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Abstract

Populist leaders often describe democracy as being in conflict with liberal values and endorse more direct democratic measures for people to influence politics. But what about populist citizens? How do they define democracy and what aspects of democracy do they value most? Using a cross-national survey of 10 West European countries, we first explore how citizens understand democracy in general and then test the assumption that populist citizens share a different understanding of democracy to both populist elites and less-populist individuals. Our findings show that citizens’ conceptions of democracy do not exactly match scholarly models, but are still clearly structured. We also find that populist citizens tend to support direct democracy and are less supportive of liberal principles, primarily because they are less likely to support the protection of minorities. They remain, however, equally supportive of other institutions of electoral and liberal democracy. Similarly, our results show that populist individuals are not especially more or less supportive of egalitarian and authoritarian understandings of democracy. That said, they are more comfortable with the idea of having strong leaders than their less populist counterparts. These results have important implications for democratic resilience. Policy-makers aiming to strengthen liberal democracy must address citizens’ concerns about representation without compromising core democratic safeguards. Understanding these tensions can help guide more inclusive democratic reforms and better communication between political institutions and the public.

Keywords

populism representative democracy liberalism minority rights

Introduction

For four decades now, journalists, opinion-makers and academics maintain an astounding fascination with the rise, consolidation and diffusion of populism, leaving us with no shortage of publications on populism, especially in recent years. It has become such a pervasive and persistent phenomenon that it is now a near-undisputed feature of democratic politics across the world, prompting many to talk of a populist Zeitgeist (Mudde, 2004). Yet, while we know a great deal about the relationship between populism and democracy on the elite-level of politics, the nature of the individual-level relationship between these two concepts remains much less developed.

Existing research suggests that populist citizens can be characterised as ‘dissatisfied democrats’, that is, individuals who endorse democracy as a regime but express discontent with its functioning (Rovira Kaltwasser and Van Hauwaert 2020; Van Hauwaert and Huber, 2025; Zaslove et al., 2021). However, there remains limited understanding of how these citizens conceptualise democracy or the specific reasons underlying their dissatisfaction. In particular, we know relatively little about the democratic beliefs held by populist citizens or the forms of democracy they may support or oppose. Given the growing prominence of populist sentiment and the rise of populist partisanship, gaining insights into these preferences is essential to assess the types of democratic models favoured by populist citizens, the feasibility of such models, and their potential implications for contemporary political systems.

While a growing body of research has begun to engage with these questions (Ellenbroek et al., 2023; Wuttke et al., 2023; Zanotti and Rama, 2021; Zaslove and Meijers, 2024), existing studies often employ varying measures of key concepts, offer partial perspectives, or yield divergent findings. Our study complements this burgeoning literature in two important ways. First, by using novel data that combines the European Social Survey battery of democracy items with an eight-item battery measuring populist attitudes across 10 West European countries, we can examine how populist citizens interpret democracy and subsequently evaluate its different forms. In doing so, we respond to recent calls for greater integration between research on populist attitudes and models of democracy (Gherghina and Pilet, 2021). Second, we acknowledge that citizens may understand the dimensions of democracy differently from how scholars typically define them. To address this, we operationalise individuals’ democratic conceptions in four distinct ways, allowing us to examine how these varying interpretations shape the relationship between populist attitudes and different dimensions of democracy at the individual level.

Our results confirm that citizens conceptualise democracy differently than scholars do. We find that citizens living in West European democracies do not think of democracy strictly in liberal terms. Furthermore, citizens do not consider the different subtypes of democracy irreconcilable with each other. Looking specifically at populist citizens, we find that much like populist elites, they are strong supporters of direct democracy. They are more appreciative of strong leadership (thus open to illiberal institutionalism), but neither more nor less favourable to authoritarian notions and egalitarian (social) democracy. Furthermore, even though populist citizens are more opposed to liberal democracy, this is primarily driven by their rejection of minority rights, and they do not significantly differ from their less populist counterparts in how they think about the pluralist institutions of democracy.

These findings underscore the importance of examining citizens’ understandings of democracy independently from those of scholars and political elites. They suggest that populist citizens’ dissatisfaction with the functioning of liberal democracy may stem from a perception that it places disproportionate emphasis on minority rights at the expense of broader citizen inclusion in decision-making. Crucially, the results indicate that most populist citizens are not fundamentally opposed to liberal democratic principles. From a policy perspective, this points to the potential for mitigating support for illiberal populist actors by addressing concerns related to citizen participation and perceptions of democratic imbalance. Enhancing mechanisms for direct engagement and fostering a more inclusive democratic discourse may help strengthen democratic legitimacy in the eyes of these citizens.

Defining Democracy and Populism

The two main focal points of this study, being populism and democracy, are highly complex and intricate. They constitute what Gallie (1955: 169) calls ‘essentially contested concepts’, that is, ‘concepts the proper use of which inevitably involves endless disputes about their proper uses on the part of their users’. With that in mind, and to avoid what Sartori (1970) called ‘conceptual misformation’, it is important to clearly – and concisely – define both democracy and populism so that we can engage in a reasoned discussion of these concepts.

Etymologically, democracy refers to the idea of self-governance of the people, that is, a system of government in which people rule. Originally, political philosophers like Aristotle, Alexis de Tocqueville, James Madison, and James Wilson conceptualised democracy as a system where the fundamental principle of government was ‘the sovereignty of the people’. They agreed that in a democracy, the people have authority as opposed to a monarch, or a small group of aristocrats. Another vital principle of democracy was the lex majoris partis, that is, the will of the majority, which meant that decisions were ‘made by popular majorities of citizens whose votes all count[ed] equally’ (Galston, 2018: 30). Most foundational democracy studies share a semantic core that centres on these two principles.

Populism largely draws from, or is at least intertwined with, the core idea of democracy. While its conceptual discussion has long occupied an important place in the field, it is fair to say that the ideational approach has gradually become the industry standard and thereby the most widely accepted way to think of populism. It describes populism as a set of ideas characterised by a Manichean vision of the world, where society is separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups: ‘the pure people’, who are virtuous carriers of democratic rights, and ‘the corrupt elite’, who are unresponsive and self-serving (Hawkins, 2009; Mudde, 2004; Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017). Within this worldview, popular sovereignty is primordial, and politics should be an expression of the general will of the people. It is, thus, an appeal to a ‘recognized authority’, that is, the people, against ‘both the established structure of power and the dominant ideas and values of the society’ (Canovan, 1999: 3-4).

