What Democracy Means to Citizens – and Why It Matters

Recent survey research indicates that democracy  means different things to different people. For  some, democracy is a method of selecting leaders,  protecting civil liberties and political rights, and  upholding the rule of law. Other citizens have  more expansive views of democracy, viewing it as  a mechanism for promoting social equality and  economic growth, for example. While such studies provide strong evidence that the concept ‘democracy’ is multidimensional, to date scholars  have not explained why citizens think of democracy in myriad ways, and whether such differences matter. We aim to address these issues  using data gathered from field research in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Guatemala in 2001.  Through open-ended questions, we asked diverse groups of respondents what democracy meant to  them. Relying upon answers to these questions,  we attempt to explain why respondents had such  varying views of democracy, and examine the  implications these conceptualizations of democracy have for regime stability. Resumen: Que significa la  democracia para los ciudadanos y por que es importante Recientes investigaciones basadas en encuestas de  opinion publica revelan que la democracia significa diferentes cosas segun de quien se trate. Para  algunos, la democracia es un metodo para elegir  lideres, proteger las libertades civiles y los derechos politicos, y mantener el estado de derecho.  Otros ciudadanos tienen visiones mas amplias de  la democracia, y la ven, por ejemplo, como un  mecanismo para promover la igualdad social y el  crecimiento economico. Aunque estos estudios  ofrecen pruebas fuertes de que el concepto ‘democracia’ es multi-dimensional, hasta ahora los investigadores no han explicado por que los ciudadanos piensan de maneras tan variadas, y si  estas diferencias importan. En este estudio, nuestra meta es abordar este tema utilizando datos  recogidos en el trabajo de campo realizado en  Argentina, Brasil, Chile y Guatemala en 2001. A  traves de preguntas abiertas, preguntamos a diversos grupos de entrevistados que significa la democracia para ellos. Basandonos en las respuestas  obtenidas, intentamos explicar por que los entrevistados tenian visiones tan distintas de la democracia, y examinamos las implicancias de estas  diversas conceptualizaciones de la democracia  para la estabilidad del regimen democratico.

zens associate with democracy.We argue that these attributes can be grouped into two broad categories: 'means' and 'ends'.The means category includes responses that focus on the minimal procedural requirements for democracy, such as elections.In contrast, responses in the ends category focus on the desired outputs of democracy (for example, greater prosperity, and universal education and healthcare).Following this classification of responses, we then turn to examine why citizens think of democracy in different ways.Why do some citizens think of democracy in terms of means, others in terms of ends, while still others hold a more expansive view, conceptualizing democracy in terms of both means and ends?Finally, we turn to examine the implications of these multiple conceptualizations of democracy.We demonstrate that citizens' interpretations of democracy matter a great deal for regime stability.We believe our findings provide a strong justification for replicating these results in national probability samples.

