An Incomplete Recipe: One-Dimensional Latent Variables Do Not Capture the Full Flavor of Democratic Support

Authors

Affiliations

Yue Hu

Tsinghua University

Yuehong Cassandra Tai

Pennsylvania State University

Hyein Ko

University of Illinois

Byung-Deuk Woo

Pohang University of Science and Technology

Frederick Solt

University of Iowa

Abstract

Prominent recent works have measured democratic support using a single latent variable that purports to span a single dimension from steadfast opposition to whole-hearted support. This ignores ample evidence that support for democracy is complex and multidimensional. Here we provide a series of validation tests of the sort of cross-national time-series latent variable measures employed in recent research by reference to questions on support for liberal democracy and opposition to its erosion from multi-wave surveys conducted around the world. These tests show that, across countries and years, this latent variable is nearly orthogonal to measures of support for contestation and participation; civil liberties; institutional constraints on executive power; and prioritizing democracy over the economy, economic equality, or order. We conclude that support for democracy in any robust sense is simply not well captured by one-dimensional latent variable. Such measures are powerful but researchers must be mindful of their limitations.

Important figures

Figure 1: Correlations Between Democratic Support as a Unidimensional Latent Variable and Polyarchy Survey Items

Figure 2: Correlations Between Democratic Support as a Unidimensional Latent Variable and Civil Liberties Survey Items

Figure 3: Correlations Between Democratic Support as a Unidimensional Latent Variable and Democratic Institutions Survey Items

Figure 4: Correlations Between Democratic Support as a Unidimensional Latent Variable and Prioritization Survey Items

BibTeX citation

@article{HuTaiKoWooSolt2025,
 author={Hu, Yue and Tai, Yuehong Cassandra and Ko, Hyein and Woo, Byung-Deuk and Solt, Frederick},
 title={An Incomplete Recipe: One-Dimensional Latent Variables Do Not Capture the Full Flavor of Democratic Support},
 journal={Research \& Politics},
 year={2025},
 volume={12},
 number={2},
 pages={1-7}
 }