Support for Democracy: Distinguishing Between Citizens and the Citizenry

While the theoretical relationship between citizens and democracy is a relatively intelligible one, it remains an empirically underexplored one where most observations and take-aways follow our assumptions. Most open to discussion in this regard is citizen support for democracy: While some scholars try to argue that democratic support is on the decline across most democracies, others portray democratic support as a systematically high and stable citizen feature in democracies. Are both right, or neither? And, do such observations extent to citizens in non-democracies? Most of our take-aways come from the traditional Churchillian question, but – while insightful – any insights from this question leave many other questions unanswered. Is it a reliable indicator? How do people conceive of democracy? What kind of democracy do they (not) favour? And, most importantly, how – if at all – does the understanding of democracy impact its overall support. In this chapter we have the ambition to carefully draw out what we know, both theoretically and empirically, as well as highlight several questions and pathways that remain unexplored so far. To do so, we make an important distinction between individual and aggregate support for democracy, arguing that fluctuations or even instability alongside the former are less worrisome than trends and changes alongside the latter dimension.