Democracy's meanings : how the public understands democracy and why it matters / Nicholas T. Davis, Keith Gåddie, and Kirby Goidel.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Davis, Nicholas T., author.

Goidel, Robert K., 1967- author.

Gaddie, Ronald Keith, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Democracy--United States--Public opinion.

Democracy.

Democracy--Social aspects--United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (255 pages)

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor, Michigan : University of Michigan Press, 2022.

Summary:

Democracy's Meanings challenges conventional wisdom about how the public thinks about and evaluates democracy. Mining both political theory and over 75 years of public opinion data, the book argues that Americans think about democracy in ways that go beyond voting or elected representation. Instead, citizens have rich and substantive views about the material conditions that democracy should produce, which draw from their beliefs about equality, fairness, and justice. Using survey data collected over several years, the authors construct a typology of views about democracy. Procedural views of democracy take a minimalistic quality. While voting and fair treatment are important to this vision of democracy, ideas about equality are mostly limited to civil liberties. In contrast, social views of democracy incorporate both civil and economic equality; according to people with these views, democracy ought to meet the basic social and material needs of citizens. Complementing these two groups are moderate and indifferent views about democracy. While moderate views sit somewhere in between procedural and social perspectives regarding the role of democracy in producing social and economic equality, indifferent views of democracy involve disaffection toward it. For a small group of apathetic citizens, democracy is an ambiguous and ill-defined concept.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. Introduction

Chapter 2. What Is Democracy? Definitions and Scholarly Disagreements

Chapter 3. Polling the Public about Democracy

Chapter 4. Creating and Validating a Typology of Democratic Meanings

Chapter 5. The Correlates of the Democracy Typology

Chapter 6. Compromise and Representation within the Democracy Typology

Chapter 7. Support for Democracy

Chapter 8. Democratic Norms and the Democracy Typology

Chapter 9. Conclusion

Appendix: Technical Details and Supplementary Analysis

References

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages ) and index.

Description based on information from the publisher.

Other Format:

Print version: Davis, Nicholas T. Democracy's Meanings

ISBN:

9780472220380

0472220381