A Threat to Democracy? Uncivil Speech and Democracy’s Value

Abstract

The rise of uncivil speech in digital public spheres has prompted concern about its effects on democracy. This paper explores the relationship between incivility in social media and democracy, moving beyond simplistic claims that uncivil discourse is inherently harmful. It argues that different conceptions of why democracy is valuable—versions of egalitarian and electoral conceptions—offer distinct evaluative standpoints for the democratic consequences of incivility. Under egalitarian conceptions, incivility undermines democracy by silencing marginalized voices, reinforcing hierarchies of social status, or by degrading the deliberative processes that contribute to democratic legitimacy. Under electoral conceptions incivility poses a democratic problem either when it reduces political trust that impairs the value of accountability or when it erodes norms of legitimate opposition that are essential for civil peace. By analyzing these frameworks, the paper clarifies when and why incivility may pose a genuine threat to democracy while also proposing how to navigate conflicts between restraint and inclusion by advancing a novel account of the duties of civility in the public sphere.

Introduction

The public sphere is widely acknowledged as an essential supporting beam for well-functioning political democracy (Cohen and Fung 2021; Chambers and Kopeck 2023; Curran 2005).^{1, 2} The positive relationship between a free and vibrant public sphere and democracy has historically been mediated by traditional media networks, where editors and journalists functioned as gatekeepers, often ensuring a degree of accuracy and decorum. While these mechanisms were fallible, they provided a level of oversight largely absent in contemporary digital spaces. In contrast, social media platforms have few guardrails, leaving the public sphere vulnerable to misinformation (Chambers 2021) and disinformation (McKay and Tenove 2021) and the creation of insular information environments (Sunstein 2018). ³

Comparatively less attention is given the spread of uncivil speech in the digital public sphere. The incidence of online incivility reportedly grows (Frimer et al. 2023; Sun et al., 2021). As documented by massive research, social media users are not just exposed to, but also engage in and disseminate toxic rhetoric (Recuero 2024), insults (Bøggild and Jensen 2024), and hate-speech (Cohen-Almagor 2015). ⁴

Of course, uncivil speech in public domains long predates the rise of digital platforms and is not unique to the online sphere. As noted by Terese Bejan (2017, 4) the concern with vulgar and hateful speech has an ancient pedigree and has remained a constant theme in deliberations on the public sphere. The printed press that emerged in the 19^th century were saturated with “invective-laden diatribes” (Engels 2009, 316).

Social media nevertheless exacerbate these concerns, even in the traditional media (Rega 2025). Digital platforms do not merely permit crude, hostile, demeaning, and hateful speech; they incentivize it. This is partly due to the relative anonymity of online communications (Rowe 2014). More importantly, the engagement maximizing logic of the algorithmic distribution of content is triggering, rewarding, and amplifying strongly emotional content (Stray, Ravi, and Helena, 2023; Vaidhyanathan 2022). While uncivil speech has always been present in public discourse, social media intensifies both its visibility and its circulation.

Whether uncivil speech in social media is a democratic problem remains contested. Some emphasize the corrosive effects of uncivil speech on the democratic functions of the public sphere, referring to an ongoing “crisis of civility” (Bentivegna and Rega 2024, 84). Others argue that democrats should not fear controversy but embrace it (Sandel 2005). More dangerous is the tendency to stifle dissent and criticism by the suppression of speech that violates norms of civility (Edyvane 2020). Whereas standards of civil discourse are typically defended by the elite, (Bejan 2017, 149), anger and disrespectful language is often the language of the oppressed (Cherry 2021; Delmas 2018).

Opposing assessments of incivility reflect conflicting images of what the democratic public sphere should be: a civilized arena of meaningful speech or an inclusive arena for all voices. These competing images undergird long-standing debates about self-censorship, political correctness, hate speech, diversity, and inclusion. The main focus in these disputes are individual interests and rights; either the right to speak freely (Weinstein 2017) or the right not to be subject to humiliation, hate or threats (Waldron 2012).

However, the systemic effects of uncivil speech raise concerns that go beyond individual rights and interests. As noted by Jeffrey Howard (2024, 44), speech can be harmful when aggregated together with similar speech acts even if none of them are harmful in isolation. The claim is that the amplification and aggregation of otherwise innocuous speech may undermine the democratic functions of the public sphere. These systemic considerations are acknowledged in debates on the epistemic dysfunctionalities of social media (e.g., Cupać and Sienknecht 2024; McKay and Tenove 2021) but has attracted little attention in debates about uncivil speech.

An exploration of the systemic risks to democracy of uncivil speech depends on normative assumptions about what democracy is and why it is valuable. Assessing the claim that uncivil speech undermines democracy therefore requires an account of the value of democracy. To that end, we distinguish between egalitarian and electoral conceptions of democracy’s value. Egalitarian conceptions articulate claims about the value of democracy as it ought to be, whereas electoral conceptions concern the value of democracy as it is currently practiced. Incivility poses a challenge to democracy under both perspectives. While both viewpoints provide reasons to worry about the systemic effects of uncivil speech, only the egalitarian account is vulnerable to the counter-argument that the suppression of uncivil speech will have exclusionary effects and stifle dissent. This objection lacks force against the view that democracy is valued exclusively as a platform for peaceful political competition.

