, in which conflicting interests around the preservation of the political status quo are converted in the endorsement of different democratic conceptions. More specifically, we show that, in Europe, the upper-middle class of managers, professionals, large employers, and high-expertise technical professionals is the one that most emphasises a liberal-democratic conception of “democracy,” in detriment of views that differ from it and partially challenge it. In contrast, other social classes display a more multifaceted understanding of “democracy”, where the liberal-democratic core is less prevalent. Furthermore, we show that contextual variables, including the extent to which the political status quo fulfils the liberal-democratic or direct-democratic ideals, play a relevant role in moderating the relationship between class positions and democratic conceptions.