Mapping political support in the 1990s: A global analysis

Over the past quarter century, an unprecedented and often unanticipated wave of democratization has spread over large parts of the world. While some skepticism is reasonable regarding both the level and durability of many of the new experiments of democratization, the direction and scope of these developments are largely beyond dispute. The main goal of this essay is to use an unprecedented body of comparative survey research to map patterns and forms of political support across a wide range of political conditions. While the goal is primarily descriptive, in the course of the descriptions interesting themes emerge, such as the finding that there are no major trends suggesting a decline in support for democracy as a form of government, neither de jure nor de facto, or that the fact of dissatisfaction does not imply danger to the persistence or furtherance of democracy.