Judging democracy worldwide

This study adopts a multi-level analysis based upon 74 surveys for 56 countries from waves five and six of the WVS, conducted in 2005-7 and in 2010-3 to express feelings about the way democracy works in their country. There is no significant relationship between income inequality and satisfaction with democracy. However, the indvidual preference for more or less of income equality is highly significant. It is interesting to find that when the corruption perception index was included, the coefficient of economic development switches from insignificant positive to significant negative. The results also suggest the highly educated in the society are often less satisfied with the state of democracy compared to the lower educated. The quality of political representation is closely related to citizenry satisfaction with democracy. If citizenry believe that the current democratic regimes are fail to live up to the citizens’ expectations and ideals, they may turn away from democracy in frustration and disappointment. Thus, these results have important policy implications.