The meaning of democracy changes for Europeans depending on their education status, income and national context

Most Europeans value democracy, but do all citizens have the same conception of what democracy is? Pedro C. Magalhães and Besir Ceka assess variations in how Europeans conceive of democracy and analyse the various factors which underpin different interpretations.

Their findings indicate that there are a wide variety of conceptions of democracy across Europe. The key mechanism explaining this variation is that individuals in high education and high income groups tend to more readily support the kinds of democracy which represent the ‘status quo’ in their country than citizens from lower education/income groups.

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