Democracy and AI Acceptance: Cross-Country Evidence

Hubert János Kiss () and Alfonso Rosa-García ()
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Hubert János Kiss: ELTE Centre for Economic and Regional Studies; Corvinus University of Budapest
Alfonso Rosa-García: Universidad de Murcia

No 2515, KRTK-KTI WORKING PAPERS from Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies

Abstract: We study whether political regime type is associated with public attitudes toward artificial intelligence (AI). Using nationally representative surveys from 47 countries (2024–2025) and the EIU Democracy Index as our primary measure of regime quality, we relate democracy to three outcomes: AI acceptance, perceived trustworthiness and trust in AI. We find a negative association between democracy and all three outcomes that attenuates yet persists after adding country-level sociodemographics and AI literacy. Results are robust to alternative regime measures and to replacing contemporaneous democracy with lagged democracy measured prior to the AI boom. They also hold when accounting for cultural differences using an individualism–collectivism index. Finally, we show that democracy partly accounts for the AI acceptance premium recently documented in emerging countries.

Keywords: AI acceptance; AI literacy; Cross-country survey; Democracy; Political regime; Trust in AI; Trustworthiness of AI (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 D83 O33 P50 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-09
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