The Normative Perception of the Electorate: Elite Views of Citizens’ Duties During Election Campaigns

In democratic theory, membership of a democratic polity is commonly understood to entail certain civic or democratic duties. This is typically taken to include a duty to cast an informed vote. While this claim is central to democratic theory, it is rarely examined in light of how democratic actors themselves understand citizen duties, or how these understandings shape democratic practice. This paper uses empirical evidence to speak directly to this normative question. Specifically, the paper investigates two related issues: (1) to what extent political elites subscribe to the idea that citizens have a duty to cast an informed vote, and (2) whether they believe citizens do, or are even capable of, living up to this normative ideal. Methodologically, the paper demonstrates how qualitative interviews can be used not merely to illustrate normative claims, but to test the plausibility, coherence, and implications of prominent normative assumptions in democratic theory. The analysis draws on interviews with political elites in the US, the UK, Germany, and Italy. With respect to the first question, we identify four recurring normative positions articulated by elites. Voting absolutists hold that all citizens have a duty to vote, regardless of their level of information. Information absolutists maintain that citizens have a duty to be informed, irrespective of whether they vote. Voter–information idealists endorse the orthodox view in democratic theory that citizens have a duty to cast an informed vote. Finally, duty denialists reject the claim that citizens have any democratic duties at all. We document the prevalence of these positions across national contexts and reconstruct the justificatory reasoning offered in support of each. From a methodological perspective, this allows us to identify how abstract normative principles are interpreted, combined, or rejected by actors operating within democratic institutions. Duty denialism is of particular interest, both because of its surprising frequency, especially in the UK, and because it appears, from the standpoint of democratic theory, to be difficult to defend. Empirically, however, we find that this view is not always best understood as expressing cynicism about citizens or democracy. Rather, it reflects a different normative failure: an excessive assumption of responsibility on the part of political elites, who locate responsibility for voter motivation and political understanding almost entirely with leaders, parties, and campaign professionals. Turning to the second question, we find broad agreement among elites that citizens fall short of meeting any putative democratic duties. Explanations for this failure range from empathetic accounts that emphasise structural and contextual constraints, to non-empathetic accounts that attribute disengagement to laziness or wilful ignorance. We show how these empirical assessments of citizen capacity feed back into normative judgments about responsibility, blame, and entitlement. Finally, the paper examines how these elite conceptions of citizen duty shape democratic practice, particularly in campaigning and political communication. In doing so, it illustrates how empirical inquiry can illuminate the real-world implications of competing normative views, and how normative political theory can be refined by attending to how its ideals are understood, enacted, and contested by political actors themselves.