Does In-Party Conformity Undermine Democratic Norms?

• In Event: Populism, Partisanship, and Threats to Democracy

Abstract

What drives partisans' willingness to undermine democracy? Recent research suggests that perceptions of the opposing party's willingness to violate democratic norms have a significant impact on an individual's own willingness to do so. Partisans tend to overestimate the other side's willingness to undermine democracy, which in turn leads them to be more willing to violate democratic norms themselves. However, when these perceptions are corrected, willingness to violate democratic norms decreases.

Despite the importance of emphasizing the effect of out-party perceptions, there are reasons to believe that partisans' commitment to democratic norms is more dependent on perceptions about in-partisans. In this paper, we shift the focus from the out-party to the in-party by investigating how information about in-partisans' willingness to violate democratic norms and values influences one's own willingness to violate these norms.

Based on a survey experiment in the United States with 2,000 respondents, we test the hypothesis that willingness to violate democratic norms follows the in-group. Specifically, we assign factual information from The Polarization Research Lab (2022) about partisans' willingness to break democratic norms and estimate the effects of correcting either in- or out-party perceptions on willingness to violate norms. We calculate the magnitude of the misperceptions and expect that gaps between meta-perceptions and reality affect willingness to violate norms more strongly for in-party corrections than for out-party corrections. Moreover, we argue that and test whether these effects are particularly pronounced for individuals with a high need to conform with in-groups.

Our study increases knowledge of willingness to break democratic norms and democratic backsliding more broadly. We suggest that willingness to subvert democracy is driven by perceptions of the in-party to a greater extent than perceptions of the out-party. This is particularly important, because people arguably are more exposed to information about in-group members than out-group members.

Authors

• Lea Pradella, Aarhus University

• Laurits Aarslew, Aarhus University

• Kristian Vrede Skaaning Frederiksen, Aarhus University