The Link Between Populism and Democracy

From the above definitions, it follows that populism is inherently democratic because it places a strong emphasis on popular sovereignty and majoritarianism (Mair, 2002; Müller, 2014). However, in practice, these core democratic principles are complemented with ‘adjectives’ to refer to different subtypes of democracy (Collier and Levitsky, 1997), which can come into tension with populism. While there are many of such subtypes, for the purpose of our study, we distinguish between representative (electoral), liberal, social, direct, and authoritarian conceptions. This is simply because, in one way or another, they directly relate to today’s formal ‘rules of the game’ (Linz and Stepan, 1996). Therefore, to fully understand the unique relationship between populism and democracy – including potential tensions – we disentangle the connection between populism and the different conceptions of democracy and develop five hypotheses related to their individual-level relationships.

Representative (Electoral) Democracy

Building on the democratic principles of popular sovereignty and majority rule, representative (or electoral) democracy additionally requires individuals to vote for representatives who then represent their political interests, rather than to vote on policy directly. In this sense, representative democracy is an ‘institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote’ (Schumpeter, 1942: 269). This requires regular elections that include competition between candidates and the participation of broad parts of the population (Dahl, 1971).

While populist actors are critical of democracy, they nevertheless favour democracy in its representative form over non-democratic alternatives. As Urbinati (2017) puts it, populism ‘does not want to be a constituency independent of the elected officials but wants instead to conquer the representative institutions and win a majority in order to model society on its own ideology of the people’ (p. 573). Populists are opposed to the establishment and blame the power holders for betraying the people, but they do not want to overthrow the current representative system. Rather, they want to replace the corrupt elite through winning in elections, thereby inadvertently becoming members of the establishment themselves (Martinelli, 2016). Thus, while it is true that populism values its own representatives, who are arguably uncorrupted and incorruptible, it is not per definition against democracy, nor does it renounce political representation as such.

With this in mind, we ask: How does this ‘parasitic relationship’ between populism and representative democracy that originally develops in the ‘shadow of democracy’ (Canovan, 1999) translate to the individual level? To what extent do populist citizens value political representation as a prominent feature of democracy? Existing studies confirm that, while populist citizens are strongly dissatisfied with the way democracy is implemented, they remain strong supporters of the democratic system (Rovira Kaltwasser and Van Hauwaert 2020; Zaslove et al., 2021; Zaslove and Meijers, 2024). Thus, the question is not whether populist citizens want to replace democracy with alternate authoritarian models (as some scholars claim), but whether they remain supportive of a representative system that ultimately does not deliver on its promises (Stoker and Hay, 2017).

Empirical findings on this question remain somewhat mixed. For example, while Ellenbroek et al. (2023) reveal that populist citizens have certain pluralist preferences for parliamentary representation, Zaslove and Meijers (2024) suggest a tendency among populist citizens to reject mediated representation through political parties. Yet, both studies focus exclusively on the Netherlands, which raises questions about the broader applicability of their conclusions to other political systems and cultural settings.

Therefore, drawing from theory, we argue that populist citizens want more representation, not less, simply because populism wants to give power back to the people. After all, an important reason why populist citizens are so dissatisfied is because they feel that traditional political parties’ policy positions are converging and becoming increasingly similar, leaving many citizens unrepresented (Mair, 2013). Altogether then, we expect populist citizens to strongly value the representative aspects of democracy and formulate our hypothesis accordingly.

H1: Populist citizens are more supportive of representative democracy than non-populist individuals.

Liberal Democracy

Liberal democracy extends the notion of representative democracy to also include institutions that safeguard individual liberties and the rule of law (Plattner, 1999). It rests on the idea that individuals have fundamental rights, such as freedom of speech, expression, and association, as well as equality before the law, that need protection from the ‘tyranny of the majority’ (Mill, 1859). This is typically done by a constitution that protects individual rights from the arbitrary exercise of governmental authority, and by the separation of powers, which ensures that no part of the government can become too powerful.

Populism explicitly critiques the democratic limitations of liberal democracy (Canovan, 1999) and advocates for a set of ideas in line with ‘illiberal democracy’ (Zakaria, 2003). In its illiberal conception of the world, populism rejects all institutions that restrict the people’s general will, such as checks and balances, the separation of powers and constitutional guarantees like minority rights (Diamond, 2020; Merkel and Scholl, 2018; Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017; Müller, 2016). Populist elites believe these limits on public power prevent the homogeneous people – and by extension the populist leader – from acting in their own interest (Galston, 2018). In addition, while liberal democracy rests on a pluralistic conception of society, populism conceives of the people as a collective identity with a single, unified general will. This view of society allows neither for mediation among competing interests, nor for deliberation. It is for these reasons that many scholars deem populism a possible threat to liberal democracy (Rovira Kaltwasser 2012).

To what extent this tension between populism and liberal democracy manifests at the individual level remains an open question, particularly in light of the mixed evidence in the existing literature. Zanotti and Rama (2021) suggest that populist citizens, especially among younger and more educated groups, exhibit lower levels of support for liberal democracy. Similarly, Lewandowsky and Jankowski (2023) find that populist voters may prioritise illiberal interpretations of democracy over policy congruence (see also, Carlin and Van Hauwaert, 2024). At the same time, other research finds limited differences between populist and non-populist citizens in their support for liberal-democratic institutions (Ellenbroek et al., 2023; Wuttke et al., 2023; Zaslove and Meijers, 2024) and points to the possibility that many citizens simultaneously endorse both pluralist and populist understandings of democracy (König, 2022). Taken together, these findings highlight the complexity of democratic preferences among populist citizens and underscore the need for further empirical investigation.

