Keep Positive and Defend Democracy: Building Democratic Support Under Authoritarianism

Abstract

Building support for democracy and raising awareness about the consequences of its absence is essential to support the process of democratization in autocratic regimes; however, it is not an easy task. While an abstract discussion of the merits of democratic institutions might be ineffective, open discussions of the regime’s authoritarian nature can be counter-productive and dangerous. Our study builds on prospect theory to inform the design of three educational interventions to promote democracy as a political system while varying the tone of the message. Using a randomized-controlled trial we identify which treatment is most effective at building support for democracy in authoritarian contexts: the gains of democracy, the losses of non-democracy, or a neutral frame. Our study was conducted in Turkey where we recruited more than 4,000 respondents through online social media plat- forms to evaluate the impact of our interventions. Our results demonstrate that all civic education treatments could successfully build support for democracy among respondents. However, only respondents assigned to the gain-frame video evalu- ated Turkey’s regime as more authoritarian and became less likely to vote for the government in an upcoming election. Our paper discusses why this is the case and how this finding contributes to the existing literature on both civic education and public opinion formation under authoritarian regimes.