Revisiting citizen preferences for who should govern and how. the case of cross-national surveys

A growing body of literature suggests that many citizens reject representative politics and demand instead that people or unelected experts direct governmental decision-making. This study contributes to this literature by highlighting how undetected response biases and other sources of measurement error have misled previous inquiries about patterns of support for political processes. Using recent cross-national surveys with innovative measurement proposals, the article finds that theorized dimensions of the political process represent citizens’ views consistently across citizen backgrounds <i>only</i> when measurement errors are corrected. This technical adjustment has substantive theoretical and empirical implications for further explanatory analyses. First, it shows when indicators measuring the political process are comparable across citizens’ groups, sharing understandings about and abilities to identify the dimensions of the political process with low response bias. Second, it finds that uncontrolled measurement errors obscure analyses of who supports political processes. Several patterns in explaining citizens’ preferences turn statistically non-significant, and new predictors emerge –mostly associated with citizens’ conservatism and resource mobilization theory. The findings offer new insights and methodological suggestions for future comparative research on citizens’ preferences for who should govern and how.