Ethnic Composition and Democratic Values: A Global Investigation of Citizens’ Desire for Democracy, 1995–2014

Abstract

There is a rich literature on public support for democracy. However, few have investigated the link between ethnic composition and citizens’ desire for democracy. In this study we investigate the relationship between ethnic fractionalization and democratic attitudes in 91 countries in the period 1995–2014. We test this on a measure of public desire for democracy. The main independent variables are a time-variant ethnic fractionalization index and an index of ethnic polarization, based on time-series data from the Composition of Religious Ethnic Groups project. We make use of hierarchical modeling combining country- and individual-level data in order to approach this gap in the research. The main finding is that homogeneous societies show the largest degree of desire for a democratic society within established democracies while increased fractionalization and especially increased polarization is associated with a smaller desire for democracy.