The Boundaries of Legitimate Resistance: Citizen Responses to Democratic Defence Strategies

Over the past years, scholarship has paid much attention to the processes of autocratization, democratic recession, and democratic breakdown. Only recently, however, have researchers begun to focus on those pro-democracy actors who resist autocratization: democratic defenders. This emerging area of study seeks to understand when democratic defense occurs and when it is successful. Yet, there remains limited theoretical and empirical knowledge about defence strategies and how these are perceived by citizens. Citizen democratic commitment –and by extension their legitimacy perceptions – matter as they are crucial for democracies to survive. Two crucial questions remain unclear. First, how does the severity of the defense impact legitimacy perceptions: are strategies that themselves employ (potentially) undemocratic means perceived legitimate to defend democracy? And second, do citizens apply a double standard in their legitimacy-evaluations of democratic defence, granting legitimacy to defences by co-partisans while deeming identical efforts by out-partisans illegitimate? To answer these questions, we employ a factorial survey experiment fielded in two countries that have experienced close encounters with democratic recession and breakdown in recent years: the US and Poland (data to be collected in Spring 2025). The experimental vignette manipulates (1) different defence strategies; and (2) the initiator of the democratic defence (i.e., co- versus out-party), after which we ask respondents how legitimate they find each strategy. The results of this study will hold important implications for both researchers and practitioners, deepening our understanding of citizens’ democratic commitment, and offering insights into the boundaries of legitimate resistance in contexts of democratic recession.