Democracy and its Vulnerabilities: Dynamics of Democratic Backsliding

Luo, Zhaotian; Przeworski, Adam

doi:10.1561/100.00021112

Cited by 20 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…Yet, democratic stability also requires that people are willing to translate their pro-democratic attitudes into practice, by being willing to defend democracy against the transgressions of political leaders (Weingast 1997, 2005, Fearon 2011, for a discussion, see also Luo and Przeworski 2019). Indeed, classical liberal democratic theory stresses the need for citizen vigilance against “the potential abuse of power by the state” (Norris 2011, 245).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Guardians of Democracy or Passive Bystanders? A Conjoint Experiment on Elite Transgressions of Democratic Norms

Saikkonen

Christensen

2022

Political Research Quarterly

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Emerging literature shows that citizens in established democracies do not unconditionally support central democratic principles when asked to weigh them against co-partisanship or favored policy positions. However, these studies are conducted in highly polarized contexts, and it remains unclear whether the underlying mechanisms also operate in more consensual contexts. Furthermore, it is unclear whether “critical citizens” or satisfied democrats are more eager to support democratic principles. We study these questions with evidence from a conjoint experiment conducted in Finland ( n = 1030), an established democracy with high levels of democratic satisfaction and a consensual political culture. We examine how transgressions of two central democratic norms, the legitimacy of political opposition and the independence of the judiciary, affect leader favorability. We also explore how these differ across ideological and policy congruence and across levels of political disaffection. Our results show that some segments of the Finnish population are willing to condone authoritarian behavior if this brings them political benefits. Furthermore, we find that satisfied rather than “critical” citizens are more likely to sanction such behavior. These findings suggest that dangers of democratic deconsolidation may appear even in consensus democracies with relatively low levels of political polarization.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Guardians of Democracy or Passive Bystanders? A Conjoint Experiment on Elite Transgressions of Democratic Norms

Saikkonen

Christensen

2022

Political Research Quarterly

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“…For instance, our mechanism continues to operate in a model of non‐ideological challenges or ‘power grabs’ formally studied in Supplemental Appendix C.3 (p. 13). In this setting, challenges do not expand the set of achievable policy outcomes, but they directly improve the incumbent's chances of staying in power, thereby insulating him from public opinion (as in Gratton and Lee 2020; Luo and Przeworski 2020).…”

Section: Robustnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Scholars have focused on two main culprits: the rise of mass polarization and the weakening of political parties. Recent work formally and experimentally shows how higher mass polarization leads fewer voters to sanction violations of democratic norms (Carey et al 2020;Chiopris, Nalepa, and Vanberg 2021;Graham and Svolik 2020;Luo and Przeworski 2020;Miller 2021). A common premise of these theories is that elected incumbents have authoritarian ambitions (Svolik 2019) in pursuit of which they are willing to sacrifice popular support.…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, citizens disagree about how tight immigration restrictions should be, but they all prefer that due process and rule of law be respected. This aversion can be justified by the presence of future periods in which democratic backsliding reduces constraints on office-holders or makes it harder to remove them from office (Luo and Przeworski 2020).…”

Section: Baseline Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…in power, thereby insulating him from public opinion (as in Gratton and Lee 2020;Luo and Przeworski 2020).…”

Section: Robustnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Reference Points and Democratic Backsliding

Grillo

Prato

2021

American J Political Sci

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We propose a theory of democratic backsliding where citizens' retrospective assessment of an incumbent politician depends on expectations that are endogenous to the incumbent's behaviour. We show that democratic backsliding can occur even when most citizens and most politicians intrinsically value democracy. By challenging norms of democracy, an incumbent can lower citizens' expectations; by not doubling down on this challenge, he can then beat this lowered standard. As a result, gradual backsliding can actually enhance an incumbent's popular support not despite but because of citizens' opposition to backsliding. This mechanism can only arise when citizens are uncertain enough about incumbents' preferences (e.g. owing to programmatically weak parties). Mass polarization, instead, can reduce the occurrence of backsliding while simultaneously increasing its severity.

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You can’t always get what you want: why revolutionary outcomes so often diverge from revolutionary goals

Goldstone

2023

Public Choice

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Democracy and its Vulnerabilities: Dynamics of Democratic Backsliding

Cited by 20 publications

References 0 publications

Guardians of Democracy or Passive Bystanders? A Conjoint Experiment on Elite Transgressions of Democratic Norms

Guardians of Democracy or Passive Bystanders? A Conjoint Experiment on Elite Transgressions of Democratic Norms

Reference Points and Democratic Backsliding

You can’t always get what you want: why revolutionary outcomes so often diverge from revolutionary goals

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