Conceptualizing democracy
'Democracy' is one of the most used and contested concepts in social science.This theoretical diversity is amply reflected in the empirical realm. 6While definitions and operationalizations of democracy vary quite a bit, we can make a broad distinction between 'minimal' and 'maximal' definitions of democracy. 7The former focus on the importance of 'means', that is, procedures such as fair elections, respect for human rights, and universal suffrage.In contrast, maximal definitions include not only democratic procedures but also 'ends', or outputs (such as economic equality and social services).
When discussing democracy, frequently scholars rely upon definitions that emphasize means.Collier and Levitsky (1997) point out that the most widely employed definitions of democracy centre on procedures rather than substantive policies or other outcomes that might be viewed as democratic. 8This emphasis on democratic procedures follows the seminal works of Schumpeter (1947) and Dahl  (1971).Schumpeter defines democracy as the 'institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people's vote ' (1976 [1942], 269).He goes on to note that personal freedom, such as freedom of discussion, is an essential prerequisite for this method to function properly (1976 [1942], 271-2).Writing almost 25 years later, Dahl listed eight criteria for democracy: the right to vote; the right to be elected; the right of political leaders to compete for support and votes; elections that are free and fair; freedom of association; freedom of expression; alternative sources of information; and institutions that depend on votes and other expressions of preference (1971, 3).
Both Schumpeter and Dahl define democracy in 'minimal' terms.That is, they deliberately focus on the smallest possible number of characteristics necessary for a viable standard of democracy.Collier and Levitsky (1997) point out that this approach is quite common in democratization studies.Indeed, most scholars differentiate the specifically political features of a regime from societal or economic characteristics on the grounds that the latter are more appropriately analyzed as potential causes or consequences of democracy, rather than as features of democracy itself.Minimal definitions lend themselves more readily to empirical studies of democracy, and hence are widely employed by empirically oriented scholars of democracy (Lijphart 1999) and by institutions that carry out democracy audits such as Freedom House, the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank.Collier and Levitsky (1997) note that while there is no consensus on the definition of democracy, democracy as defined by a 'procedural minimum' usually presumes fully contested elections with full suffrage and the absence of massive fraud, combined with effective guarantees of civil liberties, including freedom of speech, assembly, and association (1997, 433-4).This minimalist view focuses on 'means': democracy is a set of procedures to ensure that outcomes are fairly reached, but it does not guarantee the achievement of specific outcomes.
While some researchers have added other elements to their definitions of democracy, such as the capacity for effective governance by the elected government, and some level of social equality (Karl 1990; O'Donnell 1988, 1996; Weffort  1992a, 1992b), most view democracy in minimal terms.This emphasis on the procedural minimum is at odds with a growing body of public opinion research that shows that many people view democracy in far broader terms.Studies of public opinion have found that individuals take the label 'democracy' to refer to a wide range of dimensions, not only political but also socio-economic.For example, some individuals do not think of democracy solely in terms of political parties, voting, and civil and political rights (elements corresponding to a 'minimalist' definition).They also equate it with a life of less poverty and crime, more equality, and with access to health and education.To the 'minimalist' scholar, democracy is consolidated in Argentina, for example, but to the 'maximal' citizen it is barely present.
Surveys conducted in different parts of the world support this view.An openended question in a 1970s Dutch survey revealed that most people (39 per cent of the 890 valid responses) associated democracy with liberty (freedom of expression, freedom of press, freedom, being free, free country), while 9.9 per cent mentioned some sort of equality (equality, equal rights and duties) (Thomassen 1995, 384-5).A similar open-ended question 9 in a cross-national survey of Chile, Costa Rica and Mexico elicited responses that could be grouped into as many as six broad categories: respect/legality, welfare/progress, type of government, voting/elections, equality and liberty (Seligson 2001, 94).Canache et al. (2001) report similar findings in their analysis of open-ended survey responses in a 1999 Romanian poll.Asked to name the one thing with which they were satisfied or dissatisfied under democracy, respondents gave a series of answers, including: economic issues (low wages), political institutional issues (the inefficiency of the judicial system), democratic freedoms (freedom of speech), and social issues (protection of social welfare) (Canache et al. 2001, 518). 10In a survey conducted in Uganda, respondents' beliefs about democracy ranged from the idea of popular participation in government (40 per cent of the responses) to peace, unity, equality and development (22 per cent) (Ottemoeller 1998, 104-6). 11he results of closed-ended questions also serve to highlight the varying minimal-maximal emphasis of definitions of democracy across respondents.When respondents were asked to choose the most important characteristics of democracy from a list of possible attributes in a 1978 West Germany survey, a large proportion chose freedom of the press and of opinion (85 per cent), the possibility of choosing between different political parties (79 per cent), and participation in the decision-making of the state (51 per cent) (Thomassen 1995, 384-5).Meanwhile, a survey of Canada indicated that Canadians viewed democracy primarily as a means, but in terms of ends as well (Kornberg and Clarke 1992, 65).Furthermore, in 1996, the Latinbarometer survey of seventeen Latin American nations included the following item: Of the following aspects, which one do you think is the most important for democracy? 12Answers to this question revealed that while 72 per cent of the respondents chose some aspects of democratic means (freedom of expression, respect for minorities, voting or political parties), 28 per cent viewed democracy in terms of ends, that democracy meant that people should be able to satisfy their economic needs.
Without access to the raw data of these studies it is difficult to make precise comparisons; however, there seem to be some broad commonalities.First, there is a wide range of meanings attributed to democracy in mass publics. 13Second, within this wide range of meanings, some characteristics are mentioned more than others (different types of freedom, procedural and institutional aspects such as voting and political parties, and different types of desirable outcomes such as equality, welfare and progress).Third, mass beliefs about democracy often encompass much more than the minimal definitions of democracy used by most scholars, as they emphasize both means and ends.
We turn now to our data to examine citizens' conceptualizations of democracy in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Guatemala.Once again, our objective is three-fold.We begin by examining whether citizens in our samples conceptualize democracy in the same diverse terms as in the studies reviewed above.We then group these conceptualizations in terms of means and ends.Next, we test a series of hypotheses to explain why citizens think of democracy in terms of means and/or ends.We conclude by assessing the impact of these conceptualizations of democracy on regime stability.

