A Tale of Two Cities: Spillover Effects of a Democratic Tsunami

• In Event: Poster Session: Politics of Communist and Former Communist Countries & Critical Political Science
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Politics of Communist and Former Communist Countries

Abstract

Various studies show that electoral shocks can have spillover effects across national borders in liberal democracies. Yet, less is known about whether this framework is applicable in electoral autocracies and across subnational borders. To test this idea, I study the spillover effect of the 2019 Hong Kong District Council election, in which the opposition won a landslide victory. Employing unexpected event during survey design, I find that, after this democratic tsunami, citizens in the neighbouring city—Macau—change their perception of electoral fairness and the importance of democracy, but their pro-government support remains stable. Crucially, the reaction is stratified by education level: citizens with higher education view the electoral process as more unfair and they are more likely to express the importance of living in a democratic country. These findings extend our understanding of how an electoral shock in electoral autocracies affects democratic norms across borders.

Author

• Ka Ming Chan, Consortium on Electoral Democracy