The aim of this paper is to advance our thinking about uncivil speech and democracy in ways that neither compromises its electoral or egalitarian value. In the concluding section, we argue that the duties of civility in political liberalism offers an attractive account. The gist of this view is that citizens and elected representatives have duties to avoid uncivil speech in public debates on constitutional essentials and basic justice. But these duties are limited. In a democracy, there is no general duty to speak with a civilized voice.

The first section provides a general definition of uncivil speech and specifies the notion of systemic harm. The second section elaborates on the distinction between egalitarian and electoral accounts of democracy’s value. In the third and fourth section, we evaluate when uncivil speech poses a systemic threat to democracy according to egalitarian and electoral standards. The closing section presents an argument for when, and when not the participants in digital publics have duties to avoid uncivil speech acts.

Uncivil Speech

Scholars have defined uncivil speech as “nasty, attacking remarks” (Maisel 2012), “insults, threats, or demeaning conduct” (Waldron 2014) or as talk conveyed in an “unnecessarily disrespectful tone” (Coe, Kate, and Stephen, 2014). The common denominator of the speech acts termed “uncivil” is not always clear. More convincing is the view that incivility is an evaluative term that connotes traits that are “anti-social” from the standpoint of predominant social norms (Mutz 2015, 6). Speech acts are uncivil if they violate widely shared normative attitudes about what constitutes polite communicative behavior.

Norms of politeness are standards by which individuals indicate their social status and recognize the social status of others (Mills 2017). These standards are relative to particular cultural and social contexts (Sifianou and Blitvich 2017). In that sense, uncivil speech can be defined as expressive conduct that contravenes predominant social norms for how to speak politely. The implication is that judgments of speech as being rude, insulting or demeaning, are relative to the norms in force in particular places, at particular times (Feldman 2023).

Another implication is that hate speech, in the form of targeted vilification, should be considered a sub-species of uncivil speech (Masullo Chen 2017). ⁵ Hate speech is uncivil because it is impolite to degrade a person on the basis of traits shared with members of a socially salient group (Kienpointner 2018). This observation does not preclude that hate speech is a particularly egregious wrong because it involves the intention to incite hate or injury against people on the basis of ascriptive traits (Feldman 2023; Waldron 2014). Reasons for the wrongness of hate speech are distinct from reasons for considering hate speech as uncivil.

An objection against defining uncivil speech in relation to norms of politeness is that impoliteness is not necessarily detrimental to democratic practices. Muddiman argues that democracy is endangered only by “public-level incivility” that is disrespectful of opposing political opinions (Muddiman 2017). Similarly, Patricia Rossini argues that neither rudeness nor incivility is problematic. Only political intolerance and the suppression of political pluralism are cause for concern (Rossini 2020). In line with these objections, Papacharissi proposes that incivility should be defined narrowly as speech that lacks “consideration for democratic consequences of impolite behavior” (Papacharissi 2004, 267; also, Oz, Pei, and Chen Gina, 2018).

Despite these objections, there is reason to reject the stipulation that uncivil speech is detrimental to democracy by definition. Speech that is considered harmful to democracy should be explained by reasons not settled by definitional fiat. We should accordingly keep open the possibility that not all speech acts that violate social norms are detrimental to democracy. This is an important reminder when the attention is shifted from discrete to systemic harms.

Harms are discrete when caused by singular actions; harms are systemic if they emerge only as the result of an aggregate of actions taken together. ⁶ Systemic harms can be suffered either by individuals or structures and institutions (D’Agostino 1995, 67). The point is that systemic harms are necessarily indirect as they can follow from actions that are themselves innocuous. Moreover, the harms are often delayed, as it may take time before they are triggered by aggregates of actions (Chan et al., 2023).

These considerations are reasons against classifying uncivil speech as by definition contrary to democracy. Instead, we should leave it an open question the extent to which uncivil speech constitutes a democratic problem. This is the methodological basis for defining uncivil speech as violations of norms of polite communications. This terminology can accommodate the objection that impoliteness should not be considered as necessarily hostile to democratic practices. We concur but add that some violations of norms of polite speech may in fact constitute systemic harms that are detrimental to democratic practices.

The Value of Democracy

The claim that aggregates of otherwise innocuous speech can undermine democracy is inherently normative and rests on particular conceptions of democracy’s value. Reasons for valuing democracy are of course varied and, according to some, even “essentially contested” (Hildago 2008; cf. Swanton 1985). Yet, conflicting claims about the value of democracy are not haphazard but reflect normative positions along specific dimensions. Taking into consideration disagreements on the normative basis for democracy, we argue that it is helpful to distinguish between egalitarian and electoral conceptions of democracy’s value. From this perspective, the threat of uncivil speech can be interpreted either as the claim that uncivil speech erodes egalitarian democratic values, or as the claim that it compromises electoral democratic values.

