<p>Understanding why people demand democracy is important to an evaluation of the prospects for democratic stability. Most researchers examining this question have added national-level variables to multi-level regression models of survey data.</p>
<p>This paper contributes to the investigation of why people de mand democracy by adding new individual – level variables related to individual exposure to political institutions and economic conditions. Its two main questions are: Does exposure to democracy increase the legitimacy of democracy? Is people’s demand for democracy influenced by the past economic performance of their countries?</p>
<p>Regression analysis results show no evidence that national economic performance is relevant for demand for democracy. However, exposure to democratic institutions–measured as the num ber of years lived under either democracy or non-democracy – has a statistically significant, though substantively small, effect on demand for democracy. Overall, the results allow some optimism that as people live under democracy, they internalize its core values and improve its chances of consolidation.</p>