Measuring support for democratic backsliding in Europe

Several international studies have pointed to a significant and growing level of democratic backsliding across the globe. Furthermore, some studies have shown a decrease in the level of support citizens exhibit towards democracy (e.g., Latinobarometro 2023). However, there is still much to be said on the factors that predict an eventual support for democratic backsliding. Moreover, the way support for democracy is measured might hinder our capacity to understand this phenomenon. As recent papers have shown, measuring the support for more concrete aspects of the democratic process and including eventual trade-offs, might drastically change the conclusions of previous studies (e.g. Zanotti and Rama, 2021). Furthermore, most of previous research has centered around falling support for democracy, but there has been surprisingly little research on the support for democratic backsliding. Implicit in this approach is the view that democratic backsliding is driven by political elites and citizens are at most indifferent towards these changes. However, it is possible that, under certain conditions, it is citizens who drive political elites towards antidemocratic positions. In this paper we test a battery of measurement instruments that show an important level of support for democratic backsliding in sections of the population, either because of affective polarization or instrumental trade-offs. These findings imply the need for reassessing the traditional elite-centered view on democratic backsliding.