Nevertheless, given that populism as an ideational construct is inherently hostile to the ideas and institutions of liberal democracy (Mudde, 2004), we argue that populist citizens will be less supportive of liberal democracy than their less populist counterparts. They are sceptical – even hostile – towards liberal protections of individuals and dismiss pluralist values, like minority rights, political equality, and freedom of expression. The populist worldview predisposes these citizens to see liberal institutions as unnecessary hindrances to the public’s legitimate authority and a structural impediment to the more hard-line majoritarianism that populism typically embodies (Koch, 2021). Therefore, populist citizens are suspicious of any constitutional restraints to democratic principles, such as checks and balances and the division of powers. For them, these bounded institutions and procedures limit public power and impede majorities from working the ‘general will’ (Urbinati, 2017). And, since populism sees `the people` as homogenously virtuous, it sees no reason why the majority should not govern without institutional constraints (Galston, 2018). With that in mind, we formulate the following hypothesis:

H2: Populist citizens are less favourable to liberal democracy than non-populist individuals.

Direct Democracy

Direct democracy is primarily concerned with active citizen engagement in the political process (Altman, 2010). It emphasises the value of self-government and citizen involvement beyond elections. Unlike populism, it is much less concerned with majority rule, as long as citizens are active participants in the decision-making process.

Populism’s affinity towards direct democratic mechanisms has been highlighted in the literature for quite some time (Canovan, 1999; Bowler et al., 2017; Mény and Surel, 2002). Populists favour a democracy that heavily emphasises the role of the people, while downplaying the role of (non-populist) elites in politics. Wanting the voices of the common people to be heard and for government policies to reflect what the people want, populists value the direct, unmediated, and unconstrained expression of the will of the people. They aim to defend democracy as the people’s rule and the best way to do that is by directly including the people in the political decision-making process. For this reason, populists call for the introduction of plebiscitary measures – such as people’s initiatives and referenda – into the current representative system, at least while in opposition (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2013; Taggart, 2000).

Although the relationship between populist attitudes and support for direct democracy has been the focus of scholarly attention, it remains somewhat difficult to pin down at the individual level. There is broad consensus that populist citizens in Europe tend to express strong support for direct democratic mechanisms. However, much of the empirical evidence underpinning this conclusion originates from studies conducted in the Netherlands (Jacobs et al., 2018; Werner and Jacobs, 2022; Zaslove et al., 2021). To date, only one large-scale comparative study has confirmed similar findings, though it relies on a single, arguably atypical indicator to capture the multi-dimensional nature of populism (Rose and Weßels, 2021). In reflecting on this body of work, Gherghina and Pilet (2021) raise two important considerations. First, the relationship between populist attitudes and support for direct democracy is often examined in isolation from preferences for other democratic models, making it difficult to determine whether populist citizens seek to complement or replace representative institutions with direct democratic tools. Second, a potential tautology arises in studies where support for referendums is used both as a measure of populist attitudes and as an outcome of interest (we come back to this later). Taken together, these observations point to the need for further empirical research to better understand how populist citizens engage with the idea of direct democracy.

Drawing on populism’s centrality of the people and populist citizens’ higher than average interest in politics (Huber and Van Hauwaert, 2025; Van Hauwaert and van Kessel, 2018; van Kessel et al., 2021), we argue that populist citizens are more likely to support direct citizen participation. This is because instruments of direct democracy, like referendums, allow for the direct, unmediated, and unconstrained expression of the will of the people, unfragmented by political parties and representation (Mudde, 2007; Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2013; Taggart, 2000). Such opportunities for direct citizen participation make populist citizens feel that their voice is being heard and factored into political decisions. Considering that contemporary democracies have structural difficulties in giving a voice and power to the people (Mair, 2002), direct democracy is an attractive alternative for populist citizens because it enables them to re/acquire agency and more directly engage with politics. Direct citizen participation is equally a means to overcome the power of the elite, considering the anti-elitist nature of populism, and populist citizens` distrust of political parties (Akkerman et al., 2017). Accordingly, we set forth the following hypothesis:

H3: Populist citizens are more supportive of direct democracy than non-populist individuals.

Social Democracy

Most contemporary democracies are characterised by mechanisms that protect vulnerable citizens and institutionalise certain social rights (Esping-Andersen, 1990). Such a social democratic model emphasises the preconditions for political participation; it highlights that the state should not only protect citizens’ political and civil rights, but should also support individuals in being able to exercise these rights through, for example, access to public services and protection from poverty (Meyer and Hinchman, 2007). In turn, this implies the active involvement of the state in the economy through the provision of welfare.

While the kind and quality of social rights differ widely, most advanced democracies are intrinsically intertwined with this social democratic model (i.e. the welfare state) and there is little to no objection to it – at least not in absolute terms. However, some populist actors on the right side of the ideological spectrum have rather exclusionary ideas about who belongs to ‘the people’ (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2013) and advocate for ‘redefinitions’ of the social climate, thereby challenging the existing interpretations and beneficiaries of the welfare state. This kind of pressure on the welfare system is something we primarily – if not exclusively – associate with right-wing populism (Rovira Kaltwasser and Zanotti 2021). Welfare chauvinism, or the restriction of social benefits to the native population, primarily relates to nativism, however, not populism (Mudde, 2007; Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2013).

Similar to populist political actors, populist supporters exhibit considerable diversity in their policy preferences and do not share a singular ideological profile (Rehus et al., 2024; Rooduijn, 2018; Rooduijn et al., 2017; Rovira Kaltwasser and Van Hauwaert 2020; Van Hauwaert and van Kessel, 2018). Moreover, while populism prompts debates about deservingness and the boundaries of ‘the people’ when it comes to social rights, these debates are more closely linked to the host ideologies that inform populism rather than to populism per se (Rovira Kaltwasser and Zanotti 2021). In addition, although populist citizens may resonate with social democratic values given that these values emphasise the social rights of ‘the people’ while curbing the influence of perceived ‘corrupt elites’, there is no unambiguous evidence to suggest that their support for social democracy exceeds that of non-populist citizens. This is particularly plausible in Western democracies, where social democratic models are deeply entrenched in the established political order and have become part of what we might consider ‘the rules of the game’ (Giddens, 2013). based on these considerations, we set forth the following hypothesis:

H4: Populist citizens are neither more nor less supportive of social democracy than non-populist individuals.

