In this study we replicate American studies of discrepancy at the aggregate level between popular agreement about abstract democratic principles and the lack of their application to particular political contexts. We explain this discrepancy by adopting a research design which allows us to assess the functional relationships between respondents' evaluation of democratic norms and the major expressions contained in these norms, including the engaged democratic values.Multivariate statistical analyses showed a systematic tendency for the democratic value component to have the greatest weight and the group evaluation component the least weight in Danes' formation of democratic norms. This stress pattern was replicated across a series of subgroups of Danes varying in level of political interest, amount of formal education, and extent of subjective social competence.