This study explores why political parties often negatively assess democratic institutions despite widespread public acceptance.

The Citizen-Party Gap: The research highlights a discrepancy between how citizens and mainstream political parties view democracy. While the 'critical citizens' literature shows negative evaluations, this article examines whether parties themselves can be critical.

Core Mechanisms: We develop two mechanisms: 1) Parties' access to power shapes their support for democratic institutions; 2) Over time habituation toward established democracies moderates these effects.

Expert Surveys in Europe: Using expert surveys of significant electorally parties across 24 European nations from 2008-2013, we find:

* Regular Access Effect: Parties evaluate institutions positively when they have consistent access to power within a democracy, irrespective of ideology or regime duration.

* Duration Buffer: The length of democratic rule indirectly influences party assessments by providing stability against recent electoral defeats.

Volatile Party Systems: Our findings suggest that increased volatility in European party systems raises the possibility of parties increasingly offering negative evaluations of democracies themselves.