What democracy means to citizens
In our study, we first aim to identify the elements respondents attributed to their democracies.In order to determine how individuals conceptualize democracy, we included two open-ended items in our questionnaire, both of which refer unambiguously to the functioning of democracy in the country.We began by asking respondents: First, we'd like you to think about your democratic government -about the democracy in [country].What do you like about it?In the space below, please list some things that you think are good about the democracy in [country].These can be things that you think the democratic government does well, services the government provides, things that you're glad the democratic government doesn't do -anything at all that comes to mind that's good about democracy in [country].Feel free to list as many or as few good things as you want.
We followed this item with a similar question, which asked respondents to enumerate the things they did not like about democracy.The exact survey item reads as follows: Now, what are some of the problems with the democratic government in this country?Different people, even people who like the government overall, have told us that there are some problems with the government here.In the space below, please list some things that you don't like about democracy in [country].
These can be things that you think the democratic government does poorly, or that the government doesn't do at all, but should.Anything at all that comes to mind that the government does too little of, does too much of, or just doesn't do right.Again, feel free to list as many or as few problems as you want.
The first question asks the respondent to list all the things that he or she likes about the working of the democratic government in that country, and the second, all the things the respondent dislikes.These questions provoked not only a flood of wideranging responses, but also, in a number of cases, considerable emotion.For the 832 respondents in our sample, we classified roughly 2,500 responses to each question (around 3 answers for each of our 832 respondents).The wide range of raw responses also reflected the diversity of the criteria upon which the respondents chose to evaluate democracy in the four countries surveyed.
Given the diverse and detailed answers to these two questions, imposing some sort of order on them required considerable effort and, as is often the case with open-ended questions, subjective judgments.We classified all the responses into as many as eleven fairly distinct categories, based largely on the methodology utilized to construct the widely used Freedom House indicators of political and civil rights, and on an examination of the literature (Camp 2001; Kornberg and Clarke 1992;  Seligson 2001; Simon 1996; Thomassen 1995). 14The resulting classification was as follows: (1) Civil liberties (2) Political rights (3) Equality of opportunity and outcome (including economic equality) (4) Social rights and welfare issues (5) Government policies (6) Government responsiveness (7) Government accountability (8) Public safety and security (9) Corruption and abuse of power (10) Citizens' place in democracy (civic values) (11) There is no democracy The last category was created to identify the proportion of respondents in the pooled sample -as many as 15 per cent -who declared that there was no democracy, or that democracy was a myth in their respective country.Respondents were coded as mentioning a category if one of their open-ended statements fit the criteria listed in the appendix.It is important to note that each category was recorded only once for each individual case, regardless of the number of open-ended responses given that actually fit a category.For example, if a person mentioned 'low pension' and 'poor health services', both responses would fall under the Social Rights and Welfare Issues category.Such a respondent was recorded as simply mentioning the category once rather than twice.By adopting this criterion we sought to avoid a bias in favour of more articulate individuals.Table 1 lists the three most frequently mentioned categories by country for each of the open-ended questions.Percentages are valid percentages of respondents that mentioned each category in each country.As respondents were free to list as many items as they would like, these percentages do not total to 100%.
Our data indicate that for some respondents, democracy was limited to personal and political freedoms such as freedom of expression and free and honest elections.However, other respondents evaluated democracy along performance criteria, such as the impact of government economic policy and the provision of basic social services to citizens.A third group mentioned both procedural aspects and outputs.
While some citizens thought of democracy in minimalist terms, focusing only on means, most viewed it in maximalist terms, combining both means and ends. 15hile citizens' conceptualizations of democracy were multidimensional, they were more so in negative than in positive terms.That is, respondents covered more categories in indicating what they disliked about the working of democracy than what they liked about its working.Lastly, in every country there were respondents who rejected the very existence of democracy through declarations such as 'Democracy is a myth', and 'There is no democracy here'.The highest proportion of such respondents was in Guatemala (22 per cent), and the lowest was in Brazil (9 per cent).Argentina and Chile fell midway between these points, with 14 per cent and 18 per cent of respondents stating that democracy did not exist respectively. 16While these percentages are relatively small, they do stand in marked contrast to scholars' views of democracy in the region.Most scholars, analysts and policy-makers consider these countries (with the possible exception of Guatemala) as fully consolidated democracies, yet substantial minorities of the respondents we sampled thought democracy was completely absent from their country.For example, in 2000-2001 the widely used Freedom House rankings rated democracy in Argentina with the same score as democracies in Western Europe, such as France, Germany, and Italy.Given this high ranking, it is surprising that 14 per cent of Argentines in our sample stated that democracy did not exist in the country.

