Sources of Political Regime Support: Evidence from Comparative Survey Research

The resilience of political regimes, especially democracy, depends in good part on popular support. Analysts conceive and measure the sources of mass support for political regimes from various angles. Some analysts emphasize a society's basic political and cultural values; others draw attention to current citizen evaluations of regime performance; and still others study actual mass political behavior. This panel will compare and contrast these different approaches with a view to deepening our understanding of political regime support. We are especially interested in exploring whether prevailing beliefs, attitudes and participation together form a coherent or contradictory set of resources for the consolidation of democracy. We invite paper submissions based on large-scale comparative survey research programs such as the Global Barometer Surveys, a comparative research endeavor of the Afrobarometer, Arab Barometer, Asian Barometer, Eurasia Barometer and Latinobarometer; the World Values Survey; the European Social Survey or others.