Authoritarian Democracy

While populism looks to give power back to the people, it equally shows a great appreciation for strong, yet non-elitist leadership in the form of the populist leader (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017; Weyland, 2001). Populist leaders present themselves as ‘ordinary’ to establish a direct connection with the people. By virtue of this connection, they can govern outside the established constitutional processes of the state (Barber, 2019). Populists position themselves as people of action, who claim not to be bound by checks and balances. They claim to embody the general will and believe their powers to enact the general will should not be limited. In this sense, populists value a so-called ‘authoritarian notion of democracy’, that is, obedience to strong rulers whose authority defies constitutional checks and (fair) electoral contestation (Kirsch and Welzel, 2019: 3; see also Chapman et al., 2024; König et al., 2022).

This raises the question of whether similar dynamics apply to populist citizens. Existing research suggests that populist citizens often feel un(der)represented and express heightened dissatisfaction with liberal governments’ perceived inability to effectively address key societal challenges, like increasing immigration, globalisation, and automation. For some citizens this discontent may contribute to a desire for strong and decisive leadership. That is, leaders who claim to directly represent ‘the people’ act unencumbered by institutional compromise and, in some cases, are willing or able to bypass constitutional constraints. Such – possibly widespread – preferences could help account for the limited public resistance to democratic backsliding under populist leaders like Mateusz Morawiecki and Viktor Orban.

However, does this necessarily imply that populist citizens prefer authoritarian interpretations of democracy or that they inherently align with authoritarian values and ideas as such? While some scholars point in this direction, there is little theoretical or empirical basis to assume this is broadly the case. On the contrary, a growing body of research suggests that populist citizens are committed democrats who seek more democratic engagement rather than less. Much like non-populist citizens, there is no unambiguous reason to believe they would support the replacement of core democratic institutions that constitute the basic ‘rules of the game’. Rather, they appear to favour a democratic alternative that is more responsive to their concerns and increases the influence of what they perceive as the ‘silent majority’. In this sense, their aspirations may be better understood as a call to limit the influence of so-called ‘quasi guardians’ and to assert constituent power in pursuit of a more participatory democratic design (Dahl, 1983; Rovira Kaltwasser 2014). With that in mind, we formulate the following hypothesis:

H5: Populist citizens are neither more nor less supportive of authoritarian democracy than non-populist individuals.

Direction of the Relationship

In the theoretical framework, we discuss the relationship between different conceptions of democracy and populist citizens. We do this because we are specifically interested in exploring how citizens feel about the different dimensions of democracy when they are populist, rather than how populist attitudes shape citizens’ views towards the different dimensions of democracy. This connection aligns with the idea that populist beliefs are born out of a disconnect between how citizens understand democracy and how it is implemented, suggesting that there is a specific understanding of democracy that is espoused by populist citizens.

Although this method is better suited for our research puzzle, it does not mean there is no causal effect from the dependent variable (i.e. populist attitudes) to the main independent variables (i.e. the various conceptions of democracy). We acknowledge that individual-level populist attitudes likely influences the way citizens understand democracy. After all, populism represents a specific way of viewing and structuring society, which in turn likely influences the way citizens think about democracy.

With this in mind, it is important to emphasise that we are only examining one part of a more intricate link between conceptions of democracy and populist attitudes, which certainly runs in both directions. To a certain extent, this connection can be seen as a kind of ‘chicken or egg’ problem. On the one hand, citizens have a specific understanding of democracy that contributes to the formation of their populist attitudes. On the other hand, their populist attitudes further shape and reinforce their peculiar notion of democracy. However, as our data is not longitudinal, we are only able to provide correlational evidence rather than a causal explanation.

Data and Methods

We rely on survey data collected by YouGov in January 2019 on behalf of the Bertelsmann Foundation (Rovira Kaltwasser et al., 2019). It includes 10 West European democracies with similar democratic traditions: Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. National samples are representative of the respective eligible population for the 2019 European Parliament elections and have been stratified according to official socio-demographic distributions (age, gender, education, region) using census data provided by Eurostat.

Dependent Variable: Populist Citizens

We harmonise the eight items listed in Table 1 to measure populist attitudes (Meléndez and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2021; Rovira Kaltwasser and Van Hauwaert 2020; Van Hauwaert and van Kessel, 2018; van Kessel et al., 2021). These items tap into the three dimensions of the ideational approach to populism, namely the extent to which citizens are of the opinion that (a) ‘the people’ is a virtuous and homogeneous entity, (b) portray themselves at odds with ‘the elite’, and (c) advocate popular sovereignty set against elitist rule (Hawkins et al., 2019). Individual items consist of 5-point Likert-type scales, with higher values indicating higher levels of populist attitudes (cross-country Cronbach’s alpha = 0.86). We estimate a latent populist construct through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and report the factor loadings in Table 1.¹

Table 1.

Question Wording and Factor Loadings (CFA) of Populist Items.

Question wording	Std. Estimate	SE	p-value
1. The politicians in [country] need to follow the will of the people.	0.539	0.006	< 0.001
2. The people, not the politicians, should make our most important policy decisions.	0.602	0.006	< 0.001
3. The political differences between the people and the elite are larger than the differences among the people.	0.651	0.005	< 0.001
4. I would rather be represented by an ordinary citizen than an experienced politician.	0.618	0.005	< 0.001
5. Politicians (elected officials) talk too much and take too little action.	0.718	0.004	< 0.001
6. What people call ‘compromise’ in politics is really just selling out on one’s principles.	0.614	0.005	< 0.001
7. The particular interests of the political class negatively affect the welfare of the people.	0.736	0.004	< 0.001
8. Politicians always end up agreeing when it comes to protecting their privileges.	0.717	0.004	< 0.001

All items load on a single factor (CFI = 0.988; TLI = 0.982; RMSEA = 0.042; SRMSR = 0.017). We allow residuals between items 1 and 2, as well as 2 and 4, to correlate because of their similarity in question wording and high modification indices. Table S2 in the Supplementary materials includes more information about residual correlations and model fit statistics.

