Clean Hands, Dirty Politics: Moral Diffusion and Violations of Democracy

• In Event: Elite Incentives to (Not) Adhere to Democratic Norms

Abstract

At least in the abstract, most Americans express commitments to basic democratic values. Yet, recent research finds that some citizens are willing to support leaders who will penalize out-groups and even take actions that would violate their political rights. In this project, we examine a possible explanation for this by testing a theory of “moral diffusion.” This theory posits that individuals who are not willing to directly take harmful actions toward others will sometimes support people who take such actions on their behalf. It also posits that people do this because they do not feel responsible for actions taken by others–even others who they have enabled. In this study, we examine whether the ordinary political mechanism of elected representation creates conditions that enable this tendency. Evidence that corroborates this theory would indicate an inherent but overlooked problem of democratic representation, namely, that representation can facilitate actions that violate democratic principles while freeing citizens from feeling accountable. To investigate this possibility, we use an original survey experiment fielded on a nationally representative sample.

Authors

• Tarah Williams, Allegheny College

• Andrew Jeffrey Bloeser, Allegheny College