There is no clear consensus whether attitudes supportive of democarcy and democratic citizenship constitute a single attitudinal domain, or are empirically distinct from each other.In empirical studies os attitudes and behavior in Bulgaria, Chile, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Italy, Spain and Uruguay, we find clear evidence that such attitudes ares both conceptually and empirically distinct, forming three different attitudinal performance of democracy, and political disaffection.These threee clusters have distinctly different behavioral correlates: disatisfaction leads to votes against the incumbent party; a lack of diffuse system support is associated with votes for anti-democratic parties; and disaffection leads to low citizen involvement in democratic politics. We find no consistent evidence that diffuse support for democracy is dependent on satisfaction with the performance of democracy.
democracy; support for democracy; satisfaction; political involvement; electoral behavior