The egalitarian conception takes the value of democracy to reside in the approximation of the ideal of political equality understood as the aspiration towards inclusive and equal opportunities for political participation. The idea of political equality is complex (Beitz 1989). Here, three distinct reasons for valuing democracy as political equality are identified: equal influence, equal relations, and political legitimacy.

Following the equal influence view, uncivil speech is bad if it makes the public sphere less representative of public opinion. Due to silencing effects, uncivil speech may undermine the public sphere as an arena instrumental to the democratic value of equal influence. The reason political equality is valuable is different on the equal relations view according to which the public sphere should be an arena free from hierarchies of status. Uncivil speech is a democratic problem if it reinforces such hierarchies. The third and final account of the value of political equality is the democratic legitimacy view according to which the public sphere serves as an arena for dialogue and deliberation that contributes to the legitimation of public power. Uncivil speech in the public sphere is a problem on this view if it systematically distorts the process for the legitimation of political institutions.

Electoral conceptions are premised on the claim that the value of democracy is or can be instantiated by the institutions of electoral democracy. Here we distinguish between two values: government accountability and civil peace. As shown below, both accounts provide reasons to worry about the systemic effects of uncivil speech. The value of accountability motivates a concern with uncivil speech to the extent it reinforces societal distrust that undermines support for democratic institutions. The value of civil peace motivates a concern with uncivil speech to the extent it undermines norms of legitimate political opposition.

Egalitarian and electoral conceptions generate distinct concerns about uncivil speech, but they are also connected. Egalitarians have reason to worry about threats to electoral democracy insofar as electoral institutions are necessary for political equality. Robert Dahl argues that while electoral democracy is insufficient for political equality, it remains a practical requirement for democracy in large-scale societies (Dahl 2006, 16–18). Since the pursuit of political equality is shaped by electoral institutions, egalitarians should be concerned also with developments that weaken electoral democracy (Sigman and Lindberg 2019, 603).

Objecting to this view, Landa and Pevnick (2025) argue that political equality is incompatible with institutions that concentrate power in elected officials and insulate them from popular control between elections. In their estimate, electoral democracy is not a necessary precondition for political equality, but an obstacle to its realization.

This objection may underestimate the equalizing potential of electoral competition over time (Klein 2023). Another reply, closer to Dahl’s position, is that electoral democracy may be the most feasible institutional framework for approximating political equality in large and diverse political units, even if it also represents a constraint on the realization of this ideal. Dahl’s claim is not, therefore, that political equality entails electoral democracy, but that electoral institutions are practical requirements under existing conditions. For this reason, egalitarians may oppose uncivil speech that weakens electoral democracy even if they deny that electoral democracy is necessary for political equality.

Uncivil Speech and Political Equality

Following Robert Dahl (1989; 2006) the idea of rule by “the people” is not credible if true that groups that are subject to the law are denied either political rights or effective opportunities for their use. This leads to the claim that democracy depends on inclusive political rights and fair opportunities for political participation. This is what is meant by conceiving democracy as political equality.

It is not obvious what follows for the public sphere from the claim that democracy requires political equality. How the structure and content of speech in the public sphere relates to political equality is clarified once we consult the reasons for valuing inclusive and equal opportunities for political participation.

In the following, three normative grounds for political equality are developed that provide distinct reasons for uncivil speech may be detrimental to the democratic public sphere. First, incivility undermines democracy to the extent it conflicts with the democratic value of equal influence. Second, incivility harms democracy if contrary to the democratic value of equal social relations. Third, incivility poses a problem whenever it disfigures deliberative processes in the public sphere necessary for the legitimation of political institutions. These grounds for political equality are not exhaustive as, on some plausible readings, political equality neither requires equal influence nor equal social standing (e.g., Ingham 2019, 159).

The Equal Influence View

Among the reasons that justify political equality is the claim that each member of the demos has a right to equal influence over public decisions. In fact, political equality is sometimes defined as the state of affairs where “all citizens have equal influence on the collective decision making of a political community” (Verba 2003, 663; Badie, Dirk, and Leonardo, 2011, 819).

On this view, democracy is challenged when social and economic inequalities exert a “depressing effect” on the propensity of citizens with less resources than others to participate in politics (Schäfer and Schwander 2019). Political equality as equal influence is further subverted if the government is less attentive and less responsive to the preferences of the poor even when rates of participation are equal (Gilens 2005).

The public sphere has the potential to either amplify or mitigate the sources of political inequality. As the public sphere is the place where political opinions are formed and articulated, it shapes both the priorities of governments and the preferences of voters. Equal political influence requires an “ongoing alignment between the policies to which citizens are subject and the processes of political opinion- and will-formation” (LaFonte 2019). For that to happen, the public sphere must be a place where relevantly affected interests are equally represented (Olsen and Trenz 2014, 119). ⁷ For equal political influence to stand a chance, everyone (or everyone’s interests) must be equally represented in the process of public will-formation.

