An incomplete recipe
One-dimensional latent variables do not capture the full flavor of democratic support
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7998322 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Yue Hu (0000-0002-2829-3971, Tsinghua University), Yuehong ‘cassandra’ Tai (0000-0001-7303-7443, Pennsylvania State University, corresponding author), Hyein Ko (0000-0002-9497-9656, University of Illinois System), Byung-Deuk Woo (0000-0001-6902-7576, Incheon National University), Frederick Solt (0000-0002-3154-6132, University of Iowa) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Publication date | 2025-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Research & Politics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2053-1680 • E-ISSN: 2053-1680 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/20531680251341857 |
| OpenAlex | W4410833508 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 33 |
Prominent recent works have measured democratic support using a single latent variable that purports to span a single dimension from steadfast opposition to whole-hearted support. This ignores ample evidence that support for democracy is complex and multidimensional. Here we provide a series of validation tests of the sort of cross-national time-series latent variable measures employed in recent research by reference to questions on support for liberal democracy and opposition to its erosion from multi-wave surveys conducted around the world. These tests show that, across countries and years, this latent variable is nearly orthogonal to measures of support for contestation and participation; civil liberties; institutional constraints on executive power; and prioritizing democracy over the economy, economic equality, or order. We conclude that support for democracy in any robust sense is simply not well captured by one-dimensional latent variable. Such measures are powerful but researchers must be mindful of their limitations
Democracy · Flavor · Latent variable · Political science · Politics · Recipe · Chemistry · Computer Science · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Populism, Right-Wing Movements · Psychology · Social Media and Politics · Artificial Intelligence · Food Science
Polyarchy
Support for Polyarchy in the Americas
Modeling Dynamic Comparative Public Opinion
Democracy Misunderstood
Cultural liberalism in Eastern and Western Europe
The essence of democratic backsliding in the European Union
Have Europeans Grown Tired of Democracy? New Evidence from Eighteen Consolidated Democracies, 1981–2018
Policy Ideology in European Mass Publics, 1981–2016
Revisiting the evidence on thermostatic response to democratic change
China’s Ideological Spectrum
Democratic Hypocrisy and Out-Group Threat
Humanity’s Attitudes about Democracy and Political Leaders
Should Researchers Abandon Questions about “Democracy
Estimating Smooth Country–Year Panels of Public Opinion
Modgirt
Dynamic Estimation of Latent Opinion Using a Hierarchical Group-Level IRT Model
Democrats with adjectives
Citizen support for democracy, anti‐pluralist parties in power and democratic backsliding
The autocratic bias
What Kind of Democracy Do We All Support? How Partisan Interest Impacts a Citizen’s Conceptualization of Democracy
Conceptualizing and Measuring Citizens’ Preferences for Democracy
Effective Government and Evaluations of Democracy
Does Public Support Help Democracy Survive
Public Gender Egalitarianism
Rationalizing Democracy
Measurement Validity
Democracy in America? Partisanship, Polarization, and the Robustness of Support for Democracy in the United States
Democracy, Public Support, and Measurement Uncertainty
In the Mood for Democracy? Democratic Support as Thermostatic Opinion
Policy Preferences and Policy Change
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 6 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |