How Growing Concerns Erode Satisfaction with Democracy

Increasing concerns about any sufficiently salient political issue can erode citizens’ satisfaction with democracy (SWD). We propose and evaluate this argument studying nine different concerns, focusing in-depth on the highly salient issue of climate change. Applying random-effects-within-between models to German panel data from 2005 to 2021, we show that within-respondent increases in all concerns are linked to declining SWD. This illustrates cross-pressures faced by policy-makers aiming to safeguard democratic satisfaction. It also addresses a blind spot in existing research focusing predominantly on economic evaluations. The identified impact of climate concern deviations is driven by the most recent survey waves, where it affects democratic satisfaction stronger than material concern changes. For citizens with an arguably higher climate salience, stable Green partisans and post-materialists, this effect is again amplified. We conclude that the climate crisis increasingly puts pressure on citizens’ democratic satisfaction and propose further research avenues in this nexus.