An incomplete recipe: One-dimensional latent variables do not capture the full flavor of democratic support
Prominent recent works have measured democratic support using a single latent variable that purports to span a single dimension from steadfast opposition to whole-hearted support. This ignores ample evidence that support for democracy is complex and multidimensional. Here we provide a series of vali...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
SAGE Publishing
2025-06-01
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| Series: | Research & Politics |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1177/20531680251341857 |
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| Summary: | Prominent recent works have measured democratic support using a single latent variable that purports to span a single dimension from steadfast opposition to whole-hearted support. This ignores ample evidence that support for democracy is complex and multidimensional. Here we provide a series of validation tests of the sort of cross-national time-series latent variable measures employed in recent research by reference to questions on support for liberal democracy and opposition to its erosion from multi-wave surveys conducted around the world. These tests show that, across countries and years, this latent variable is nearly orthogonal to measures of support for contestation and participation; civil liberties; institutional constraints on executive power; and prioritizing democracy over the economy, economic equality, or order. We conclude that support for democracy in any robust sense is simply not well captured by one-dimensional latent variable. Such measures are powerful but researchers must be mindful of their limitations. |
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| ISSN: | 2053-1680 |