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Evaluating attitudes to democracy in an authoritarian political system is complex. Several surveys suggest that the majority of Chinese people feel satisfied with the level of democracy in China. In explaining this intellectual puzzle, this study addresses how different understandings of democracy influence satisfaction with the state of democracy. This study also investigates the relationships between liberal democratic values and popular conceptions of democracy, and between liberal democratic values and satisfaction with democracy. The results show that Chinese citizens who view elections and political rights as essential to democracy are dissatisfied with the current state of democracy. People who hold liberal democratic values are also dissatisfied with the current state of democracy. In other words, popular conceptions of democracy make a difference in the people's satisfaction with the democratic level in China. With a rise in the population adhering to procedural conceptions of democracy, satisfaction with the level of democracy in China may decline in the future.

With populist parties making electoral progress across the European continent, the question of what their electoral success means for contemporary democratic systems has gained increasing significance. This article investigates how two populist radical right parties, the Austrian FPÖ and the Dutch PVV, conceptualise democracy, based on a wide range of party documents released over recent decades. It builds upon recent academic consensus that the relationship between populism and democracy is best understood from a 'minimalist' perspective, seeing populism not as antagonistic to democracy, but as an ideology that conceptualises democracy primarily in terms of popular sovereignty. The article adds to the existing literature by demonstrating that we can extend this understanding of the populist conception of democracy in three aspects: the populist emphasis on state neutrality; a two-fold notion of equality; and the extension of the political sphere in society. Based upon these three issues, the article concludes by exploring how the populist conception of democracy relates to the most dominant form of democracy practised nowadays, liberal democracy, and to what extent it reflects changes in our democratic political culture.

With populist parties making electoral progress across the European continent, the question of what their electoral success means for contemporary democratic systems has gained increasing significance. This article investigates how two populist radical right parties, the Austrian FPÖ and the Dutch PVV, conceptualise democracy, based on a wide range of party documents released over recent decades. It builds upon recent academic consensus that the relationship between populism and democracy is best understood from a 'minimalist' perspective, seeing populism not as antagonistic to democracy, but as an ideology that conceptualises democracy primarily in terms of popular sovereignty. The article adds to the existing literature by demonstrating that we can extend this understanding of the populist conception of democracy in three aspects: the populist emphasis on state neutrality; a two-fold notion of equality; and the extension of the political sphere in society. Based upon these three issues, the article concludes by exploring how the populist conception of democracy relates to the most dominant form of democracy practised nowadays, liberal democracy, and to what extent it reflects changes in our democratic political culture.

While support for the essential norms of liberal electoral democracy is high in almost all developed democracies, there is arguably also a gap between democratic aspirations and democratic practice, leading to dissatisfaction among citizens. We argue that citizens may hold very different normative conceptions of democracy which are equally compatible with support for liberal democracy, but lead to different expectations where institutional design and democratic practice are concerned. Satisfaction with democracy may thus depend on congruence between such normative conceptions and institutionally entrenched norms. Drawing on survey data from Germany with a comprehensive item battery on attitudes towards democratic decision-making, we identify four distinct factors leading to disagreements over democratic decision-making. We explore how these are related to personality, styles of cognition and political attitudes, and show that different expectations arise from them, such that regime support is affected by the normative conception(s) of democratic decision-making individuals subscribe to.