The Public’s Conditional Constraint of Efforts to Undermine Democratic Norms

• In Event: Support for Democratic Norms, Values, and Principles

Abstract

There has been much scholarly discussion about increasingly antidemocratic political rhetoric, the erosion of public support for democratic norms and institutions, and the implications for democratic backsliding. Underlying this literature is a concern about whether the citizenry holds officials accountable for efforts to undermine democratic principles. We theorize that an appeal to an injunctive civic norm about how political leaders “ought to” behave increases the electorate’s willingness to hold elites accountable. We implement a series of survey experiments focused on a U.S. election in which a candidate advocates for violating democratic norms. We demonstrate that the injunctive civic appeal reduces people’s support for their party’s norm-violating candidate, but it, ultimately, has limited effects on vote choice. Beyond this, we analyze how the effects of injunctive norms are contingent on elites’ use of policy goals to justify their actions. In doing so, we isolate the conditions under which the public punishes candidates for rhetoric that violates democratic principles and the obstacles faced by strategic efforts designed to improve accountability.

Authors

• David Ciuk, Franklin & Marshall College

• Kevin J. Mullinix, University of Kansas