74% Indians ‘satisfied' with democracy, 2nd-highest among 23 countries surveyed, finds Pew survey

The Print

10 hours ago

However, public dissatisfaction with democracy continues to outweigh satisfaction across 12 high-income countries that Pew Research Center has surveyed consistently since 2017.
Apart from India, where only 23 percent of respondents said they were dissatisfied with democracy, Sweden recorded a low dissatisfaction level of 25 percent, followed by Indonesia at 33 percent.
New Delhi: India ranks among the countries with the highest levels of satisfaction with democracy, with 74 percent of Indians surveyed approving of it, while Japan recorded the lowest satisfaction levels at just 24 percent, according to the latest Pew Research Center report released earlier this week. The survey, conducted in the spring of 2025 in 23 countries, found that Greece, with 81 percent, followed by Japan with 76 percent and South Korea at 71 percent, reported the highest level of dissatisfaction with democracy.
Of the 12 countries (Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Greece, Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the UK, and the US), a median of 64 percent of adults surveyed said they were dissatisfied with the way their democracy was functioning while 35 percent said they were satisfied, according to the Pew Survey.
Overall, across the 23 countries surveyed, a median of 58 percent of adults were dissatisfied with the way their democracies are working.
Pew said that in the eight years of the survey, people's overall satisfaction with the functioning of democracy has dropped. In 2017, a median of 49 percent of adults across these countries were satisfied with how their democracy was working, while an identical 49 percent were not. 'Satisfaction returned to this level during the COVID-19 pandemic but has declined further in the years since,' read the report published Monday.
'This doesn't necessarily mean people are turning away from democratic values. Our research has shown that people around the globe think representative democracy is a good system of government. At the same time, many are frustrated with political elites or feel their views are not truly represented in government,' it added.
Economic perception was a key factor in determining satisfaction with democracy.
Countries such as India, Indonesia, Mexico, the Netherlands and Sweden are satisfied with both democracy and economy. In contrast, France, Greece, Italy, Japan and South Korea expressed discontent with both. The report also highlighted the connection between satisfaction with democracy and elections.
Since 2024, satisfaction with democracy has increased in five countries (Canada, Germany, South Africa, the UK and the US) all of which, except Canada, witnessed a general or presidential election during this period.
Canada went to the polls after the completion of the 2025 survey fieldwork. Here, six out of 10 people, or 60 percent of adults surveyed, expressed satisfaction. Weeks after the survey, Canada's Liberal Party secured a fourth consecutive victory in national elections.
Australia, Poland and South Korea also went through national elections after the 2025 survey fieldwork was completed. Among them, Poland and South Korea were among the countries where satisfaction with democracy declined between 2024 and 2025.
Dissatisfaction stood at 54 percent in Poland and 74 percent in South Korea. In Australia, where the Labor Party returned to power, six out of 10 adults surveyed were satisfied.
Riju Chanda is an intern with ThePrint
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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