Democracy From Within: A Democratic Cultural Schema in the US Public

Area of Science:

• Sociology of culture and cognition
• Political sociology
• Social psychology

Background:

• Existing research focuses on public sanctioning of norm-breaking political actors.
• This study examines democracy as a shared cultural horizon and way of living.
• Theoretical grounding in Civil Sphere Theory and cultural sociology.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the public's commitment to democracy beyond norm enforcement.
• To conceptualize and measure a shared democratic cultural schema.
• To assess the prevalence and impact of this schema across the US public.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a concept association task administered to a representative US sample.
• Applied principles from Civil Sphere Theory and cultural sociology.
• Analyzed the internalisation of a binary democratic discourse as a cultural schema.

Main Results:

• A widely internalised democratic schema was uncovered in the US public.
• This schema is shared across different partisan groups.
• The democratic schema predicts individual evaluations of political actors.

Conclusions:

• Fears of democratic decline at the cultural horizon level are tempered for the US.
• Provides an individual-level perspective on Civil Sphere Theory.
• Bridges cultural sociology traditions regarding democracy and public opinion.