Shared Political Values as the Foundation of American Democracy's Stability

• In Event: Poster Session: Current and Classical Topics in Political Psychology & State Politics and Policy
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Current and Classical Topics in Political Psychology

Abstract

The sentiment that American democracy stands over a precipice has reached a fever pitch. Thousands of headlines argue it. Hundreds of books have been written about it. Across the political spectrum, seven out of ten Americans believe it.
What specifically makes American democracy stable? Most of the scholarly, popular work on this topic – How Democracies Die (2019), Election Meltdown (2020), Four Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy (2020) and Authoritarianism Here? (2022) – looks primarily to political institutions. They explore the risks to democracies posed by: partisan state electoral certifications, executive subversion of courts or federal agencies, political party nominating rules, and mass media manipulation. These are all important problems—but they are symptoms, not causes. For example, Trump’s words and deeds harm American democracy, but he is a consequence, not a root cause.
Thus, the most well-known contemporary examinations of American democracy's stability have narrowly focused on institutions. Yet, if we take a broader approach, combining political philosophy, history, and modern psychology, and when we rely upon a heterogeneity of sources, classical, Enlightenment, and contemporary, it becomes evident that it is what is the minds of the people, their political values, that best answers the question about the sources of democratic stability.
From our investigation, we conclude that the greatest threat facing American democracy stems from rival factions stoking fear of fellow citizens, and that therefore the specific cultural practices that uphold American democracy's stability are shared political values. We identify three such values: an Equality of Dignity, the Agency of the Free Individual, and an Effective Association.
The first value, an Equality of Dignity begins Montesquieu’s conclusion that equality is democracy’s most important “virtue.” Though types of equality abound – economic, racial, based on outcomes or based on opportunities, etc. - for American democracy in particular, the equality that matters most is a respect for every fellow citizen’s right to be free from poverty and violence, to have work, and to choose their own beliefs.
The second shared political value, the Agency of the Free Individual, stems from America’s ideological allegiance to a) Locke and his belief in the supremacy of human liberty, and to b) free enterprise. Small businesses remain the most trusted institution in America today. This fusion of thought produces America’s lionization of individual agency.
Finally, a society that consists only of individuals with agency and equal dignity will nonetheless perish without cooperation. This interdependence is at the core of an Effective Association. As Tocqueville highlighted in 1835, democracy demands citizens come together and solve problems. Americans struggle to listen to each other historically and today, but they also have a long history of solving problems.

Author

• Raphael Rosen