Independent Variables: Conceptions of Democracy

We use the 12 items listed in Table 2 (formulated by Ferrín and Kriesi (2016) and originally included in the 2012 European Social Survey) to operationalise citizens’ conceptions of democracy. Each item asks respondents, on an 11-point scale from ‘not at all important’ (0) to ‘very important’ (10), how important they consider certain elements of democracy.²

Table 2.

Question Wording of Democracy Items.

No	How important do you think it is for democracy in general . . .	Item
1	. . . that national elections are free and fair?	Free and fair elections
2	. . . that opposition parties are free to criticise the government?	Opposition parties
3	. . . that everyone is free to express their political views?	Freedom of expression
4	. . . that the courts are able to stop the government acting beyond its authority?	Judicial review
5	. . . that the rights of minorities groups are protected?	Minority rights
6	. . . that the media are free to criticise the government?	Media freedom
7	. . . that citizens have the final say on the most important political issues by voting on them directly in referendums?	Referendums
8	. . . that citizens can directly remove an elected politician from office by calling for an impeachment referendum?	Impeachment
9	. . . that the government protects all citizens against poverty?	Protection from poverty
10	. . . that the government takes measures to reduce differences in income levels?	Reduce income inequality
11	. . . that the government is led by a leader who is not accountable to parliament?	Strong leader
12	. . . that the army takes power if the governments is incompetent?	Army intervention

Control Variables

We include numerous control variables in all models. Populist attitudes are directly related to different forms of dissatisfaction, especially dissatisfaction with democracy (Rovira Kaltwasser and van Hauwaert 2020; Zaslove et al., 2021). Research also shows that populist attitudes correlate with democratic regime support (Rovira Kaltwasser and Van Hauwaert 2020; Zaslove et al., 2021; Zaslove and Meijers, 2024). At the same time, democratic conceptualisations and regime support are also related (Chapman et al., 2023; Wegscheider and Stark, 2020), so we include both democratic dissatisfaction and regime support. We control for political interest, which is associated with both populist attitudes and democratic understanding (Van Hauwaert and van Kessel, 2018; van Kessel et al., 2021; Zaslove et al., 2021). We also include socio-economic and socio-political positioning, as well as attitudes towards immigration (Van Hauwaert and van Kessel, 2018). We further control for left-right self-placement and a standard set of sociodemographic variables, namely gender, age, household income and education.³

Method

We use standard cross-sectional OLS regressions as the baseline models for our analyses and include additional fixed effects to control for country-specific features.

Empirical Section: Citizens and Their Conceptions of Democracy

Extant individual-level research examining empirical democracy still diverges in terms of how it operationalises the multi-dimensional concept of democracy (for a comprehensive review of measurement strategies, see König et al. (2022)). Different methods all have their own merits and drawbacks, so we use four separate approaches that not only allow us to cross-validate our subsequent findings, but also help us investigate any differences between scholarly- and citizen conceptions of democracy (Wegscheider et al., 2023). In this section, we describe these approaches and address two interrelated questions: First, how do citizens conceive of the different dimensions of democracy? Second, are they at all aware of the conceptual differences and inconsistencies between the different dimensions of democracy the same way scholars are?

Theory-Driven Approach

We first use a theory-driven approach when operationalising citizens’ democratic understanding. Drawing from political theory (Dahl, 1989), we take a top-down approach that assumes citizens conceptualise democracy in the same way as scholars and with the same dimensionality. This approach generally draws on five distinct, predefined conceptual models (Ferrín and Kriesi, 2016; Kirsch and Welzel, 2019), namely electoral democracy, liberal democracy, direct democracy, social democracy and authoritarian notions of democracy (items 1–3, 4–6, 7–8, 9–10 and 11–12 in Table 2, respectively). For our analyses, we use the average response across the items capturing each conceptual model of democracy.⁴

Citizen-Focused Approach (1)

Extant research suggests preference scales generated this way can be at odds with how democracy exists in citizens’ minds (König et al., 2022). To address this, we provide three additional, more citizen-focused, approaches to operationalise democratic understanding. First, we rely on an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of all items across our sampled countries to explore their dimensionality. We specify a ‘promax’ rotation to allow factors to be correlated. In doing so, we openly register what aspects citizens associate with democracy without presupposing specific notions of democracy beforehand. We then rely on a combination of the corresponding empirical estimates and theoretical considerations to determine that we can retain four distinct factors. We subsequently estimate these factors using a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).⁵ Table 3 includes the factor loadings alongside the respective dimensions, which we label liberal democracy, egalitarian democracy, direct democracy and authoritarian democracy.

Table 3.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis of 12 Democracy Items.

Factor	Dimension	Item	Std. Estimate	SE	z-value	p-value
Factor 1	Liberal democracy	Free and fair elections	0.754	0.004	168.896	< 0.001
		Opposition parties	0.633	0.006	113.190	< 0.001
		Freedom of expression	0.746	0.004	165.915	< 0.001
		Judicial review	0.552	0.006	89.388	< 0.001
		Media freedom	0.635	0.006	114.685	< 0.001
Factor 2	Egalitarian democracy	Protection from poverty	0.815	0.005	160.623	< 0.001
		Reduce income inequality	0.671	0.006	120.117	< 0.001
		Minority rights	0.566	0.006	87.446	< 0.001
Factor 3	Direct democracy	Referendums	0.758	0.006	121.119	< 0.001
Factor 3	Direct democracy	Impeachment	0.765	0.006	121.969	< 0.001
Factor 4	Authoritarian democracy	Strong leader	0.635	0.009	67.878	< 0.001
Factor 4	Authoritarian democracy	Army intervention	0.676	0.010	70.288	< 0.001

We allow residuals between the Opposition parties and Media freedom items to correlate because of their similarity in question wording and high modification indices (CFI = 0.950; TLI = 0.930; RMSEA = 0.060; SRMR = 0.045). Table S8 in the Supplementary materials includes more information about residual correlations and model fit statistics.

