Support For Democracy Research Articles

The COVID-19 lockdown paradox: democratic support during democratic restrictions

Abstract Previous research has shown that positive perceptions of government performance are linked to higher levels of citizens’ support for democracy. However, the policy response to the COVID-19 crisis presented a unique paradox as relative success in preventing the virus spread depended on expanding executive powers, often at the cost of individual freedoms. Exploring this paradox, we investigate whether the link between perceptions of government performance and support for democracy holds in a situation where positive performance essentially means a restriction of freedoms. Using original survey data from seven European countries, we show that notwithstanding the democratic sacrifices, people with positive evaluations of the government’s response are more likely to maintain support for the democratic system. Nevertheless, people weighed responses to the health domain more heavily than to the economic domain, suggesting that the output legitimacy – democratic support link varies across domain-specific evaluations.

Trust the People? Populism, Trust, and Support for Direct Democracy

Populism is commonly understood as a response to frustrations with the functioning of modern democracy, while the use of direct democratic mechanisms has been hailed as a remedy for the ailing of representative democracies. Indeed, populism’s emphasis on direct citizen participation in decision-making is tightly linked to its distrust of representative institutions and the political elite as the cornerstone of mediated representation. Trust, however, matters for any functioning democratic institutional arrangement, and we contend that its role warrants more attention when considering the viability of alternative modes of decision-making such as referendums, particularly in the nexus of populism–democracy. Using original public opinion surveys implemented in Argentina, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, we distinguish among different objects of trust—elites, institutions, “the people,” or the society at large. We also explore citizens’ levels of trust in these objects and their association with institutional designs of direct democracy. Our results offer preliminary insights into the importance of horizontal and vertical trust relationships in shaping procedural preferences for different configurations of direct democracy.

The Double-Edged Sword: How State Capacity Prolongs Autocratic Tenure but Hastens Democratization

This paper is concerned with state capacity and autocrat survival. We argue that state strength in autocracies increases leader tenure but reduces the stability of the regime itself; stronger autocracies run a higher risk of transitioning to democracy. This trade-off arises as a result of how state capacity affects the behavior of elite challengers. A stronger state reduces the likelihood of the ruler being ousted by force, inducing rival elites to switch tactics to peaceful support for democracy. An autocrat may prolong his tenure by investing in state capacity, but this brings on the downfall of the autocratic regime itself. We analyze the implications of our argument using a variety of historical sources providing information on 47 autocracies from 1800 to 2012. Our empirical findings, in part based on original data collection, are in line with the theoretical expectations: in strong states autocrats survive, but autocracies die.

Norms of Democracy, Staged Democrats, and Supply of Exclusionary Ideology

Existing literature sees attitudinal support for liberal democratic values as a crucial way to prevent the success of illiberal actors and their policies. But recent studies show that democratic support can coexist with lack of punishment for backsliding practices. To reconcile these findings, I argue that social norms generate incentives to declare that one opposes illiberal actors even if one does not—what I call staged democrats. Staged democrats are not a stable safeguard against illiberal politicians, because information shocks can reveal that they do not sincerely oppose illiberalism. Studying Switzerland, where referendums provide information on the sincere preferences of citizens, I collect data on referendum results, public opinion surveys, and party positions. My analyses show that if referendums reveal that the positions of far-right parties are more popular than expected, those parties become more exclusionary. Attitudes only prevent illiberal policy if they are sincerely held.

State of Democracy in Central Europe after the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

The central question of this article is why Russian military aggression in Ukraine has failed to strengthen support for democracy and cooperation with partners in some Central European countries. In addition, the article examines the link between military conflict in the immediate neighbourhood and the crisis of democracy. Based on a review of the extensive literature on the crisis of democracy, the article integrates findings from several opinion polls conducted in Central European countries. Looking primarily at the Visegrad countries, clear patterns emerge in responses and attitudes towards Russia. We can see the influence of the political discourse in these countries, the narratives used by political elites and, more recently, war fatigue and economic consequences. The article argues that a military conflict in the vicinity of democratic countries exacerbates the crisis of democracy. The information warfare that is part of this conflict and the susceptibility of the political elite to the dissemination of enemy propaganda undermines trust in democratic institutions and democracy.

