The Social Media Impact of Democratic Backsliding: Evidence from Côte d’Ivoire

• In Event: Understanding Democratic Backsliding through Text-as-Data Analysis

Abstract

How does democratic backsliding mobilize the opposition? We leverage a common episode of democratic backsliding in Africa – incumbents running for a 3rd term despite a term limit – to examine its effects on opposition behavior on social media. Through computational text analysis, we analyze over 1 million public Facebook posts in groups supporting political actors in Côte d’Ivoire in the run-up to the 2020 elections. We find that prior to the incumbent’s announcement, opposition supporters were preparing to participate in what they perceived as a competitive and viable election. However, once the incumbent announced his third term run, opposition rhetoric shifted to expressions of disillusionment with democracy, concerns about election integrity, and appeals for peace (and violence) rooted in condemnation of the incumbent. We show how examining social media can provide insight into the processes underpinning democratic disillusionment in the wake of backsliding.

Authors

• Justine Davis, University of Michigan

• Irene Morse, University of Michigan