Ellen Phiddian
Cosmos science journalist
The late Jack Karlson famously defined democracy – and a few other things – during his arrest in 1991. But how does everyone else define it?
In fact, citizens of very politically and culturally divergent countries still have a similar belief in the meaning of democracy, according to a new study.
The study, published in Science, finds that 6,150 people from 6 different countries firmly agree that free and fair elections, and civil liberties, are the most important parts of democracy.
The study is part of a special issue by the journal, warning against the current growth of anti-democratic attitudes and examining the factors that influence democracy.
“The concept of democracy is increasingly muddled in global conversations, especially in an era of democratic backsliding,” says study co-author Eddy Yeung, a PhD candidate at Emory University, USA.
“Our collaborative effort provides systematic evidence that conventional elements of democracy still play an important role in shaping ordinary citizens’ understandings of democracy.”
The researchers ran an online survey in Egypt, India, Italy, Japan, Thailand and the USA, collecting responses from at least 1,000 people in each country.
The countries, write the researchers, “span different political regime types, democratic histories, geographic regions, levels of development, and cultural backgrounds”.
Participants were told about 2 hypothetical countries with different political structures, and asked to rate how democratic each country was on a scale of 1-10.
They then repeated the exercise twice with 2 more pairs of hypothetical countries, resulting in 6 different ratings.
The imaginary country profiles had information on 9 different attributes linked to democracy – including electoral freedom, protection of civil liberties, economic and gender equality, citizens’ obedience to unpopular laws, and the influence of nonelected experts on democracy.
Free and fair elections, and protection of civil liberties like freedom of speech, were consistently seen as the most important aspects of democracy.
This was true in all countries, including those with authoritarian regimes.
“Countries such as China, Russia, and Egypt argue that they are just as, if not more, democratic than Western democracies, and justify these claims by pointing to features of their governance that we incorporate into our design,” write the researchers.
But the researchers found “little evidence that an ‘authoritarian’ redefinition of democracy has taken root” among citizens.
“This result suggests that attempts to redefine democracy’s core elements have been unsuccessful, even within authoritarian countries such as Egypt or Thailand,” write the researchers.
After elections and civil liberties, economic and gender equality were viewed as the next most important facets of democracy.
