Clean Governance and Popular Support for Democracy

• In Event: Evaluating Public Support for Democracy

Abstract

When are citizens willing to support illiberal or authoritarian candidates for office? Given our understanding that support for democracy is not deeply held by larges swaths of society, we evaluate why some individuals may be willing support openly non-democratic candidates. Using conjoint experiments in Mexico, Peru, and Malaysia we find that individuals are willing to accept illiberal or authoritarian positions by candidates who campaign on combating corruption. While most respondents generally prefer candidates who respect judicial independence, clean elections, and a free press, support for these critical components of democracy is dependent on anti-corruption. Our work adds to an emerging literature showing the benefits of not relying on attitudinal measures in survey research as a way to gauge popular support democracy. Instead, we demonstrate how researchers should use methods which allow them to measure democracy as a multi-dimensional concept as well as determine how citizens are willing to make trade-offs in support of non-democratic values or institutions.

Authors

• Darren G. Hawkins, Brigham Young University

• Darin Self, Brigham Young University