Social Norms, Preference Falsification, and Democratic Resilience

• In Event: Countering Illiberalism in Liberal Democracies II: Norms and Political Behavior

Abstract

Individual-level support for democracy is often regarded as a safeguard against back-sliding. I argue that this argument conflates two states of the world. In one, citizens are sincere democrats who genuinely support democracy. In another, they are staged democrats, who falsify a democratic preference to avoid social costs. In both states of the world, citizens do not overwhelmingly act against democracy. The crucial difference between the two states is that staged democratic support is not a stable safeguard against politicians with norm-breaching views. If they perceive that their policies have more private support than meets the eye, these politicians will be more likely to put forward policies at odds with democratic values. To test these expectations, I leverage a unique setting in Switzerland where referendum results provide information shocks about the private preferences of citizens. Using a dataset of referendum results linked to public opinion surveys and data on party positions, I show that when referendums suggest that radical-right positions are more popular than indicated by surveys, radical-right parties become less positive of minorities in the subsequent election. The results suggest that one reason why many citizens do not punish violations of democratic values is that they may not truly support those values.

Author

• Vicente Valentim, Nuffield College, University of Oxford