If inclusion is the principal ideal for the democratic public sphere, there is reason to be concerned with the exclusionary effects of uncivil speech. These effects transpire if uncivil speech either causes people to leave the conversation or diminishes the social status of others (Brown 2015, 198). In the public sphere, this is the case when toxic or violent discourse generates fear, harm, or discomfort such that continued participation is no longer tolerable.

The problem with uncivil speech is on this view that it generates systemic exclusionary effects—not that it inflicts harm on individuals. Consequently, speech that inflicts harm on individuals but leaves political equality intact would not qualify as a democratic concern. Conversely, speech that sidelines particular groups or interests in public debate would represent a democratic problem, even if it causes no direct harm.

The tendency of social media users to engage in self-censorship is well documented. Following the “spiral of silence” theory, users tend to remain silent in contexts where opposing views predominate and to express their views only when friendly viewpoints have already been articulated (Gearhart and Zhang 2015). Others find evidence that fear of social sanctions makes users unwilling to articulate personal convictions in social media (Weeks, Audrey, and German, 2024).

Egalitarian considerations are vulnerable to leveling down objections. In this context, the leveling down objection is that political equality is not reduced by silencing effects if all groups or viewpoints are equally silenced. If equal influence requires that all groups and opinions be equally represented in the public sphere, self-censorship that is practiced by all and equally by all does not compromise political equality.

But discursive exclusion is unlikely to be equally distributed. This is one reason uncivil speech targeting socially salient groups is considered particularly inimical to democracy. Toxic language, threats or insults that silences members of racial groups (Relia et al., 2019), women (Rheault, Erica, and Andreea, 2019), or sexual minorities (Mkhize, Reema, and Nirmala, 2020) makes the public sphere less inclusive and thereby undermine political equality. To the extent members of these groups are already disadvantaged by other structural and/or historical injustices, such speech amplifies pre-existing inequalities in democratic participation and power.

The Relational Equality View

From a different angle, equal and inclusive opportunities for political participation gain importance from its broader contribution to an egalitarian society. The idea is that political equality is required for equal social relations among the members of the polity. Social relations are equal when there are no hierarchies of unequal social status that constitute relations of social inferiority and superiority between members (Kolodny 2014, 299). ⁸

Equal social relations may be valued instrumentally; as shields against the harm of status hierarchies. More often, however, equal social relations are valued for non-instrumental reasons (Kolodny 2014, 299). ⁹ Unequal social relations should be avoided, not just because they are harmful, but because they constitute a particular kind of harm that is “inherently objectionable” (Anderson 2008, 158). ¹⁰

Justifications of democracy by appealing to relational egalitarian values are complex. Some argue that political equality is justified because equal political rights and opportunities “moderate” exercises of authority and power that would otherwise permanent unequal relations between citizens (Kolodny 2014, 306). Others insist that while political equality is not strictly necessary for equal social relations, it is nevertheless a practical requirement. Asymmetries in political power generate “differences in relative esteem” for psychological reasons (Motchoulski 2021).

Linking the value of political equality to relational egalitarianism highlights why uncivil speech in the public sphere is troubling for democracy: it may establish or perpetuate systematic relations of dominance and subordination among citizens. Uncivil speech, then, threatens democracy only when it produces unequal social relations. The following three examples illustrate how this can happen in significant ways.

Relational egalitarianism provides reasons for concern with the systemic consequences of speech that targets members of socially salient groups. A case in point is hate speech, defined as statements that vilifies the individual on the basis of traits shared with socially salient groups. Blatant forms of racist or anti-Semitic speech is of course harmful on the relational egalitarian view because they articulate ideas contrary to the value of equal social relations. Given our focus on systemic harms, the relevant complaint is that hate speech legitimizes social relationships that instantiate status hierarchies in society at large.

But hate speech is clearly not the only form of incivility that may be detrimental to equal social relations. Reasons to reject hierarchies of social standing and power also provide reasons to reject speech that “give less epistemic weight” to the interests, knowledge of identities of members of socially salient groups (Lippert-Rasmussen 2018, 68). Such speech is not hateful but prejudiced and biased and contributes to unequal social standing with respect to epistemic claims.

Finally, it is not clear that hate speech and epistemic bias are harmful only when members of socially salient groups are targeted. Speech that dehumanizes or incites hatred against others is contrary to the value of equal social relations irrespective of the identity of the victim. Calling red haired people “pigs” or the supporters of Manchester United “lice” is not hate speech by prevailing standards. But to the extent such speech reinforces hierarchies of social standing it is contrary to the idea of a society where all members enjoy equal social status.

The relational egalitarian account of political equality does not offer reasons against all forms of uncivil speech, however. For instance, it is conceivable that equal social relations between citizens is not undermined just because they temporarily resort to “nasty, attacking remarks.” As far as anger, rudeness and a disrespectful tone does not generate unequal hierarchies of status, uncivil speech is not contrary to the relational egalitarian value of political equality and therefore does not constitute a democratic problem.

