Where Supply Meets Demand for Democratic Transgressions

Over the past century, several waves of democracy have waned and waxed around the globe. Which kinds of political parties are more likely to influence their supporters’ tolerance of democratic transgressions? And which kinds of voters are more easily swayed by elites to accept democratic transgressions? Our theoretical focus is on the normative commitment to democracy of parties and voters. Our empirical focus is the Czech Republic, where we fielded a vignette survey experiment. The demand for and supply of democratic transgressions have been previously explored in the literature on political parties and voters, but mostly in parallel. By simultaneously examining both the supply (party) and demand (voters) side of the influence of elites on voters’ regime preferences, we contribute to the literatures on democracy and voting behavior. We find that both demand- and supply-side commitment to liberal democracy increase a voter’s vigilance, especially recognition, of democratic transgressions even when those are by proposed an in-party. This effect is stronger on the demand side with voters with high commitment to liberal democracy judging these transgressions more harshly than the supporters of parties with high commitment to liberal democracy. When the in-party then justifies the proposed transgressions, it is still unable to flip the assessment of voters and supporters of parties with high commitment to liberal democracy (from undemocratic to democratic). Still, while we and the previous literature would expect that voters and supporters of parties with high commitment to liberal democracy are more immune to transgression justifications, we find that this is not the case: both voters and supporters of parties with high commitment to liberal democracy are least compelled by partisan justifications and most convinced to soften their judgement of democratic transgressions first by appeals to social order and stability and second - to majoritarianism.