Does it matter that an ally is democratic during crises? Public diplomacy and attitudes towards international allies in times of crisis

Abstract Can public diplomacy in times of crisis shape citizens’ attitudes towards international politics? Using a survey experiment in Italy, we evaluated whether information cues about public diplomacy efforts by the United States and China to assist the country in dealing with the COVID-19 emergency shifted the importance citizens attached to Italy’s international allies being democracies. We found that citizens who receive positive cues about USA efforts to assist Italy report a stronger preference for Italy interacting with democracies. At the same time, when they received positive cues about China’s efforts to assist Italy, they discounted the importance attached to international allies being democracies. We further found that these effects are conditional on the participants’ support for democracy at home. We argue that these findings are consistent with a cognitive dissonance framework where citizens update their attitudes to decrease dissonant cognitions when they receive information that challenges prior beliefs or expectations.

Are autocratic donors impeding democracy abroad? The presence of autocratic donors and citizens' perceptions of democracy

AbstractDoes the presence of autocratic donors alter citizens' perceptions of democracy? The paper argues that the presence of autocratic donors can alter citizens' views of donors' influence and support for democracy. The study analyses, on the donor side Chinese development assistance from AidData, one of the largest autocratic donors worldwide and, on the recipient side, Serbia—a middle‐income country where both Western and non‐traditional donors are heavily involved with aid projects. The findings suggest that in the presence of higher levels of aid from autocratic donors, citizens who uphold a very positive view of donors' political influence are the least likely to support democracy. The article proposes two main mechanisms: the attribution processes of aid and the instrumentalization of foreign aid by elites. The analysis employs a mixed‐method approach, combining mixed‐ordered probit regression of aid and municipal‐level survey data with insights from 16 interviews with experts on Serbia who have direct experience with aid initiatives or research. The study contributes to advancing our understanding of the impact of autocratic donors on citizens' support for democracy.

When Do South Koreans Support Government Restrictions on Media? The Roles of Partisanship and Democratic Support

Despite freedoms of speech and media constituting a key role of liberal democracy, little attention falls on public tolerance of government restrictions on media. South Korea provides a unique context to assess partisan views as well as views on preferences for democracy. Using original survey data, this analysis finds broad opposition to government restrictions, in line with expectations of liberal democracies. However, consistent with the losers’ consent literature, support varies based on support for electoral winners versus losers. Meanwhile, those identifying strengths in authoritarian rule were also more supportive of restrictions, with little evidence of generalised social trust influencing perceptions.

Affective Polarization Among Radical‐Right Supporters: Dislike Differentiation and Democratic Support

Partisan affective polarization describes the extent to which different partisans like or dislike each other. In Europe, affective dislike is strongest towards the radical-right, as mainstream voters tend to hold particularly negative affect towards radical-right supporters. This is an important pattern given the recent high levels of support for radical-right parties, for example in the Netherlands, France, and Italy. However, the perspective of radical-right supporters themselves has been largely neglected in existing work. To remedy this, we examine how radical-right supporters feel towards supporters of mainstream parties. We develop a new concept, dislike differentiation, which refers to the extent to which radical-right supporters differentiate in the dislike they harbor towards mainstream parties. We use two new studies that sampled 2,628 radical-right supporters in nine European polities. We find that some supporters reject all mainstream parties, whereas others follow more typical patterns of political competition along ideological lines. Dislike differentiation among radical-right supporters is linked to key socio-political phenomena, including party attachment, ideological extremism, satisfaction with democracy, and political tolerance. By creating a novel typology combining out-party dislike and dislike differentiation, we show that anti-system radical-right supporters, characterized by high out-party dislike and low dislike differentiation, are the least supportive of democracy. By centering our analysis on those voters that receive and radiate the highest levels of negative affect, we advance knowledge on what fosters polarized attitudes and intolerance in Europe’s multiparty systems in times when the electoral popularity of the radical-right is surging.