The Democratic Legitimacy View

The final view to consider is the claim that political equality is among the conditions for political legitimacy that also require an inclusive public sphere. States wield coercive and normative power over the subject population, and these powers are legitimate only if they are justified to them. The consequent idea is that equal and inclusive rights and opportunities to political participation are necessary if not sufficient for the legitimacy of the state.

Political equality is among the conditions for public deliberation and reasoning among citizens. As such political equality constitutes a precondition for democratic legitimacy if that requires that exercises of public power are regulated by principles that are publicly justifiable. For principles to be publicly justifiable, they must be subject to an ongoing process of deliberation and reasoning among reasonable citizens. Political rights and opportunities are among the conditions for the process of public justification, and this is why political equality, hence democracy, is necessary for the legitimacy of normative and coercive power.

The process of deliberation and reasoning that confers legitimacy to public power is not limited to elections and legislative institutions. In representative democracies, the public sphere “backs up” the deliberation and reasoning among citizens and makes the process of public legitimation both deeper and more inclusive (Gimmler 2001). The democratic legitimacy view thus provides a robust account of the democratic public sphere as an arena of truth-oriented reasoning among citizens (Trenz 2023). The legitimacy-enhancing functions of the public sphere are not limited to traditional media, political parties, and voluntary organizations but extends also to social media platforms. The ongoing discursive process of public justification should take place in all public spaces.

This is why the failures of social media ought to be taken seriously in a democracy; public platforms for digital communications are scarcely arenas for “political discussion about fundamentals of policy and politics [that] appeals to reasons” (Cohen and Fung 2021, 27). Users of social media tend not to function as reason-givers but instead engage in “uninhibited discourse” where opinions are shielded from criticism both because digital forums are fragmented and isolated from each other and because of the self-validating nature of opinion-giving (Habermas 2022). From the point of view of democratic legitimacy, social media platforms offer unfulfilled promises of being sites of reason-giving among citizens on issues of common concern.

On this analysis, uncivil speech constitutes “noise” that undermines serious reasoning about the basis for public policy and law. The point is that social media platforms are designed to incentivize users to produce content that creates attention (Farrer 2024). As incivility creates attention, social media tends to accentuate and disseminate uncivil speech that in turn hampers attempts to engage in reasoning and deliberation in their platforms. The deliberation argument is essentially that uncivil speech—for example, rudeness, name-calling or hate speech—are distractions from the collective project of evaluating the reasons that justify political action.

Against this pessimistic image, Masullo Chen (2017) points at the recurrence of “deliberative moments” and “short episodes” of genuine deliberation in the digital public sphere. But scattered moments of reason-giving in social media tend to be drowned in an avalanche of amplified uncivil speech that detracts from the democratic tasks of the public sphere. The systemic effects of uncivil speech are in that sense no different from swamping the public sphere with postings of cute cats or “funny fails.” In both cases is the attention of the citizen diverted away from the truth-oriented tasks of a democratic public sphere. In a democracy, deliberation among citizens is necessary for the legitimacy of collective decisions and democratic institutions (e.g., Benhabib 1994, 27). To the extent that uncivil speech makes social media non-deliberative, social media contributes to the hollowing out of democratic legitimacy.

Uncivil Speech and Electoral Democracy

Electoral democracy is the institutional expression of the notion that political competition is the essential requirement for democracy. Four attributes together define the nature of electoral democracy: the right to vote, elected officials, free elections, and clean elections (Munck 2009, 56; Teorell et al., 2016). Though it can be debated what makes elections free and clean, it is clear that many political systems currently qualify as electoral democracies on this description (Skaaning 2021). Inclusion is not a condition for electoral democracy so conceived. Indeed, not even universal suffrage is a requirement for political competition within the framework of electoral democracy (Przeworski et al., 2000, 34).

Following electoral conceptions of democracy, the difference between authoritarianism and democracy is that only the latter permits the periodic removal of key officials in fair and competitive elections. Political institutions are thus democratic only if legislative and executive institutions are contested and not monopolized by any single faction. These features are not just necessary but also sufficient if democracy is defined as that “political system which supplies regular constitutional opportunities for changing the governing officials” (Lipset 1959).

The claim that electoral conceptions of democracy are distinct from egalitarian conceptions is controversial. Indeed, according to Dahl the institutions of electoral democracy (what he terms “polyarchy”) are necessary albeit insufficient to approximate political equality (Dahl 2006; Munck 2009, 123).

Yet, there are two reasons for preserving the distinction. The first is that the institutions of electoral democracy are not entailed by the egalitarian view that democracy is best understood in terms of political equality. As frequently argued in democratic theory, non-electoral forms of political influence may be justified by ideals of political equality (e.g., Saunders 2010). The second is that the institutions of electoral democracy can be valued for reasons that are not egalitarian and that are not, therefore, premised on the ideal of political equality. There are other grounds to value regular elections that are free and clean and that provide voters with the opportunity to replace the government.

Given that electoral democracy is distinct, there is reason to ask if disruptions in the public sphere are detrimental to democracy because they systematically undermine the value of the constitutive elements of electoral democracy (voting rights, elected officials, free and clean elections). In other words, for uncivil speech to pose a threat to democracy, it must be true that such speech has dissipating effects on elections as mechanisms for political competition. As we shall see, normative reasons to value the institutions for political competition—electoral democracy—do provide reason to care about the quality of the public sphere and disruptions caused by uncivil speech.

The Value of Accountability

An important reason to value democratic elections is to protect the basic interests of the electorate. This claim lends support from the argument that electoral democracies are normally better in protecting basic human rights than non-democratic regimes (Christiano 2011). The importance of human rights may thus seem to provide a reason to value the institutions of electoral democracy. Indeed, electoral democracy correlates with a variety of additional valuable outcomes: peaceful international relations, freedom from hunger, economic growth, human development, and so on (Gerring et al., 2016).

These claims about the instrumental value of electoral democracy are statistical: the argument is that electoral institutions are in the average positively causally related to good outcomes. Of course, this observation serves a justificatory purpose only in the presence of moral reasons to value the relevant outcomes. But the argument is incomplete even in the presence of compelling moral reasons to value them. The main concern is that evidence in support of elections having an average causal effect on good outcomes is not enough to conclude that elections are either necessary or sufficient for these outcomes (Pevnick 2020). If electoral democracy is valuable only if justified, and if electoral democracy is justified only if either necessary or sufficient for good outcomes, the statistical argument does not demonstrate that electoral democracy is valuable.

However, claims about the instrumental value of electoral institutions may inform normative considerations in a different sense. The common denominator of different instrumental claims is that electoral democracy provides institutionalized means for political accountability. Elections are mechanisms by which the electorate can punish ruling parties, governments and presidents that performs badly. Electoral competition makes ruling elites accountable to voters (Schmitter and Terry 1991).

Electoral institutions are not valuable, then, because they are either sufficient or necessary for the promotion of good outcomes. Instead, the value of electoral democracy derives from the claim that it is necessary for the opportunity to hold the government to be answerable to the standards of the electorate. This is reason to think that electoral democracy is instrumentally valuable provided that accountability is sufficient to mitigate against “political tyranny” (Ström 1992).

On the above argument, uncivil speech in social media is detrimental to democracy when systematically undermining elections as mechanisms for political accountability. That uncivil speech has such damaging consequences is indeed commonly argued. Nasty and aggressive debate in the media raises the bar for bi-partisan compromise that fuels government dysfunctionality (Maisel 2012). Extant hate and incivility online raise the costs for political participation and diminish the perceived value of democratic institutions.

These consequences are related to the long-standing effects of incivility on political trust. As evidenced in studies summarized by Van’t Riet and Van Stekelenburg (2022), incivility negatively affects the extent to which citizens trust in public institutions and offices. The more citizens are exposed to uncivil speech, the less they believe that institutions and officials can be relied on to act in their best interests. The corrosive effects of incivility are of course interacting with other social and political phenomena. Uncivil discourse thrives in an environment where voters are not just in disagreement on policy but where they also distrust and dislike each other. Following Orhan (2022) affective polarization reinforces the extent to which uncivil speech breeds political cynicism and intolerance. Eventually, this process weakens support for democratic institutions and may eventually threaten their continued existence.

It might be objected that neither political trust nor government functionality are necessary for elections to be mechanisms for political accountability. A sufficient condition for electoral democracy is that elections are free and clean, that voters show up, and that there are alternatives to vote on. Even intolerant and cynical citizens can participate in competitive elections that hold governments accountable. From this perspective, uncivil speech in the public sphere does not threaten the basic elements of electoral democracy (Brooks and Geer 2007).

This objection nevertheless fails to distinguish between the conditions for the existence of electoral democracy and the conditions for electoral democracy being valuable. Even if uncivil speech does not undermine the existence of electoral democracy, it may undermine its value. The value of competitive elections as a mechanism for accountability is jeopardized if the government is unable to operate effectively and if citizens lack trust in elected officials. Lack of trust in institutions and officials erodes the value of electoral democracy as a mechanism for political accountability. The claim then is that uncivil speech poses a threat to democracy to the extent that it undermines societal trust and generalized belief in the purposiveness of electoral accountability.

The Value of Civil Peace

The value of electoral democracy can be explained without reference to the value of political accountability. The alternative is to value electoral democracy because it maintains civil peace and reduces the risk of civil strife (Przeworski 2018). Elections are particularly helpful to that end as they provide mechanisms for disposing of incumbents without resorting to violence. Political conflict can be resolved either by voting or fighting. In a democracy they are resolved peacefully by voting. In the absence of meaningful opportunities to vote government out of office, citizens have few peaceful means available to express grievances and to induce political change (Fjelde et al., 2021). Given that peaceful relations between the individuals and factions in society are valuable, there is reason to value electoral democracy.

The positive relationship between elections and civil peace should not be taken for granted, however. Some scholars define competitive elections as “nonviolent” mechanisms for the resolution of conflict (Kirshner 2016, 1096). If competitive elections are peaceful by definition, the proposition that electoral democracy breeds civil peace becomes tautological. But elections are not peaceful by definition. Violence among political rivals is commonly observed in multi-party elections (Taylor, Pevehouse Jon, and Scott, 2017). There is no simple linear relationship between democratization and the rate of civil strife and violence (Kinsella and Rousseau 2009). Partial democracies are even more likely to suffer from internal violent conflicts than non-democracies.

These observations speak against the proposition, defended by, for example, Achen and Bartels (2017, 317), that competitive elections are sufficient to incentivize the government to tolerate the opposition. It also speaks against the claim that electoral accountability is sufficient to prevent rulers from “committing or allowing substantial harms” against the population (Malcom 2023).

On the contrary, electoral democracy is compatible with compelling incentives to suppress the opposition by violent means and for incumbents to skew electoral competition in their favor. Civil peace—the value that justifies electoral democracy—is not the automatic product of electoral democracy.

More plausible is that peaceful elections depend on wide-spread allegiance to social norms of legitimate opposition. Electoral democracy requires norms against the use of government power to suppress political rivals and norms according to which political opposition is legitimate.

Norms are not just behavioral patterns. They are normative attitudes that identify conduct as required, prohibited or permissible (Brennan et al., 2013). The point is that if the value of competitive elections is conditioned by norms of legitimate opposition, there is reason to worry about behavior in the public sphere that weakens or undermines the normative attitudes that constitute them.

The norms of legitimate opposition are under pressure when political adversaries are characterized as corrupt, extremist, as supporters of terrorism, traitors, or as enemies of the people. Excessively hostile rhetoric undermines the normative attitudes that criticism and political competition are permissible and should be tolerated. The norms that informally regulate political competition are particularly vulnerable to attacks by political leaders and elected officials (Valentim et al., 2025). Norms that protect minorities and socially salient groups are eroded also when populist challengers repeatedly violate them (Hinterleitner and Sager 2023).

Interestingly, norms of legitimate opposition gradually erode not only when political opponents are intentionally vilified. As shown in experiments performed by Diane Mutz, more innocuous species of incivility also are detrimental to the perception that political opposition should be tolerated. Incivility induces the perception that other opinions are “less legitimate than they otherwise would be.” The conclusion is that exposure to incivility “discourages the kind of mutual respect that might sustain perceptions of a legitimate opposition” (Mutz 2015, 64, 69).

The upshot is that normative reasons to value electoral democracy provide reasons to worry both about verbal aggression that vilify the political opposition and about incivility more generally. The norms necessary to sustain electoral democracy are hollowed out when political rivals are subject to abuse, contempt, and uncivil discourse in general.

Uncivil speech is of course not limited to social media. Indeed, Mutz’s studied television, not digital platforms for communication. But given that patterns of media consumption are overtaken by social media and that uncivility is more frequent in social media than in traditional media, there is reason to believe that the problems identified by Mutz are even more substantial in social media. ¹¹ Social media platforms pose a threat to democracy as they incentivize, amplify, and permit the dissemination of uncivil speech that erode norms of legitimate opposition.

Final Discussion: Uncivil Speech and the Value of Democracy

The upshot of this paper is that the systemic risks of incivility are not uniform across conceptions of democracy. On the electoral conception, the principal concern lies with the erosion of accountability and legitimate opposition rather than with exclusion or inequality. On the egalitarian conception, incivility poses a threat to democracy when it distorts the structural opportunities for inclusive and equal participation.

If the value of democracy is attached to electoral institutions, aggregates of uncivil speech poses two risks. First, incivility weakens elections as mechanisms for government accountability. Uncivil speech promotes political cynicism, distrust, and partisan animosity, which undermines the purpose and value of elections. Incivility is a systemic threat to democracy because it erodes faith in electoral institutions as a viable instrument for accountability. Second, incivility grinds down norms of legitimate opposition that are necessary for civil peace. Speech that vilifies political opponents, by framing them as existential threats, contributes to the weakening of norms necessary for peaceful alteration in office. This effect is not limited to extreme rhetoric. There is evidence that even milder forms of incivility undercut the respect for political opposition necessary for peaceful political competition. The dynamics that erode toleration for the opposition are intensified where digital publics are dominated by provocative and abusive content that is rewarded and amplified by algorithms.

From the perspective of egalitarian conceptions of democracy, uncivil speech raise distinct concerns. The first is that incivility impairs the representative functions of the public sphere. If uncivil speech drives some groups or viewpoints out of public discussion, it reduces the inclusiveness of public arenas for discourse that are necessary for equal influence among citizens. This is especially damaging when groups already disadvantaged by historical or structural injustice are targets of uncivil speech as this amplifies preexisting inequalities in political participation and voice. The second reason is that aggregates of uncivil speech are problematic when they reinforce hierarchies of social status, either through overt hate speech or through subtler forms of epistemic bias that diminish the social standing of some citizens. The root of the problem on relational egalitarian views is not that uncivil speech may generate inequalities in political influence but that uncivil speech may establish unequal social relations between citizens. The third reason is that the accumulation of incivility in the public sphere undermines its legitimizing functions. On the legitimacy account of political equality, incivility is equivalent to “noise” that distracts citizens from the deliberative activities necessary for democratic legitimacy.

