Sympathy for the devil? Voter support for illiberal politicians

Abstract

Many democracies are witnessing the rise and continuing success of parties and politicians who oppose fundamental principles of liberal democracy. Recent research finds that voters support illiberal politicians, because they trade off policy congruence against attitudes toward liberal democracy. Other studies, however, suggest that authoritarian and populist voters might actually have a preference to vote for illiberal candidates. We argue that both factors interact: Authoritarian and populist voters are more willing to trade off policy representation against support for liberal democracy. To test this mechanism, we rely on a survey experiment conducted in Germany. The results clearly demonstrate that voters indeed trade off policy congruence against liberal democracy. Moreover, this effect is particularly strong for populist and authoritarian voters. Overall, the results have important implications for understanding when and which voters support or oppose liberal democracy.

An insatiable hunger for charisma? A follower-centric analysis of populism and charismatic leadership

“…Therefore, future research should attempt to collect data in different time periods to filter out environmental effects. We should also be aware of several other relevant individual characteristics that could impact attributions of charisma, such as crisis perceptions (Carsten et al, 2019), identity-based self-uncertainty (Hogg, 2021), and authoritarian/narcissistic personality (Lewandowsky and Jankowski 2023; Williams et al, 2018). Exploring these aspects of populist followership should also be incorporated in the future.…”

Predictors of illiberalism in Romania: A case study during the Russian invasion in Ukraine

“…We expect similar attitudinal orientations in the general population holding illiberal views. There is a line of research showing that citizens support illiberal politicians especially because they share similar populist and authoritarian attitudes (Lewandowsky and Jankowski, 2023). For instance, people holding more illiberal democratic attitudes also tend to be more Eurosceptic than supporters of liberal views (Van der Brug et al, 2021), In the context of the war in Ukraine, it is a plausible assumption that people with illiberal tendencies will have a more positive attitude towards Russia, and a more negative attitude to the other party involved, namely Ukraine: H2a: Positive attitudes towards Russia are positively associated with illiberalism.…”

Does Democratic Backsliding Depend on the Policy Issue? Evidence from a Conjoint Experiment

“…Many studies on undemocratic trade-offs have stressed the role of "partisan hypocrisy" in driving citizens' willingness to tolerate undemocratic behaviour of candidates representing their favoured party (Carey et al 2022;Gidengil, Stolle, and Bergeron-Boutin 2022;Graham and Svolik 2020). Other studies show that issue congruence may play a similar role in generating these trade-off effects (Graham and Svolik 2020, Saikkonen and Christensen 2022, Lewandowsky & Jankowski, 2022). Moreover, recent literature on democratic backsliding has focused on 'pernicious polarization' and the deliberate politicisation of identity-related issues as a driver of democratic backsliding (McCoy and Somer 2019;Somer, McCoy, and Luke 2021).…”

“…An emerging literature shows that while an overwhelming majority of citizens in established democracies may adhere to democratic norms at an abstract level , they do not always prioritize these principles when they need to make trade-offs between them and other valued political goals such as policy outputs or partisan gains (Carey et al 2022;Frederiksen 2022;Gidengil, Stolle, and Bergeron-Boutin 2022;Graham and Svolik 2020;Lewandowsky and Jankowski 2022;Mazepus and Toshkov 2022;Saikkonen and Christensen 2022;Svolik 2020).…”

“…Schäfer 2022;Carmines and Stimson 1986;Ciuk and Yost 2016;Wojcieszak 2014). While earlier studies have found that issue congruence may play an important role in the propensity of the people to accept undemocratic behaviour by politicians (Graham and Svolik 2020;Lewandowsky and Jankowski 2022;Saikkonen and Christensen 2022), it has remained unclear what differences exist across different types of policy issues. Recent literature on democratic backsliding has stressed the role of group conflicts in democratic backsliding and has argued that these can emerge from the deliberate politicization of divisive societal issues, such as identity questions, by authoritarian political entrepreneurs(McCoy and Somer 2019).…”