Democratic backsliding against a rising wave of support for democracy? Explaining trends in attitudes toward democracy in Poland (1995–2021)

The analysis presented in this article tries to address a puzzle – the widely recognized process of democratic backsliding in Poland was accompanied by a steady increase in popular support for democracy. It poses a question if the two phenomena are substantively related. To establish possible connections between them, I test three hypotheses involving populist winner effect, deepening of socio-political cleavage, and generational change. The first one assumes that democracy is more supported by populists when they form a government; the second one – to the contrary – states that populist polarization creates a wider gap in support for democracy, while the third one proposes that the relation is spurious, as trends in attitudes represent a gradual, long-term social change, at least in part related to generational replacement. Results show that the direct link between populist democratic backsliding and pro-democracy surge is relatively weak, while both processes can be related to a deeper sociological process of ‘splintering’ within Polish society.

Viewing Violence through a Partisan Lens: How Electoral Violence Shapes Citizens' Support for Democracy

Viewing Violence through a Partisan Lens: How Electoral Violence Shapes Citizens' Support for Democracy

Russia’s Autocratic Resilience and the Sources of Political Change: Lankina’s Estate Origins

In Estate Origins, Tomila Lankina sheds new light on the logic of persistence and resilience in the Russian social structure that shapes political possibilities in Russia to the present day. It is a wonderful and rewarding read on the historical origins of social requisites of democracy, such as greater civic activism and more pluralistic political competition. To understand variation in attitudinal and behavioral support for democracy in contemporary Russia, according to Lankina, we must go back to tsarist Russia’s estate institutions. A set of institutions that codified the rights and privileges of different social groups, the estates system created incentives for an eclectic and growing stratum of urban dwellers known as meshchane to invest in education while simultaneously fostering the creation of institutional “infrastructures”—professions, educational institutions, charitable, civic, and local governance bodies—that retained during the communist period a degree of autonomy vis-à-vis the state. This, Lankina argues, allowed the meshchane’s distinct value orientations to persist over time.

Positive beliefs about cross-partisan empathy can strengthen Americans' support for democracy.

Undemocratic practices, such as voter suppression and election interference, threaten democracies worldwide. Across four studies (N = 4,350), we find that informational and motivational factors drive Americans' support for such practices. Partisans drastically overestimate how much opponents support undemocratic practices, which decreases people's willingness to defend democracy themselves (S1-S2). One remedy for this dynamic is to inform people about the extent to which their rivals actually support democracy, but in polarized contexts, people are incurious about the true beliefs of outpartisans. To address this, we test a new method for improving democratic attitudes-changing beliefs about cross-party empathy. Empathizing across disagreements can improve connections and boost persuasion. When people learn about these valued consequences of empathic engagement, their curiosity about outpartisans increases (S3), and they choose to learn about opponents' support for democracy, which reduces their own support for undemocratic practices and politicians (S4). Our findings suggest that fostering support for democracy requires not just informational strategies but also motivational ones. The power of our combined approach comes in that-instead of presenting people with information about outpartisans-it induces them to seek out that information themselves. Together, these results highlight how cross-party empathy beliefs can increase people's curiosity about those they disagree with and disrupt processes of political escalation.

Breaking free from linear assumptions: Unravelling the relationship between affective polarization and democratic support

AbstractScholars increasingly raise concerns about the alleged detrimental impact of affective polarization on citizens’ democratic attitudes. Yet, prior studies on the relationship between affective polarization and democratic support have yielded mixed results: Whereas some scholars report evidence that affective polarization erodes citizens’ support for democracy, others report null findings. In this research note, we posit that one relevant explanation for these mixed results is that the relationship between affective polarization and democratic support is not linear, but rather negatively curvilinear (i.e., an inverted U‐shape). Though extreme levels of affective polarization may harm citizens’ democratic commitments, a moderate amount of affective polarization can strengthen democratic support by heightening the political stakes and stimulating democratic involvement. Employing generalized additive modelling on data from the CNEP collected in Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States, we show strong and robust support for this negatively curvilinear pattern. These findings have important implications for our understanding of the dynamics between affective polarization and democratic support, as well as for the recommended estimation strategies of future studies that aim to explore this relationship.

