Abstract This book is the first in the ‘Beliefs in government’ series, and examines the general consensus that the relationship between citizens and the state in Western European societies have undergone a fundamental change over the last few decades, to the detriment of representative democracy. Addressing the problem from the citizen's perspective, it identifies the ten fundamental components of the view that representative democracy is under threat, and then proceeds to test them empirically against the dataset supplied by the Beliefs in Government research project. The results are startling. They refute the idea that citizens in Western Europe have withdrawn support from their democracies, but show exactly how the citizen–state relationship has changed over recent years. Traditional forms of expression have clearly declined, but others have evolved in their place. Citizens have become more critical towards politicians and political parties, and they are prepared to use non‐institutionalized forms of political action to pursue their goals and interests.
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