Do democratic transitions affect citizens’ subsequent support for democracy? We propose that the type of democratic transition (citizen-centered vs elite-centered) shapes citizens’ support for democracy through the investment created by citizen participation in the transition and the expectations this generates about the future under democracy. We test our hypotheses using democratic transitions data from Geddes et al. (2014) and harmonized survey data of citizens’ support for democracy from nearly 500,000 respondents in 78 established and new democracies over the period 1946-2015. Our results show a consistent negative effect of elite-centered transitions on support for democracy, while the effects of citizen-centered transitions are less robust and much more context-dependent. Using an augmented difference-in-difference estimation we can underpin these findings by isolating the causal effect of transitions. Our results indicate the political socialization effect and long-lasting impact of major political events on individuals’ democratic attitudes.