SlAvA UkrAnI!
this post was submitted on 20 May 2026
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As always, I would like to point out that these kinds of surveys of public opinion are not really evidence of anything besides public opinion itself.
You cannot assert that a certain country has more or less of some quality simply because more people in that country said they think they do more frequently than people in a different country did.
For example if you asked Americans (particularly those in the south or rural areas) if they thought their country was more “free” than the rest of the world, you would probably get higher numbers than you would from most other regions of the world despite the fact that America is not that free relative to much of the world.
Trends in perception, as well as comparison, does tell a good story. In many ways it's a superior method of data gathering on democracy than the standard method of defining democracy as whatever the Nordics are doing, and then grading everyone based on how closely they follow that.
Direct comparison of perception of democracy by people who have lived in both countries would be much clearer evidence of differences in democracy itself.
However, the raw perception of democracy without any other reference to other democracies does not allow for comparison/measurement of democracy itself but rather indicates how happy individuals feel within their current democracy.
The data is a good story and it does encode information, but that information is more significantly influenced by culture, current events, and overall happiness of the populace than it is by “level of democracy”
If you follow the comment chain you’ll see me and cowbee talk about how subjective the term “democracy” is.
However, we can illustrate my point using proof by counter example. It is entirely possible to imagine two countries with the same government structure (and hence “democracy”) but with different answers to this kind of survey.
Imagine two nearly identical countries each with corrupt governments having the exact same structure and culture etc. The only major difference between them is that in one of the countries, a recent scandal has occurred which was able to bring to light deep seated corruption and criminal activity of many public figures, whereas similar acts are being committed by the govt. of the other country, but none of it has been brought so fully to light yet.
The citizens of the former country are likely to rank their “democracy” lower than the citizens of the latter would rate their own, despite the fact both governments have equal amounts of corruption. Hence, surveys of popular opinion of democracy are not directly indicative of the “level of democracy” or level of corruption or fidelity etc. etc.. QED.