This paper examines how survey questions about democracy are framed in different ways, depending upon whether an idealist or realist definition is employed, and whether or not comparisons are made with alternative regimes. It starts by reporting measures of democracy in post-Communist countries that ask people whether they are satisfied with democracy and to compare it with an ideal standard. Subsequent sections set out the results of realist questions from the New Democracies Barometer, which ask people to evaluate regimes past, present and future-and historically familiar undemocratic regimes that people have known.
democracy; political culture; survey questions; post-Communist regimes
