Moncagatta, PaoloSaris, Willem E.Fierro, Mateo2024-09-232024-09-232023Moncagatta P, Saris WE, Fierro M. Same same… but different? Support for the ideal of democracy vs. solid democratic support. Revista latinoamericana de opinión pública. 2023;12(1):7-40. DOI: 10.14201/rlop.312041852-9003http://hdl.handle.net/10230/61205Measurement of citizen support for democracy has been problematic, as most research on the topic has focused on assessing support for an abstract concept: the “ideal” of democracy. This article proposes a different conception of democratic support, labeled “solid democratic support,” which combines multiple items that tap attitudes toward various essential attributes of democratic government. Using data from the AmericasBarometer surveys, the “solid support” measure is compared to a traditional measure of support for the ideal of democracy in Chile and Venezuela. Important differences are found in the levels of the two indicators and in their correlates, demonstrating that they are in fact different concepts. As well, substantial differences are found between the two countries, suggesting that analyses of democratic support that do not consider the country-specific political context may be flawed.application/pdfengCopyright (c) 2023 Revista Latinoamericana de Opinión Pública. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. The authors retain the copyright and assign to the Journal the right of the first publication, with the work registered with the Creative Commons attribution license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.14201/rlop.31204Support for democracyDemocratic culturePolitical attitudesChileVenezuelainfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess