Does Demography Determine Democratic Attitudes?

Rainer Kotschy and Uwe Sunde

No 338, Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series from CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition

Abstract: This paper presents new evidence on how demography affects democratic attitudes in Western democracies. Using individual survey responses, the empirical analysis disentangles age from cohort patterns and other contemporaneous economic and political influences that shape democratic attitudes. The results reveal that support for democracy increases with age and is lower for more recent birth cohorts. These patterns are more pronounced in Western democracies than in the former Eastern bloc and in other countries around the world. Additional findings document that demography's effect partly captures heterogeneity in experiences with democracy, and that socioeconomic factors impact democratic attitudes.

Keywords: support for democracy; age-periods-cohort models; population aging; demographic composition; stability of democracy; modernization hypothesis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 O17 O43 P48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-09-13
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Working Paper: Does Demography Determine Democratic Attitudes? (2022)
Working Paper: Does Demography Determine Democratic Attitudes? (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rco:dpaper:338

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