Democratic mismatch: How the relationship between understandings and evaluations of democracy shapes political behavior

The crisis of representative democracy is often associated with citizens’ declining satisfaction with democracy, dwindling rates of electoral turnout, and the growing success of populist, often times anti-system, parties. While previous research considers these developments particularly rooted in a lack of political representation and radical policy positions, citizens’ diffuse attitudes towards the political system often remain unconsidered as a potential cause. In this article, we argue that a mismatch between citizens’ understandings of democracy and their evaluation of these characteristics not only affects their satisfaction with democracy, but also has tangible consequences for political behavior. Specifically, we expect that citizens who want politics to work according to populist principles and perceive their political system to fail to live up to these standards are more likely to abstain from voting or vote for populist anti-system parties. Citizens who favor liberal conceptions of democracy and perceive their country to match this ideal, in contrast, are likely to vote for moderate mainstream parties. Furthermore, we assume that these effects are shaped by individual policy preferences as well as a country's government composition and level of democracy. To explore these assumptions, we utilize data from Round 10 of the European Social Survey and combine it with information on national context conditions. Our findings provide new insights into the causes and consequences of citizens’ political alienation and offer new lessons on how to better understand, and potentially combat, the democratic crisis in Europe.