Two observations stand out. (1) Citizens do not draw a hard line between electoral and liberal democracy. While political theory expects these to be separate and distinct aspects of democracy (Diamond, 1999), our factor analysis suggests that citizens do not distinguish between the two. This is easily explained by our country selection containing only West European countries, where the ‘rules of the game’ are liberal democracy. We, therefore, estimate these as a singular liberal democratic dimension. (2) The minority rights item loads together with social democracy items on a more egalitarian dimension of democracy. This suggests that, from the perspective of West European citizens, egalitarian democracy is not only about providing social protection (economic issues) but also about respecting minorities (cultural issues). With this in mind, we estimate these items as a combined egalitarian democratic dimension. Altogether, these results suggest that citizens’ conceptions of democracy deviate from scholarly models.

Citizen-Focused Approach (2)

Even though this last observation is clearly embedded in an empirical rationale, we understand this might be counter-intuitive, even conceptually problematic for some. Therefore, we provide an additional operationalisation of democratic understanding by allowing for some level of scholarly interpretation to our citizen-driven dimensions. That is, we extract the minority rights item and conceive this as a wholly separate aspect of democratic understanding. Subsequently, we take the same two-pronged approach as above, where we first use EFA with a ‘promax’ rotation to explore dimensionality and then rely on a CFA to estimate the different factors.⁶ This approach yields four additional dimensions, not unlike those in Table 3, which we label liberal democracy, social democracy, direct democracy and authoritarian democracy. Table 4 reports the factor loadings.

Table 4.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis of 11 Democracy Items (Excluding Minority Rights).

Factor	Dimension	Item	Std. Estimate	SE	z-value	p-value
Factor 1	Liberal democracy	Free and fair elections	0.755	0.004	168.497	< 0.001
		Opposition parties	0.632	0.006	112.549	< 0.001
		Freedom of expression	0.748	0.005	165.790	< 0.001
		Judicial review	0.549	0.006	88.381	< 0.001
		Media freedom	0.634	0.006	113.622	< 0.001
Factor 2	Social democracy	Protection from poverty	0.850	0.007	120.662	< 0.001
Factor 2	Social democracy	Reduce income inequality	0.658	0.007	97.705	< 0.001
Factor 3	Direct democracy	Referendums	0.760	0.006	122.785	< 0.001
Factor 3	Direct democracy	Impeachment	0.762	0.006	122.973	< 0.001
Factor 4	Authoritarian democracy	Strong leader	0.637	0.010	68.375	< 0.001
Factor 4	Authoritarian democracy	Army intervention	0.674	0.008	70.614	< 0.001

We allow residuals between the Opposition parties and Media freedom items to correlate because of their similarity in question wording and high modification indices (CFI = 0.968; TLI = 0.952; RMSEA = 0.051; SRMR = 0.034). Table S12 in the Supplementary materials includes more information about residual correlations and model fit statistics.

Individual Democracy Items

While factor analysis allows us to examine democracy’s dimensionality from the perspective of citizens, individuals may show overall support for these different dimensions but reject some of their individual constitutive values. This is reflected in the work of Gibson (1996), who finds that citizens who accept the institutional framework of electoral democracy are not necessarily tolerant of their political opponents. Taking this into account, as a final step to examine how citizens understand democracy and to cross-validate our findings, we deconstruct democratic understanding to its individual indicators so that we can examine citizens’ preferences for specific democratic aspects within the different dimensions.⁷

Empirical Section: Citizens’ Support for the Different Dimensions of Democracy

These four operationalisations of democratic understanding put us in a position to gain insights into the levels of support for the different conceptions of democracy. In other words, now that we know how citizens think of democracy, we can also visualise the extent to which citizens find these different dimensions important. Figure 1 provides an overview of the importance, on average, of various aspects of democracy in the different countries. Although we rely on four different operationalisations of democratic understanding, some consistent conclusions stand out.

Figure 1.

Average Levels of Support for Various Aspects of Democracy.

Figure 1 shows that we are not dealing with outliers or countries that do not resemble one another. Equally, it shows that our country sample has important (but not excessive) variation that warrants a comparative analysis. The overall importance of (and support for) authoritarian democracy is much lower among West European citizens than any other aspect of democracy. This is most notably the case in Northern Europe. When it comes to the other three dimensions of democracy, we find comprehensive and systematically high levels of support across the citizenry. In most countries, we notice that levels of support for direct democracy tend to be somewhat lower, while liberal democracy is, unsurprisingly, most widely supported across Western Europe. The only exceptions in this regard are Spain and Italy, where levels of support for liberal democracy tend to be lower (around the same levels as support for direct democracy) and support for authoritarian democracy tends to be higher. Considering the authoritarian history (collective memory) of both countries, this is not entirely unexpected (Manucci, 2019; Manucci and Van Hauwaert, 2025).

Populist Citizens and Their Conceptions of Democracy

We then rely on these four operationalisations of democratic understanding to model their effect on populist attitudes. This puts us in a position to explore how populist citizens conceive of democracy, and which dimensions of democracy they might find more important. Figure 2 depicts the average marginal effects (AMEs) of the different democracy indicators for populist citizens.

Figure 2.

The Effects of Support for the Different Dimensions of Democracy on Populist Attitudes.

These models offer valuable insights into the relationship between populist attitudes and democratic preferences. First and foremost, all models consistently indicate that populist citizens show strong support for direct democracy. Model 4, in particular, demonstrates this support for both components of direct democracy, namely support for referendums and citizens’ ability to remove government by impeachment. This suggests a clear preference among populist citizens for greater direct involvement in political decision-making processes. In addition, all models consistently reveal the negative relationship between populism and liberal democracy. Populist citizens appear less favourable to liberal democratic principles and, thus, more opposed to pluralism. When we deconstruct the liberal democracy dimension, we notice this negative effect is largely driven by populist citizens’ rejection of minority rights, as also highlighted by model 3. These patterns closely mirror findings from the supply-side literature and, while perhaps not unexpected, the consistency across models is notable. Taken together, these results provide initial support for both the liberal and direct democracy hypotheses.

