Opposition Campaigns and Electoral Support in Democratic Backsliding: Evidence from Hungary

• In Event: Autocratic Institutions

Abstract

Why do opposition parties appear so ineffective in contesting elections in democratic backsliding regimes? How do they respond to democratic erosion and how could they resist it? The backsliding literature has focused on incumbents’ strategies of rule and their mass support. I contend that opposition parties are central yet understudied actors whose strategies are shaped by and shape backsliding. I argue that backsliding pushes opposition parties to focus on appealing to their extreme core voters, rather than moderate and uncertain voters. Empirically, I focus on media capture, a core process of democratic backsliding in the case of Hungary. I use difference-in-differences designs that exploit the incumbent’s staggered capture of Hungarian regional daily newspapers between 2015-2018. Collecting data on local politician and party social media posts, I find that the opposition increases social media activity, a tool to speak to core supporters, by 40% in response, and the most viable challenger party employs more polarizing, anti-incumbent messaging. Turning to voters’ behavior, I exploit the occurrence of the referendum on immigration in 2016, when regional dailies were incumbent controlled in some and independent in other localities. I show that capture is associated with overall lower electoral support for opposition parties' position. My findings show that democratic erosion fundamentally shapes opposition parties' electoral strategies and carry implications for how best to resist backsliding.

Author

• Hanna Folsz, Stanford University