Who would mourn democracy? Liberals might, but it depends on who’s in charge.

Abstract

Despite widespread support for the principles of democracy, democratic norms have been eroding globally for over a decade. We ask whether and how political ideology factors into people's reactions to democratic decline. We offer hypotheses derived from two theoretical lenses, one considering ideologically-relevant dispositions, and another considering ideologically-relevant situations. Pre-registered laboratory experiments combined with analyses of World Values Survey data indicate that there is a dispositional trend: Overall, liberals are more distressed than conservatives by low democracy. At the same time, situational factors also matter: This pattern emerges most strongly when the ruling party is conservative, and disappears (though it does not flip into its mirror image) when the ruling party is liberal. Our results contribute to ongoing debates over ideological symmetry and asymmetry; they also suggest that, if democracy is worth protecting, not everyone, everywhere will feel the urgency.

Antidemocratic tendencies on the left, the right, and beyond: A critical review of the theory and measurement of left‐wing authoritarianism

“…Nevertheless, recent studies suggest that there are differences at least in perceptions of threat, consistent with the proposed account (Brandt et al, 2021;Kahn et al, 2022): Right-wing conservative ideology tends to be associated with concern about terrorism, war, and immigration (i.e., threats to the normative order), while left-wing ideology tends to be associated with concern about poverty, climate change, inequality, and racism (i.e., threats to progressive values). Furthermore, Benjamin et al (2022) found that liberals were more distressed by low democracy than conservatives were, but this difference disappeared when the ruling party was liberal, which plausibly reduces the perceived threat to progressive values.…”

“…Furthermore, Benjamin et al. (2022) found that liberals were more distressed by low democracy than conservatives were, but this difference disappeared when the ruling party was liberal, which plausibly reduces the perceived threat to progressive values.…”