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An incomplete recipe: One-dimensional latent variables do not capture the full flavor of democratic support
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

An incomplete recipe: One-dimensional latent variables do not capture the full flavor of democratic support

Yue Hu, Yuehong Cassandra Tai, Kyein Ko, Byung-Deuk Woo and Frederick Solt
Research & politics, Vol.12(2), pp.1-7
04/2025
DOI: 10.1177/20531680251341857
url
https://doi.org/10.1177/20531680251341857View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

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.
 Democratic support public opinion liberal democracy latent variables measurement validation

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