Democracy in Crisis: Ideological Drivers of Political Parties’ Democratic Commitment in Europe

In democracies worldwide, democratically elected incumbents attack the foundations of democracy and prioritize their own political gain over a commitment to democracy. While case study evidence suggests that right-wing populist parties are frequently involved in incumbent-led democratic erosion, we lack systematic party-level evidence of the correlates of parties’ democratic commitment. Using new expert survey data on parties’ democratic commitment in the newly collected 2023 wave of the Populism and Political Parties Expert Survey, we examine the effects of party ideology on parties’ commitment to democracy. We find that parties’ parties’ populism as well as left-right economic positions, their nativism, stances on law and order, and social lifestyle affect the commitment to democracy of political parties in Europe.