What actually makes a good citizen? Analyzing citizenship beliefs using a conjoint experiment

Liberal democracies are under pressure around the globe. They are challenged by populist and authoritarian actors, increasing polarization and the violation of democratic norms. To ensure stability and the survival of liberal democracies, citizens’ support of democratic principles and norms is crucial. Against this backdrop, this paper focuses on citizenship beliefs, their conceptualization and measurement. Taking Dalton’s work on norms of good citizenship as a starting point, I propose a new way to measure beliefs about good citizenship using a conjoint experiment. This measure is supposed to be superior to existing survey measures because it allows to disentangle the relative importance of single beliefs and promises new insights in the distribution of beliefs across various social groups. Thus, we can more accurately study what kind of norms of good citizenship exist in a society and within its segments. The paper draws on original survey data that was collected in May 2021 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Within this survey, a newly developed conjoint experiment, which was preregistered before, has been fielded. I will analyze the three country samples in comparison and I will explore heterogenous effects across political and socio-demographic groups (such as ideological groups and age groups).