engleski

Political sophistication, trust, and satisfaction with the political system as determinants of support for democracy and autocracy

Understanding the determinants of support for political systems seems crucial to understanding the stability of specific political regimes. Political context plays an important role in the meaning of political dissatisfaction and support for democratic or autocratic political systems. Earlier studies have demonstrated that in the context of "old " (Western) democracies, political dissatisfaction and critical citizens represent a relevant resource for democracy. Alternatively, citizens supporting democracy in "new "democracies (or postcommunist countries) also express favorable attitudes towards autocratic regimes. As the simultaneous support for autocracy and democracy seems contradictory, it is relevant to explore determinants of citizens' understanding of democratic and anti-democratic orientations. In this study, we focused on studying the role of political sophistication and attitudes on the political system in the prediction of support for democracy and autocracy on a youth sample from different European contexts. Therefore, next to testing the associations between political sophistication (political knowledge, personal interest in politics), satisfaction with democracy, and trust in executive and political institutions as predictors and support for democracy and autocracy as criteria, we also assessed whether the contribution of these factors varies across countries grouped as Former USSR countries, Central and Eastern European countries, Mediterranean countries, Western European countries, and Scandinavian countries. We used the survey data from the EU-funded MyPlace project, collected in 2012/2013 on youth samples from 14 European countries (total N = 16, 935). The analyses were conducted with age, gender, and socioeconomic status as control variables to increase the robustness of the findings. Altogether, our findings confirmed the role of political sophistication, trust, and satisfaction with democracy in predicting support for democracy and autocracy. However, the predictive contribution of these factors varied substantially across country groups, highlighting the relevance of contextual factors in determining citizens' understanding of political systems.

support for democracy, support for autocracy, satisfaction with democracy, political trust, youth, post-communism, old democracies, MyPLACE

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