Keywords: Illiberal Democracy, Election Poll, Democratic Understanding, International Relations, Social Identity

There is no singular definition of democratic governance. However, most broad conceptualizations assert that liberal democracies encompass three broad dimensions: procedural (e.g., free and fair elections, rule of law), distributive (e.g., economic well-being), and liberal (e.g., freedom of expression). Understanding how citizens perceive and prioritize these dimensions in their political preferences is crucial for consolidating democratic governance and preventing democratic backsliding.

Existing scholarship on this topic has primarily focused on domestic explanatory variables. Using the case of Serbia, this study moves beyond domestic factors to evaluate the role of the international context in shaping perceptions and attitudes about democracy. Positioned between the contrasting poles of Western Europe and Russia—each promoting vastly different conceptualizations of “democracy”—and with political, economic, and cultural ties to both, we argue that Serbians’ sense of civilizational belonging to an imagined “East” or “West” significantly influences their understanding of democracy. In turn, Serbians’ perceptions and prioritization of different dimensions of democracy may shape their support for different political actors within their country.

We test this hypothesis using data from a nationally representative face-to-face household survey conducted shortly after the 2020 Serbian parliamentary election (N=1800) as part of the Comparative National Elections Project (https://u.osu.edu/cnep/). Our regression and mediation analysis reveals that civilizational belonging plays a significant role in shaping Serbians’ understanding of democratic governance and their political support for illiberal, populist actors. This study underscores how competition between liberal democracies and authoritarian regimes—each defining democracy in their own image—can influence how citizens perceive their country’s democracy, with important implications for democratization.