A second set of observations offers further insight and aligns with our initial conception that elites and citizens might have distinct understandings of democracy. Our initial task of exploring the multi-dimensional nature of democratic preferences already suggested that citizens confound liberal and electoral aspects of democracy (see above). This is perhaps unsurprising considering that our sample consists of West European democracies where both liberal and electoral principles have been the ‘rules of the game’ since WW II. When we nonetheless examine the individual electoral democracy items in model 4, we notice minimal variation. In other words, populist and non-populist citizens appear to place similar value on most components of both electoral and liberal democracy, with the notable exception of the respective value they give to minority rights. This finding reinforces the idea that democratic preferences among citizens, including those with populist attitudes, may be more nuanced than typically assumed.

Based on our theoretical expectations, we initially anticipated little to no relationship between populism and social democracy. Our empirical results present a more mixed picture and seem to depend on both the context and how we operationalise democratic preferences. When we use an elite-driven operationalisation of democratic understanding, the data suggests that populist citizens may be somewhat more favourable to social democracy than their non-populist counterparts. This would make sense, given how deeply social democratic ideas are rooted in West European political traditions and essentially constitute the political norm across West European democracies. Yet, this pattern does not hold when we use definitions that are more grounded in how ordinary citizens think about democracy. In fact, we do not find a clear and unambiguous link between populist attitudes and support for either egalitarian or social democracy across our models. Instead, we consistently see that attitudes towards minority rights are what really sets populist citizens apart. The notable negative effect associated with this item suggests that populist citizens are less likely to see minority protections as a key part of contemporary democracy. Overall, there is no strong or consistent evidence that social democracy and populism are closely connected on the individual level.

We notice yet another important distinction between elites and citizens when we look at the authoritarian understanding of democracy. While some scholars argue that populists are inherently authoritarian, this claim appears more persuasive when relying primarily on elite-driven measures, as suggested by model 1. However, when adopting a more nuanced citizen-oriented approach, a different picture emerges. Models 2 and 3 indicate that populist citizens are, if anything, slightly less authoritarian than their non-populist counterparts, although the differences remain modest. A closer look at model 4 suggests that populist citizens do not appear particularly concerned with military intervention in politics, but they do express a stronger preference for strong leadership compared to non-populist citizens. The lack of concern with army intervention may reflect the broader context of West European democracies, where such scenarios are generally perceived as unlikely. The greater support for strong leadership, by contrast, aligns with existing supply-side research that emphasises the appeal and centrality of leadership within populist discourse (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017; Weyland, 2001).

Altogether, our more bottom-up and citizen-driven operationalisations of democratic understanding allow us to present innovative findings with a considerable degree of consistency. Despite the well-documented absence of conceptually coherent understandings of democracy among citizens (König, 2022), our findings indicate that populist citizens tend to give more importance to direct democracy and comparatively less importance to liberal democracy. One possible concern is that our null findings regarding social and authoritarian models of democracy could be influenced by underlying ideological orientations. To address this, we replicated our analyses for left- and right-wing populist respondents separately (see Section 5 in the Supplementary materials). These results remain substantively consistent across these subgroups, indicating that the absence of a significant relationship between populist attitudes and support for social or authoritarian democratic models is more likely to reflect an empirical pattern than to be the result of measurement choices or ideological confounding.

Robustness Checks

To assess the robustness of our findings and mitigate potential sources of bias, we conduct a series of additional checks focusing on two key areas: (1) model specification, and (2) the construction of the populist attitudes scale. These robustness checks further substantiate our core models and provide cross-validation for our results (see Section 6 in the Supplementary materials).

First, we re-estimate the same OLS models we used earlier, excluding control variables to assess the influence of model specification on our outcomes (see Figure S8 and Tables S43–S46 for full regression outputs). We subsequently use generalised linear models (GLMs) with robust standard errors to address the right-skewed distribution of the dependent variable and the heteroscedasticity we observe across countries (see Figure S9 and Tables S47–S50 for full regression tables).

We additionally categorise respondents as citizens with low-, average- and high levels of populist attitudes, using the average level of populist attitudes from the original CFA-based populism scale +/- one standard deviation as the threshold between them. We then estimate multinomial logistic regression models across the different operationalisations of democracy (see Figure S10 and Tables S51–S54 for full regression tables). As illustrated in Figure 3, the resulting log-odds closely mirror the patterns we observe in the original OLS models presented in Figure 2.

Figure 3.

The Effects of Support for the Different Dimensions of Democracy on Populist Attitude Levels.

To address the second concern, we estimate additional models using two alternative estimations of the dependent variable, populist attitudes. In Table S55, we build a revised populism scale using CFA, excluding items 2 and 4 from Table 1. These two items are subsequently omitted from a series of OLS regressions with country-fixed effects to test for sensitivity (see Figure S11 and Tables S56–S59 in the Supplementary materials). This adjustment directly addresses the critique by Gherghina and Pilet (2021), who caution against possible confusion and conceptual overlap between the populism scale and measures of democratic preferences because of the shared reference to referendums in items 2 and 4 of the populism scale and items 7 and 8 of the democracy indicators (Referendums and Impeachment in Table 2). In a further robustness check (Table S60 in the Supplementary materials), we construct a populist attitudes scale relying on item response theory (IRT), which we then incorporate into the same modelling framework (see Figure S12 and Tables S61–S64 in the Supplementary materials). All substantive interpretations of these alternative model specifications remain consistent, thereby amplifying the validity of our findings and the reliability of the initial, more parsimonious modelling strategy.

Discussion and Conclusion

The relationship between populism and democracy has been extensively researched on the supply-side (Kriesi and Pappas, 2015; Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2013, 2017; Rovira Kaltwasser et al., 2017; van Kessel, 2015; Weyland, 2001). The results from these studies primarily show that populist elites favour direct democracy and reject liberal democracy, while there are some accounts that also argue that populists are more prone to authoritarian interpretations of politics.

