When Do Citizens Believe Their Democracy Is Backsliding? Evidence from India

• In Event: Voters and Democratic Backsliding

Abstract

Under what conditions do citizens believe that their democracy is in danger? Scholars largely agree that, over the last decade, India has experienced considerable democratic backsliding, with some even claiming that India is no longer a democracy. Yet, we know little about whether Indian citizens agree with that assessment and what factors might shape their beliefs about the quality of Indian democracy. After all, the incumbent government that has overseen a steady decline in the quality of India’s democracy remains as popular as ever, and outside of fairly elite circles much backsliding appears to have elicited little popular opposition. To better understand mass attitudes about democratic backsliding, we conduct a conjoint experiment on a representative sample of Hindi-speaking Indians to test two hypotheses about factors shaping their beliefs about the quality of Indian democracy. In the experiment, respondents receive information about democratic backsliding in India that includes both a general statement that backsliding has occurred as well as a specific example of backsliding. The first hypothesis that we test is that the source of information about backsliding shapes perceptions of democratic quality. We hypothesize that non-partisan indigenous sources produce more negative evaluations of Indian democracy than the same information provided by a non-Indian “Western” source. We therefore vary the source of the general statement that democratic backsliding has occurred. The second hypothesis is that citizens respond differently to different forms of backsliding. Though conditions for India’s Muslim minority have deteriorated rapidly and the government has clamped down on many forms of dissent, other aspects of India’s democracy remain robust. Parties can generally campaign freely and nominate whomever they like to run for office, voters can freely vote for the opposition, and votes are counted fairly. We hypothesize that citizens respond more negatively to information about (the hitherto relatively rare) election-related instances of backsliding as compared to those related to the erosion of liberal freedoms or minority rights. Our treatments therefore provide information on different examples of democratic backsliding to test whether voters are more likely to update their beliefs about the quality of democracy in light of certain kinds of anti-democratic behavior.

Authors

• Adam W. Ziegfeld, Temple University

• Belinda Peter, Temple University