Determinants of citizens' conceptualizations of democracy
While the previous section demonstrates that citizens think of democracy in myriad ways, it raises a much larger question: Why do citizens think of democracy in dif-ferent ways?Why do some citizens perceive democracy more in terms of means, while others stress the importance of ends?To address these questions, we explored the correlations between various socioeconomic and demographic variables and conceptualizations of democracy.These variables are commonly incorporated into public opinion analyses, as they tend to influence citizens' political attitudes.For example, evidence from a Brazilian political culture study indicates that women were less interested in politics than men, felt less politically efficacious, and opted more weakly for democracy than did men (Moises 1993, 596, 601, 603).Due to a variety of structural causes, women are generally less politically active than men.Further, they are often the backbone of the family unit in Latin America, and may be expected to assign greater importance to their own and their family's welfare and security than they do to things such as elections and political and civil liberties.Thus, they might be more likely to emphasize democratic ends over means.
Age could also potentially influence conceptualizations of democracy, as older respondents who have greater first-hand experience with the human rights abuses of authoritarian regimes might be more inclined to emphasize the importance of democracy's respect for human rights.Income could play a role in explaining views of democracy, as poorer respondents might favor democratic ends such as social services with the hope that such measures would lift them out of poverty; richer respondents may be in a position to value basic democratic norms more precisely because their need for material and personal security has been better satisfied.Ottemoeller (1998, 104) has noted the importance of education in affecting people's grasp of the concept 'democracy'.In his survey of Uganda, respondents' familiarity with the concept 'democracy' was strongly correlated to their years of formal schooling, specifically, exposure to secondary education.As education is a key vehicle for civic instruction and socialization, it seems likely that formal schooling would be closely tied to respondents' views of democracy.Specifically, more educated respondents would have a greater appreciation for basic democratic norms such as respect for human rights.

