Political scientists are well aware that poll after poll shows citizens to be more dissatisfied than in the past, Yet they resist the most straightforward conclusion: that they once were.
worryingly, though, questions in the world Values Survey that directly speak to regime legitimacy no longer support that optimistic interpretation In countries form the United States to Saweden, and from the Netherlands to Japan, citizens over the last three decades have become less likely to endorse the inportance of democracy; less likely to express trust in democratic institutions; and less likely to reject nondemocratic alternatives.