IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/has/discpr/2515.html

Democracy and AI Acceptance: Cross-Country Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Hubert János Kiss

    (ELTE Centre for Economic and Regional Studies; Corvinus University of Budapest)

  • Alfonso Rosa-García

    (Universidad de Murcia)

Abstract

We study whether political regime type is associated with public attitudes toward artificial intelligence (AI). Using nationally representative surveys from 47 countries (2024–2025) and the EIU Democracy Index as our primary measure of regime quality, we relate democracy to three outcomes: AI acceptance, perceived trustworthiness and trust in AI. We find a negative association between democracy and all three outcomes that attenuates yet persists after adding country-level sociodemographics and AI literacy. Results are robust to alternative regime measures and to replacing contemporaneous democracy with lagged democracy measured prior to the AI boom. They also hold when accounting for cultural differences using an individualism–collectivism index. Finally, we show that democracy partly accounts for the AI acceptance premium recently documented in emerging countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Hubert János Kiss & Alfonso Rosa-García, 2025. "Democracy and AI Acceptance: Cross-Country Evidence," KRTK-KTI WORKING PAPERS 2515, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:has:discpr:2515
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://kti.krtk.hu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/KRTKKTIWP202515.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • P50 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Comparative Economic Systems - - - General
    • Z10 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:has:discpr:2515. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Nora Horvath The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Nora Horvath to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iehashu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.