In India, 85% of respondents to a 2023 survey said that military rule or rule by an authoritarian leader would be good for the country. India’s share was the highest among the 24 countries surveyed. Notably, the share of Indians who said that it is important for Opposition parties to operate freely was the third lowest among the countries surveyed. In 2023, the share of Indians who believed that representative democracy is a good way of governance declined considerably from 2017, when the same survey was conducted. Interestingly, a very high share of Indians also wanted experts to rule and not elected officials.
These were some of the conclusions of the Pew Research Center’s Spring 2023 Global Attitudes Survey. In India, face-to-face interviews were conducted between March 25 and May 11, 2023, among adults. The north-eastern States and the Andaman and Nicobar and Lakshadweep Islands were excluded. The sample was selected in a way that proportionally represents Indians across gender, age, education, region, and urbanity.
The survey asked about preferences for two types of authoritarian governance: one led by a powerful leader who operates without the need for approval from legislative or judicial bodies (authoritarian leader) and another governed by the military (military governance). Public support for at least one of these governance models varied significantly across countries, with 85% in India showing support in contrast to just 8% in Sweden. Such support was more prevalent in middle-income countries than in wealthier ones. Further, a higher proportion of respondents from countries in the Asia-Pacific, Africa, and Latin America expressed support for these models compared to those from Europe and North America.
Chart 1 | The chart displays the share of participants who believed that governance by a strong leader or military rule would be beneficial for their country, in 2023.
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In countries where fewer individuals regarded democratic values as crucial, there was a greater share of people favouring governance by an authoritarian leader or military rule. In countries where a smaller proportion of the population believed in the importance of allowing Opposition parties to operate without restrictions, there tended to be greater endorsement of authoritarian forms of governance. India had the third lowest share of people who considered the freedom of Opposition parties crucial. Concurrently, Indians exhibited high levels of support for authoritarian governance, as shown in Chart 2.
Chart 2 | The chart shows the share of participants who support authoritarian rule against the share of those who said that freedom of Opposition parties is not important.
Since the last survey in 2017, in many countries, there has been a notable decrease in support for representative democracy. In 11 of the 22 countries with comparable data from 2017 (excluding Australia and the U.S.), there was a significant reduction in the share of the population that viewed representative democracy as a highly effective method of governance.
Chart 3 | The chart shows the share of the population in India that viewed representative democracy as a highly effective method of governance.
Close to 44% of Indians believed that representative democracy was a very good approach in 2017, while just 36% held this view in 2023.
Compared to 2017, in 2023 there was also a considerable increase in the number of people who favoured a governance model where experts, rather than elected representatives, are put in charge of making crucial decisions. This shift in opinion towards technocracy may be partly attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic. This share in India increased from 65% in 2017 to 82% in 2023. The share who felt that this was a bad way of governance stayed put at around 15% in both these years.
Chart 4 | The chart shows the share of population in India who said that experts, rather than elected leaders, in charge of making crucial decisions is good (red)/ bad (blue).
Source: Pew survey
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