Many citizens across the world continue to endorse liberal principles such as freedom, equality, and self-determination. Yet, those who most strongly embrace these values are often the least satisfied with how liberal democracies function in practice.

In his blog post “Support in Principle, Dissatisfaction in Practice: Is there a Legitimacy Gap in Liberal Democracies?”, Heiko Giebler (SCRIPTS) argues that the current crisis of liberal democracies is not primarily about the rejection of liberal values. Rather, it reflects a growing mismatch between liberal ideals and their realization in political practice.

Drawing on data from the Public Attitudes towards the Liberal Script (PALS) survey—conducted between 2021 and 2023 in 30 countries with over 60,000 respondents—Giebler shows that:

• Support for liberal principles remains strong across most societies. There is no coherent, large-scale rejection of liberalism as a normative concept.
• However, citizens with strong liberal orientations tend to be more dissatisfied with how their political systems perform—even in established liberal democracies such as Germany, Sweden, or Japan.
• This pattern points to a potential “legitimacy gap”: liberal democracies retain believers in liberal ideals but risk losing their confidence in the institutions meant to uphold them.

As Giebler concludes:

“Defending liberal democracy against authoritarian challenges is essential—but renewing its everyday credibility by delivering on liberal promises may matter just as much.”

The complete PALS data are publicly available, and with the PALS Data Navigator, users can easily explore how people around the world think about liberal principles and political institutions:

To the PALS Data Navigator