Means vs. ends: measuring the dependent variable
To determine what factors influence citizens' views of democracy, we used our open-ended questions to construct a new variable: Means Emphasis.This variable measures respondents' proclivities to think of democracy more in terms of means than ends.To create the Means Emphasis variable, we first collapsed our original open-ended categories into two groups: means and ends.Based upon our previous discussion of conceptualizations of democracy, we identified three categories that fall under means (civil liberties, political rights, and accountability), and six categories under ends (equality of opportunity and outcome, social rights, policy, responsiveness, public safety and corruption). 17The means category includes responses that adhere to the minimal definition of democracy.For example, civil liberties (freedom of speech) and political rights (universal fair and free elections) are the primary features of minimalist definitions of democracy.Accountability is also important for minimal definitions of democracy, as it safeguards against government abuses of power through a system of checks and balances.For example, in the case of Argentina the judiciary attempted to hold the former president, Carlos Menem, accountable for rampant corruption and illegal arms deals.Through this mechanism of horizontal accountability, each branch of government attempts to compel the others to respect the rule of law.
The remaining six categories lie in the realm of maximal definitions of democracy.Most empirical scholars of democracy consider elements such as social rights, government policy, responsiveness, equality of opportunity and outcome, public safety, and corruption to be the consequences of democracy, and not democracy itself.For example, according to the minimalist school, democracy would promote responsiveness indirectly, as officials would cater to their constituents' needs in hopes of furthering their electoral prospects and political careers.However, responsiveness is not necessarily unique to democratic regimes, as an authoritarian regime could also be responsive.Indeed, despite Fujimori's 1992 autogolpe, he was re-elected by citizens campaigning on a platform of responsiveness to the needs of the poorest constituents.Similarly, some research suggests that there is little difference between authoritarian regimes and democratic regimes in terms of economic performance (Muller 1988; Przeworski and Limongi 1993;  Weede 1996).
In all four countries, the positive aspects of democracy were concentrated in the means category; in contrast, respondents' negative evaluations were much more evenly distributed, covering both means and ends.Respondents' positive evaluations of democratic government most frequently included civil liberties (freedom of expression), with political rights (the right to vote) a distant second.Guatemala differed from the other three countries in the sample; while respondents mentioned freedom in their positive evaluations, a much lower proportion of the Guatemalan sample referred to these compared to the other three countries.
After we grouped responses as falling under means or ends, we then turned to see which aspect was emphasized by each respondent.Our measure of Means Emphasis computes the percentage of open-ended responses that relate to democratic means for each respondent. 18Respondents with high values on this variable evaluated democracy more in terms of means, while low values indicate an emphasis on ends.Comparing across countries, in Argentina and Guatemala most respondents laid greater emphasis on ends compared to means when they evaluated democracy, while in Brazil and Chile, the emphasis was reversed.In Guatemala, as many as 20 per cent of the respondents evaluated democracy only in terms of ends while in Brazil only 8 per cent of the respondents did so. 19Again, while the nature of our data collection does not allow us to make inferences from our sample to the respective populations in each country, these differences among countries are illuminating, and call attention to possible macro-level differences in citizens' conceptualizations of democracy.

Analysis: predicting citizens' views of democracy
We examine the relationships between each of the four SES and demographic variables mentioned earlier (sex, age, income, and education) and Means Emphasis in a series of figures and an accompanying table.Since the nature of our data collection precludes the use of more sophisticated statistical analyses, we conduct simpler bivariate tests, which allow for a preliminary examination of the impact of socio-economic indicators on citizens' conceptualizations of democracy.We use the accompanying significance tests as an additional indicator of the strength of the relationship (Mohr 1990, 73-4). 20We aim to examine whether there is a linkage between socio-economic indicators and citizens' views within our sample.
Figures 1 through 4 depict the bivariate relationship between Means Emphasis and each of the four SES and demographic variables.Figure 1 shows that across all four countries, men on the whole tend to emphasize democratic means more than women do.However, while the direction of the relationship is negative across all four countries as hypothesized, the relationship is not statistically significant (see Table 2).
Figure 2 depicts the relationship between education and Means Emphasis.It indicates that, overall, across our four country samples, increasing levels of education are associated with a shift in the conceptualization of democracy, from one that emphasizes ends to one that emphasizes means.This substantive finding is also statistically significant in two of our samples, Brazil and Chile.
Figure 3 shows that, in three of the four country samples, Argentina, Brazil and Guatemala (Chile is the exception), there is a clear, albeit weak, difference in the degree of emphasis on democratic means across income groups: high income group respondents laid greater emphasis on means compared to their low income counterparts.This relationship is statistically significant and strong in the Brazil sample.In Chile and Guatemala, as hypothesized, older respondents on the whole tend to lay greater emphasis on democratic means (with the relationship attaining statistical significance in the latter sample), while in Argentina and Brazil the relationship between age and Means Emphasis is negative overall, but also weaker than it is in the Chile and Guatemala samples.Support for the hypothesis is found only in Guatemala, implying that evaluation of democracy among younger people is more on the basis of what democracy can deliver, and less on its core values.

