<p>This paper examines whether political institutions affect citizens’ satisfaction with democracy. Using cross-sectional Afrobarometer survey data on attitudes toward democracy for 10 sub-Saharan Africa countries, together with country-level data on political institutions, the authors demonstrates that political institutions do indeed influence citizens’ attitudes toward the democratic system.</p><p>The author states that political institutions mediate the relationship between citizens’ political status (i.e., as winners, non-partisans, or losers) and their satisfaction with the way democracy works in the country. From this, he concludes that:</p><ul><li>those who have a party identification with the incumbent government (winners) are significantly more satisfied with the way democracy works than are those who do not (losers and non-partisans)</li><li>citizens who live under a balanced two-party system are more satisfied with democratic governance than those who live under both predominant one-party systems and fragmented party systems</li><li>losers in parliamentary systems show lower levels of dissatisfaction with the way democracy works than do losers in presidential systems.</li></ul>