Winds of change: democratic transitions and long-term democratic support

ABSTRACT 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.

The perils to democratic consolidation: citizens’ opinion on the army and support for democracy

The perils to democratic consolidation: citizens’ opinion on the army and support for democracy

Nature without Suffering: Herbivorisation of Predator Species for the Compassionate Stewardship of Earth’s Ecosystems

Abstract Predation causes suffering and the premature deaths of prey animals. With innovative technologies on the horizon, humanity could phase it out. We argue that herbivorisation, i.e., turning carnivorous species into herbivorous ones with biotechnologies, is better than other strategies for ending predation, because it is the one most likely to preserve environmental values such as biodiversity and receive democratic support. Pressure on vegetation in herbivorised ecosystems would increase, but fertility control could relieve this pressure. We respond to other objections and conclude that the process should be considered as a future megaproject to reduce naturogenic harms.

What an Instrumentalist Perspective Adds to Cultural-Modernization Theory: Support for Democracy and Gender Equality in the Middle East

The comparative MENA literature on democratic support and the role of gender equality attitudes show mixed results despite the dominant cultural-modernization perspective predicting a positive interrelationship. Building on recent work, this paper derives and formulates the instrumentalist approach to democratic support as a supplement to the culturalist-modernization approach. It argues that people’s policy preferences and expectations of democracy are crucial to understand how democratic support is gendered, and part of these expectations are shaped by the political-institutional variations across the MENA region. Empirically, survey data from 47 AB and WVS surveys covering 13 MENA countries (2001–2014), are analysed. These data include information on support for gender equality, democracy, and the degree to which respondents link women’s rights to democracy. They are complemented with institutional information on the extent to which elections can form a threat to gender equality through empowering conservative Islamic forces via these elections. The multilevel regression models show initial support for cultural-modernization theory as the support for democracy and for gender equality correlate positively. This relationship is conditional to the risk elections pose to women’s position and whether people think democracy will bring gender equality thus illustrating the importance of adding an instrumentalist perspective. The support for democracy not only depends on the how much MENA citizens value democracy as a good in itself, it also depends on whether they expect democracy to be an instrument that helps further their other policy goals.

Hiding the Hate—Contextual Effects on Hate Crime Reports

This study examines the influence of local norm shifts driven by white supremacist ideology on hate crime reporting by US law enforcement agencies. Results show a substantial association, indicating a threefold increase in expected hate crimes reports in counties experiencing a spike in local hate group activity. Specifically, Republican vote share acts as a moderator, reducing reported hate crimes by 23% in counties with strong Republican support and right-wing hate group presence. Adjacent Republican counties also show a 13% reduction in expected reports, suggesting a spillover effect. Beyond local politics, a regional impact is evident; Northeastern counties with higher right-wing hate group presence show a 23% lower incidence rate. Using longitudinal data from the FBI UCR, SPLC, MIT Election Lab, and the US Census (2010–2020), through negative binomial regressions, this study highlights how right-wing hate groups can affect law enforcement’s enforcement of general civil rights depending on the local context.

Where You Sit Is Where You Stand: Perceived (In)Equality and Demand for Democracy in Africa

In this paper, I explore whether perceived individual inequality is associated with popular demand for democracy in 33 African countries. Past research has diverged on whether individual-level inequality should increase or decrease support for democracy, with some arguing that people might see democracy as a solution to inequality, and others that people might see it as a cause. Much of this research however uses country- level measures of inequality. Recent research however increasingly suggests that such country-level scores of inequality insufficiently capture how ordinary people perceive levels of inequality. I advance our understanding of co-variates of demand for democracy by using a perceptual measure of inequality from the Afrobarometer survey: how people feel their living situation compares to others in their country. I find that perceived relative equality is significantly associated with greater demand for democracy, while perceptions of both relative deprivation and relative advantage are significantly associated with lower democratic demand. These effects are largely significant above and beyond the effect of absolute poverty and known predictors of demand for democracy, such as free and fair elections and level of education.