Does it matter?
Thus far we have demonstrated that citizens have diverging views of democracy, and that these differences appear to be related mostly strongly to education.However, do these varying conceptualizations matter?Anderson (2002) argues that such differences have little substantive import.He does not find it problematic that different people bring different thoughts to bear on what the label 'democracy' includes, and argues that people associate different things with virtually all survey items of political support -and other items, too.He likens the different criteria citizens use to evaluate their democracies to the diverse standards individuals might use, for example, to evaluate former President Clinton's job performance.While citizens might base such evaluations upon a wide range of Clinton's duties, this does not mean that presidential approval is a bad item for measuring specific support (Anderson 2002, 2-3).These different meanings do not pose a serious problem as long as some aspect of political support is being measured.
Anderson's view contrasts with that of Fuchs (1999).Fuchs (1999) highlights the importance of citizens' conceptualizations of democracy, distinguishing be-tween 'minimalist' and 'supplemental' definitions and their implications for political support.In Fuchs's view, minimalist versions of democracy include liberal rights, the rule of law, and universal free and fair elections.In contrast, supplemental aspects of democracy encompass not only these minimalist elements, but also constitutional guarantees of social rights, direct citizen participation, and the political realization of social rights (Fuchs 1999, 125).Fuchs applies this theoretical framework to explain differences between the political attitudes of citizens in former East Germany and West Germany.In his view, the ideal democracy of East Germans places equal emphasis on the minimalist and supplemental elements of democracy.This ideal contrasts starkly with the reality of democratic governance in a unified Germany, which follows the liberal model (Fuchs 1999).Fuchs finds that East Germans support democracy in the abstract, but this support is for a supplemental democracy, which includes social rights, not the minimalist democracy under which they live. 21hese diverging views of democracy, Fuchs found, had consequences for political stability since they translated into more or less support for the democratic regime.In particular, since East Germans view democracy in terms of means and ends, when social rights are not protected, they penalize the democratic regime for this fault.In contrast West Germans, who see democracy in minimalist terms, do not fault democratic governance for failures to provide social rights -they register lower levels of support for the incumbent authorities.Thus, in the case of Germany, it appears that distinct conceptualizations of democracy translate into lower support for the incumbent government or for the democratic regime.
We aimed to take this line of argument further, and explore whether citizens' conceptualizations of democracy have an impact on their support for democratic governance.That is, do citizens who think of democracy more in terms of means (those who lean toward the minimalist definition) register more support for democratic governance?To answer this question, we examined the relationship between respondents' conceptualizations of democracy and two widely used measures of support for democracy: satisfaction with democracy (SWD) 22 and opposition to military coups. 23We would expect that those who evaluate democracy more on means criteria will tend to be more satisfied with its functioning and more likely to oppose the overthrow of the democratic regime by a coup.
We find that in our samples opposition to coups is strongly related, both substantively and statistically, to Means Emphasis, with statistically significant correlations in three of the four countries, Brazil, Chile and Guatemala (see Table 2 for more details).Overall, as the emphasis on means in individuals' evaluations of democracy rises, so does their likelihood of opposing military coups.The correlation between satisfaction with democracy (SWD) and Means Emphasis is also positive but relatively weak across all the samples, except in Chile where it also attains statistical significance.This suggests, albeit less strongly than in the case of the first indicator, that those who emphasize means when evaluating democracy also are likely to be more satisfied with its working.The relative strength and clarity of these bivariate relationships is depicted in Figures 5 and 6.
While our results are not as strong as we would like, we do think that they provide some support for our main argument: the ways in which citizens conceptualize democracy matter.If respondents think of democracy more in terms of elections, human rights, and the rule of law, they are more likely to support democracy, despite its shortcomings in their countries.In contrast, citizens who hold more expansive views of democracy, stressing the importance of both democratic procedures and outputs, tend to be less tolerant of democracy's shortcomings.According to our analysis, such citizens are more willing to consider authoritarian solutions to the nation's problems.Given our findings, it appears that citizens' views of democracy could have important implications for regime stability.Our results provide strong justification for replicating this type of analysis in national probability samples, to confirm that the results we find here hold for respective country populations.

