Can Rebuttals Restore Confidence in Eroding Democracies?

• In Event: Democratic Backsliding: New Measures and Approaches

Abstract

Backsliding leaders undermine key institutions in their democracies. They often prepare the public for these actions with degrading rhetoric aimed at the target institution. Yet evidence about whether presidents' denigrating rhetoric shapes public confidence in institutions, as well as how to rebut it, is mixed. We study presidential rhetoric and the public's responses in the context of contemporary Mexico. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) has sought to circumscribe the role and independence of the national election administration body. We use text-as-data techniques to elucidate the dynamics of the president's rhetorical campaign against the electoral body. We then turn to a survey experiment to demonstrate the effectiveness of the president's rhetoric in undermining confidence in the electoral body, and of distinct rebuttals in restoring this confidence. We find that AMLO's rhetorical attacks decrease confidence in election administrators, and that expert — but not partisan — rebuttals reverse this deleterious effect. The results suggest informational rebuttals by non-partisan experts as an effective counter to democracy-degrading discourse.

Authors

• Brett Bessen, Tecnológico de Monterrey

• Susan C. Stokes, University of Chicago

• Andres Uribe, Stanford University