Fewer studies have focused on the demand-side, however, and the studies that do often remain limited in analytical scope. Most generally, existing research suggests that populist citizens can be characterised as dissatisfied democrats, meaning they support the democratic regime as an abstract notion but are rather critical of its practical implementation (Rovira Kaltwasser and Van Hauwaert 2020; Van Hauwaert and van Kessel, 2018). More recent accounts started to explore how populist attitudes (as the independent variable) relate to particular models of democracy, such as direct citizen participation (Huber and Van Hauwaert, 2025; Mohrenberg et al., 2021; Zaslove et al., 2021), pluralism (Ellenbroek et al., 2023), liberal values (Zanotti and Rama, 2021), and majoritarianism (Zaslove and Meijers, 2024). However, to the best of our knowledge, no existing research offers a comprehensive examination of how populist citizens (as the dependent variable) understand democracy or which aspects of democracy they find important. It is in this area that our study seeks to make its primary contribution.

We use cross-national data from a 2019 Bertelsmann Foundation survey and rely on broad batteries of populism and democracy indicators to provide original insights into the crucial question how populist citizens think of democracy. Our study yields several key insights. First, we show that populist citizens are strong supporters of direct democracy, and most notably referendums, which aligns with their desire for a more prevalent political voice and representation. Second, our findings do not provide conclusive evidence that populist citizens are either more or less favourable to egalitarian (social) or authoritarian interpretations of democracy. However, we do find that populist citizens tend to show greater appreciation for strong leadership than their non-populist counterparts, suggesting a somewhat greater openness to forms of illiberal institutionalism. This more nuanced observation allows us to further refine some of the cruder claims in the literature that conflate populism and authoritarianism, by illustrating that while populist citizens may value decisive leadership, this does not necessarily equate to wholesale support for authoritarian governance.

Third, we also find that populist citizens tend to be less supportive of liberal democracy with a key driver of this relationship being their scepticism towards the protection of minority rights. Importantly, we find no evidence that populist citizens reject other core components of liberal democracy, such as support for pluralism, electoral competition, or institutional checks and balances, especially when compared to their less populist counterparts. While much of the existing literature has assumed a straightforward link between populist attitudes and anti-liberal sentiments, more recent work has begun to question whether this association at the citizen level mirrors the antagonism towards liberal institutions often expressed by populist elites (Ellenbroek et al., 2023). Our findings contribute to this emerging perspective by illustrating that the relationship between populism and liberal democracy at the individual level is more nuanced. Although populist citizens express overall scepticism towards liberal democracy, this appears to stem primarily from concerns about minority rights rather than a wholesale rejection of liberal-democratic institutions. In fact, populist citizens demonstrate at least as much support for key institutional pillars such as a free press and an independent judiciary as their less populist counterparts. These findings suggest that populist citizens may not necessarily seek to undermine the institutional foundations of liberal democracy per se, but rather challenge specific outcomes they perceive as misaligned with majority interests – particularly those concerning minority protections.

Our findings contribute to the broader literature on democratic understanding and, more specifically, to ongoing debates about populism as a potential challenge to democracy. Across the different operationalisations of democracy, we observe that citizens’ conceptions of democracy often diverge from those found in the academic literature (Wegscheider et al., 2023). This suggest that (populist) citizens may interpret and evaluate democracy in ways that differ from scholarly or elite definitions – a consideration that is crucial when we examine the link between democratic understanding and populism. One important implication of this is that citizens do not necessarily consider certain aspects of democracy to be conceptually inconsistent or mutually exclusive, even if they are often treated as such in theoretical frameworks. For example, our findings support previous research highlighting that citizens can simultaneously endorse liberal and authoritarian elements within their understanding of democracy (Kirsch and Welzel, 2019; König, 2022; Schedler and Sarsfield, 2007). Recognising this complexity is essential for developing a more accurate and inclusive account of how democracy is understood and evaluated by the public.

In addition, our results challenge the assumption that citizens living in established liberal democracies conceptualise democracy exclusively in liberal terms. Instead, the evidence suggests that, for populist citizens in particular, the different dimensions of democracy are not necessarily irreconcilable or viewed as incompatible. Their co-existence may reflect a broader perception that the current dissatisfaction with democracy stems, at least in part, from a belief that liberal democratic systems place a disproportionate emphasis on the protection of minority rights, thereby limiting the broader inclusion of citizens in political decision-making processes. Considering that populist citizens do not appear opposed to the pluralist institutional foundations of electoral and liberal democracy, there is reason to believe that they might be less inclined to support illiberal populist politicians if their concerns about minority rights and direct citizen participation are meaningfully addressed. While our study provides important insights into these dynamics, this remains a critical area for further investigation and must constitute a central focus in future research on democratic attitudes and populism.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-psx-10.1177_00323217251346271 – Supplemental material for Dissatisfied But Still Democratic: How Populist Citizens Understand Democracy

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-psx-10.1177_00323217251346271 for Dissatisfied But Still Democratic: How Populist Citizens Understand Democracy by Patricia Rehus and Steven M Van Hauwaert in Political Studies

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the numerous colleagues who have dedicated their time to reading and providing feedback on previous versions. These include, but are not limited to, Ryan Carlin, Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser and Andrej Zaslove. We are equally grateful to the reviewers and editors of Political Studies, having gracefully given their (likely institutionally non-validated) time to improving this manuscript. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at a departmental seminar at the University of Surrey (2022), the OPUS Graduate Seminar on Populism (2022), the EPOP conference (2022) and a departmental seminar at Radboud University (2023). We are particularly grateful to Kirk Hawkins for his comments at the OPUS seminar, as well as to all participants at these events for their helpful feedback.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Steven M Van Hauwaert

Supplementary Materials

Additional supplementary information may be found with the online version of this article.

Section 1: Dependent variable

Section 2: Independent variables

Section 3: Control variables

Section 4: OLS regressions, full models

Section 5: Comparing left- and right-wing populists

Section 6: Robustness checks

Notes

Author Biographies

Patricia Rehus is a PhD candidate in Politics at the University of Surrey.

Steven M Van Hauwaert is Associate Professor in Comparative Politics at ESPOL, Université catholique de Lille, and a Fellow in Empirical Political Science at Radboud University, Nijmegen. Together with Marta Lorimer and Lisa Zanotti, he serves as co-Editor-in-Chief of the ECPR journal Political Research Exchange (PRX).

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