Conclusion
In this analysis, we aimed to address three points.First, do citizens think of democracy in different ways?We find that they do.We then classified these views into means and ends, following one line of scholarly thinking.Next, we sought to explain why these means-ends conceptualizations varied across individuals.To this end, we assessed the strength of the relationship between SES and demographic indicators and conceptualizations of democracy.We found, overall, that education and, to a lesser extent, income played a key role in determining citizens' views of democracy.In general, citizens with higher levels of education and income are more likely to conceive of democracy in terms of means, not ends.Finally, we aimed to demonstrate that these different conceptualizations were related to citizens' support for democracy, as measured by two indicators, and found some evidence to support such a link.We believe that these results need to be tested further using national probability samples.Different understandings of what democracy is can lead to different levels of expectations; such differences, in turn, can affect both the nature and level of support extended to democratic governance.Furthermore, following Fuchs's line of argument, the conceptualization of democracy may determine how citizens target blame in times of crisis -towards the incumbent authorities or the regime.
If scholars aim to explain citizens' support for democracy, it appears that more nuanced measures of this support are in order.It is imperative to assess not only citizens' support for democracy, but also to examine what exactly they are supporting when they answer questions containing the word 'democracy'.Without knowing what exactly is being evaluated, scholars will not have reliable measures of citizens' support and less accurate policy responses to a perceived lack of support.
This study raises several questions for future research.First, while we demonstrate that citizens view democracy in different ways, and that these ways are linked to their levels of education, the causal mechanism of this link needs to be more closely examined.How exactly does education lead citizens to think of democracy in terms of means rather than ends?Is the causal mechanism related to increases in political knowledge or awareness, or to democratic socialization processes occurring in schools?It is very plausible that individuals' conceptualizations of democracy are related to what they are taught about it.Indeed, that is one of the assumptions underlying the efforts of U.S. democracy promoters pushing for civic education on democracy in Africa, Asia and Latin America (Carothers 1999, 232).The role of education in determining how citizens are socialized into democratic norms and expectations appears to be a very promising venue for future research.
Further, given the importance of expectations in shaping citizens' evaluations of and support for democracy, greater attention could be paid to how democracy was 'marketed' to citizens.How was democracy presented to citizens during the initial stages of democratization?Did leaders promise that democracy would bring a better standard of living and less inequality, and to what extent did they emphasize these ends?To understand why citizens think of democracy in different ways, it is also important to examine how democracy was initially portrayed.
Finally, this paper points to the need to examine citizens' expectations of democratic governance in much greater detail.Recent work has begun to focus on the role expectations play in determining citizens' support for democracy and incumbents (Malone, Baviskar, and Manel 2002; Malone and Lies 2000; Norris 1999;  Powers 2001).Expectations have been found to exert a strong influence on citizens' evaluations, yet we still do not fully understand the causal mechanism by which expectations influence evaluations.Nor do we know if these expectations are resistant to change, or quite malleable in light of government performance.While these questions are beyond the scope of this paper, they clearly point to promising avenues for future research.There is no education in democratic values.People learn to solve problems democratically.

There is no democracy/ Democracy is a myth
There is no democracy.Democracy is a myth.

