New study finds increase in support for democracy — but weaker support among politically disengaged and conservatives

A Monkey Cage piece from the Washington Post highlighted Lee Drutman's recent Voter Study Group report. 

One specific concern throughout the past few years is whether ordinary citizens are truly committed to democracy. Here again, the data have proved equivocal: There has not been a consistent or meaningful decline in support for democracy across multiple countries. Similarly, although a weakening commitment to democracy has been blamed on younger people, there is no clear evidence that, say, the “millennial” cohort is any different from older cohorts when they were the same age as millennials are now.

A new report sheds some important light on this debate. Co-written by Lee Drutman, Larry Diamond and Joe Goldman, it is one of a continuing series of reports produced by the Voter Study Group. (Disclosure: I am the research director of the Voter Study Group.) In this report, based on a July survey with 5,000 Americans, four key findings stand out: ...