Democracy-Assessment in Cross-National Surveys: A Critical Examination of How People Evaluate Their Regime

Despite doubts regarding their validity and comparability, survey questions relating to the assessment of democracy remain a common feature of cross-national studies. This paper examines the way in which they are formulated in the World Values Survey 2005 by investigating their association with questions relating to a genuine understanding of democracy and the actual level of democracy in the countries surveyed. A multilevel analysis across 47 countries revealed that the level of democracy in a country is related to the relationship between a genuine understanding of democracy and democracy-assessment. While these relations are positive in democracies, they are insignificant in non-democratic countries. The implications of these findings for examining democratic attitudes across countries via the use of such survey questions are discussed.