Construction of the Means Emphasis variable:
The Means Emphasis variable was constructed in the following manner: first, dummy variables were created for positive and negative responses in each of the 11 categories into which the raw responses to questions 1 and 2 were classified.For example, if a respondent gave one or more answers referring to civil liberties in positive terms, the respondent received a '1' for the dummy variable GFREEDOM.If he did not give even one answer in this category but his answers referred to another category, he received a '0' against the dummy variable.If he gave one or more answers referring to civil liberties in negative terms, he received a '1' for the dummy variable BFREEDOM.We did this for each of the 11 categories, thereby creating 22 dummy variables (1 positive and 1 negative variable for each category: 2 x 11 = 22).
To calculate the index of means responses we summed all the dummy variables thus created in both positive and negative categories of the three 'means' variables (civil liberties, political rights and government accountability), and divided the sum by the number of variables.The resulting variable ranged from 0 to 0.83.
To calculate the index of ends responses we summed all the dummy variables in both positive and negative categories of the six 'ends' variables (equal opportunities, social rights, government policies, government responsiveness, public safety and security, and corruption), and divided the sum by the number of variables.The resulting variable ranged from 0 to 0.67.
Finally, we computed the Means Emphasis (M.E.) score for each respondent in the following manner: M.E.= [Means Index/Means Index + Ends Index] x 100.
14.The inter-coder reliability for the coding of these items was .991.Two coders examined each of the responses to these questions, and placed them into one of the eleven categories.See the appendix for a detailed description of the kinds of responses falling into each category.15.These are similar to what Fuchs (1999) refers to as 'supplemental' definitions of democracy.16.It is important to stress that these numbers represent the percentage of respondents in our sample.
Due to the nature of our data collection, we do not mean to imply that the same percentages will necessarily exist in the respective country populations.17.We excluded two categories from this portion of the analysis: 'Citizens' place in democracy' and 'There is no democracy'.We excluded the former as it referred more to citizens' duties in a democracy, rather than the working of democracy per se.The latter category was excluded as such respondents did not evaluate democracy in terms of means or ends, but rather completely rejected the existence of democracy in their countries.x 100 = 50 per cent, suggesting that she gave equal importance to means and ends.See the appendix for a more detailed explanation of the construction of this variable.19.We computed and compared the mean values of the Means Emphasis variable for each country: Argentina (46 per cent), Brazil (61 per cent), Chile (52 per cent), and Guatemala (44 per cent).As is evident, only in two of the countries did the mean come even close to the 50 per cent mark (which indicates an overall balance in means and ends categories in the individual responses).In Guatemala, 20 per cent of the respondents scored a 0 on M.E.; in Brazil it was much lower, 8 per cent.20.As Mohr points out, 'No matter what design or non-design has been employed, the results of the [significance] test give the probability that one would have obtained a statistic in a certain range of magnitude if one had actually implemented a randomization or random sampling procedure (given the sample size and the variance estimates that were obtained).Any non-significant result means that the relationship tested is so small (no matter what its raw magnitude happens to be) that it could fairly easily occur through the vagaries of a randomization or a random sampling process '  (1990, 73).21.Fuchs also distinguishes between citizens' support for democratic values and their support for democratic governance.East Germans uphold democratic values, but register lower levels of support for the current democratic regime than West Germans.Fuchs attributes these lower levels of support to higher expectations of a democracy in the former East.In the East, social rights are considered to be part and parcel of the democratic package.If social rights are not upheld, the democratic regime is not functioning properly.In contrast, in West Germany social rights are viewed as the domain of the incumbent government (Fuchs 1999, 143-44) (7) the military should never take over the government.Responses were recoded so that a value of zero indicated support for a coup under any of the conditions listed, and a one unequivocal opposition to a coup.See Canache, Mondak and Seligson (2001) for a comprehensive review of items measuring support for democracy.

Figure 1 :Figure 4
Figure 1: Conceptualizations of democracy and gender

Figure 5 :
Figure 5: Means Emphasis and opposition to coups

Figure 6 :
Figure 6: Means Emphasis and satisfaction with democracy

Table 1 :
Summary statistics of open-ended questions by country

Table 2 :
Pearson's correlation between Means Emphasis and 1) SES and demographic variables and 2) two indicators of regime support p<.05, **p<.01;two-tailed tests; standard errors and number of observations are within parentheses. * Siddhartha Baviskar is a Ph.D. Candidate of Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.His dissertation is a cross-temporal study of the relationship between political culture and political regime in Chile.His general research interests include public opinion and democratization in Latin America.<sibst4@pitt.edu>Mary Fran T. Malone is a Ph.D. Candidate of Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and a Visiting Lecturer at the University of New Hampshire.Her dissertation focuses on the rule of law and democratization in Latin America.Recently she has published articles in the Bulletin of Latin American Research and Desarrollo Económico.<mfmalone@cisunix.unh.edu> authors for further details regarding classification, which have been omitted here for lack of space.
18. Thus, Means Emphasis (M.E.) = [Number of means categories mentioned / Total number of means + ends categories mentioned] x 100.Note that the denominator does not include two categories, 'civic values' and 'there is no democracy', which are not included in the means-ends classification, as mentioned earlier.The means emphasis variable ranges from 0 to 100.So, for example, if a respondent mentioned 2 means categories and 2 ends categories in her responses, her score on ME would be [2/(2+2)] . 22.The exact item reads, Overall, how do you feel about the democratic government in [country]?On the scale below, please circle the number that best reflects how dissatisfied or satisfied you are with the functioning of the democratic government in [country].(1) Extremely dissatisfied -(10) Extremely satisfied.23.Some people say that in some situations the military might be justified in taking over power through a coup.In your opinion, in what circumstances would a military coup be justified?Please circle the number of the ONE alternative that BEST reflects your opinion.(1) Very high unemployment; (2) economic instability; (3) many social protests and public disorder; (4) victory of leftist parties in the national elections; (5) high crime; (6) victory of extreme-right parties in the national elections;