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New indices measuring the quality of democracy constitute a significant innovation in comparative political science. They might, however, provide a biased perspective because they largely focus on macro-level criteria. Thus, the question is whether the measurement of the quality of democracy can be improved by complementing the evaluations of these indices with assessments based on individual-level survey data. Using data from 20 established democracies in the European Social Survey 2012 and the Democracy Barometer, we compare the understandings and evaluations of the quality of democracy underlying these two measurement approaches. We demonstrate that while the results coincide to a certain extent, individual-level data provide an important complementary perspective that adds to the validity of the measurement of the quality of democracy.
Pickel et al. (Mon,) studied this question.