Preserving democratic governance and human rights is considered to be one of the key contemporary values of Europe. It is also one of the key ‘Copenhagen criteria’ that needs to be met before any country can be considered as a potential member of the European Union. According to the 2008 European Values Survey, only a very small fraction of Europeans said they ‘disagreed strongly’ when asked if democracy is the best political system. This map shows their geographical distribution. Kosovo has the largest percentage of population strongly disagreeing with this statement. However, the value for Kosovo is only 4.5%, followed by Bulgaria (3.1%).

People disagreeing strongly with the statement that democracy is the best political system may, of course, believe that there is a better system that no one has invented yet, and that what many countries currently have is not the best there could ever be. Alternatively they may think that what is called a democratic system is, in fact, easily manipulated by a few ‘special interests’ with access to money, the media and politicians. This group may also include people who can remember, or have been told stories about, less democratic times in their own country when they thought the area was better run than it is today. It is notable that in Italy and Greece in 2008, very few people were strongly opposed to democracy.

According to the 2008 European Values Survey, an estimated 2% of all respondents believe that the army ruling the country would be a very good political system. This map shows their geographical distribution.