Is the American Public Really Turning Away from Democracy? Backsliding and the Conceptual Challenges of Understanding Public Attitudes

Abstract

Recent scholarship has warned that the American public is turning away from democracy, with many focusing on the role of polarization in driving these trends. While these studies devote a great deal of attention to conceptualizing and measuring polarization, however, there is much less attention to the concept of democracy itself. As a result, they encounter several problems: First, lack of attention to the categorical and contextual differences between various democratic transgressions can lead to misleading findings. Second, slippage between macro and micro level analysis of backsliding can make it difficult to draw solid inferences about attitudes. Finally, lack of attention to contestation within the concept of democracy obscures a different kind of regime contention reflected in public attitudes. These problems confound efforts to understand whether the American public is truly turning away from democracy and point to the need for greater collaboration among scholars from different intellectual traditions and methodological orientations.

How to study democratic backsliding

“…Elites include elected officials, nonelected government officials and staff in positions of authority, candidates for elected office, and the judiciary/legal actors (some of whom are elected and others not) (see Zaller, 1992). The precise antidemocratic actions elites could take are along the lines of those identified by Ahmed (2023): violations of law (e.g., forging ballots, violence), violations of democratic norms (e.g., abolishing the filibuster, election overrides by state legislatures), violations of ideals (e.g., rejecting compromise, constraints on civil liberties), and power‐consolidating changes to institutions (e.g., reducing ballot access, gerrymandering). While some of these behaviors could apply to nonelites, elites have the clear capability to take these transgressive actions by virtue of their position in society.…”

“…Another contributor to recent erosive tendencies in the United States comes from changed opportunity costs that contributed to conspiratorial tropes about electoral functioning—that is, ill‐founded beliefs that violate democratic ideals about the basic legal premises of democracy (Ahmed, 2023). Opportunity costs, as explained, become more materially and psychologically relevant when recourse expenditure is high.…”

Does Affective Polarization Contribute to Democratic Backsliding in America?

“…10 In sum, there is limited evidence of a link between affective polarization and preference for an undemocratic candidate; and to the extent it does occur, the source of the problem may well lie more with party recruitment of candidates than with affectively polarized voters (although it may be that the parties nominate extremists in response to their base). Of course, this is not to excuse such voter behavior per se; however, it is not clear in such scenarios that voters, given their options in a single election, necessarily view their votes for a particular candidate as substantially contributing to backsliding (Ahmed 2023). the more pressing, direct question is, Does affective polarization lead voters to support or engage in democratically transgressive actions?…”

“…Transgressions against democratic institutions occur when actors violate a law, democratic norm, or democratic ideal or engage in a power-consolidating institutional change (Ahmed 2023). Such actions normalize undemocratic behaviors and provide leeway for authoritarian elites; and when enough citizens engage in—or merely support—them, they contribute to democratic backsliding.…”

Toward a New Transition Theory: Opposition Dilemmas and Countering Democratic Erosion

“…Eroding autocrats undermine authority through steps that in isolation may not necessarily be undemocratic, at least until later stages (Bermeo 2016). They only become democracy-eroding in combination with other similar acts, by creating a "Frankenstate" (Scheppele 2013), and objectionable by contextualizing them (Ahmed 2022). Eroding autocrats conceal their steps behind a facade of "autocratic legalism" (Scheppele 2018), as in extreme gerrymandering.…”