{"id":17770,"date":"2016-11-30T19:59:30","date_gmt":"2016-12-01T00:59:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=17770"},"modified":"2016-12-01T08:51:11","modified_gmt":"2016-12-01T13:51:11","slug":"being-young-and-evaluating-democracy-in-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=17770","title":{"rendered":"being young and evaluating democracy in 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

The claim<\/a> that support for democracy is falling in most countries–and falling quickest\u00a0among the young–has caused much consternation this week. One\u00a0datapoint<\/a>\u00a0that supports\u00a0this argument: “In 2011, 24 percent of U.S. millennials (then in their late teens or early twenties) considered democracy to be a ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’ way of running the country.” Erik Voeten and others have argued<\/a> that this survey is being presented in an alarmist way by focusing\u00a0on the minority who\u00a0chose the extreme responses to key\u00a0questions. Voeten shows that this\u00a0is how support for democracy looks if you display\u00a0the mean\u00a0responses on a scale from 1-10:<\/p>\n

\"screen-shot-2016-11-30-at-7-29-25-pm\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Most people are still in favor, and the gaps by age are not huge.<\/p>\n

But it is natural to be a bit uninspired<\/em> by democracy if you’re encountering it for the first time right now. In my freshman philosophy seminar, democracy has been our\u00a0topic this week. We’ve been reading:<\/p>\n