Though there are multiple reasons to worry about the systemic effects of uncivil speech, democrats should not treat these reasons as decisive. Even if incivility can undermine democratic values, democracy also depends on hearing dissenting voices, including those that do not conform to prevailing standards of civility (Young, 2000). Uncivil speech is not merely crude or aggressive; it can also be a legitimate vehicle for criticism and opposition. Following Edyvane (2020, 99) it may even be “the only way” for the poor, dispossessed, or oppressed, to articulate political resistance. A blanket condemnation of uncivil speech may therefore be one-sided and itself threaten democratic values. The question for democrats is how to balance these concerns.

A first step is to note that the objection that civility norms are exclusionary is grounded in egalitarian considerations. The claim is that democratic legitimacy depends on all voices being “included equally” in political processes (Young, 2000, 52ff.). But the exclusionary effects of civility norms are of no or little concern by electoral conceptions of democracy’s value. If democracy is valued primarily as an instrument for either government accountability or civil peace, the exclusion of unruly voices from the public sphere is of no great concern.

Two implications follow. First, when the democratic concern with uncivil speech is framed in electoral terms, it is largely unaffected by the objection that civility standards suppress dissent. This objection does not diminish the claim that aggregated incivility can erode accountability or weaken norms of legitimate opposition necessary for civil peace. Second, the tension between restraining incivility and protecting dissent is relevant only for egalitarian conceptions of democracy. Egalitarians must take seriously both the systemic harms of uncivil speech and the risk that the suppression of uncivil speech exacerbates pre-existing political inequalities.

To address this dilemma, we consider two strategies. One defends an asymmetric view: norms against uncivil speech applies to privileged but not to disadvantaged members of society. The second strategy retains equal civility requirements in principle but limits their scope, arguing that duties of civility apply more strongly in some public forums than in others.

The asymmetric view holds that, under conditions of structural injustice, duties to avoid uncivil speech apply more stringently to some citizens than to others. In societies where public institutions systematically empower some at the expense of others, there are “privileged” groups that are recursively advantaged and “oppressed” groups that are recursively disadvantaged (Cudd 2006). This means that civility norms are more accessible to the privileged and less accessible to the oppressed (Shelby 2007, 147). Yet, the main point is that the privileged have stronger duties of justice to rectify these inequalities and therefore more stringent duties to promote political equality and refrain from uncivil speech. As once noted by John Stuart Mill, the “morality of public discussion” imposes greater moral responsibilities on the privileged (Mill 2012 [1859]).

The argument for asymmetric duties is an attempt to reconcile the badness of uncivil speech with the badness of suppressing uncivil speech. It is not our position, however. Instead, we believe egalitarians are better served by an account of the norms of civility that apply equally to all—albeit only in relation to some issues and topics. The claim is that uncivil speech poses a threat to democracy in public fora only when it undermines reasoning about issues that are essential to the legitimacy of the state. This view builds on Rawls’ (1993) claim that the “duty of civility” applies to public reasoning on “constitutional essentials” and matters of “basic justice” (Rawls 1997, 767f.). ¹² Public reasoning that does not bear on either constitutional essentials or basic justice are not governed by duties of civility.

The duty of civility requires citizens to frame arguments about constitutional essentials and basic justice in terms of public reason, understood as reasons that other reasonable citizens could accept. The duty is therefore not a general demand for politeness. Yet when political claims are advanced through contemptuous or degrading speech, they are unlikely to meet the standard of reasonable acceptability, and so fail to qualify as public reasons in the relevant sense (Beckman 2025).

Against extending the duty of civility to social media speaks the fact that Rawls (1997) denies that such duties apply to civil society and the media (the “background culture”). The duty to deliberative on terms acceptable to other reasonable citizens applies only to participants in the legal institutions of the state (the “public political forum”). On a strict interpretation of the Rawlsian position there are no duties of civility in social media.

However, Rawls did not foresee the political impact of social media and the demise of editorial responsibility and journalistic norms in the public sphere. In societies where basic political issues are debated in unedited digital forums, we should be prepared to extend the duties of civility to aspects of the background culture. The duties of civility apply to all users of shared digital fora in so far as issues of fundamental importance to the egalitarian value of democracy are on the agenda.

This modified Rawlsian account offers a constructive rejoinder to the claim that uncivil speech poses a threat to democracy. It adjudicates between conflicting egalitarian intuitions about the value of an inclusive public sphere and a public sphere where all voices can be heard. In effect, the claim that duties of civility apply only to the most fundamental political questions denies that uncivil speech in general poses a threat to the egalitarian value of democracy. Uncivil speech is permissible in the public sphere as long as participants—both ordinary citizens and elected representatives—are committed to public reason and norms of civility in discussions that pertain to constitutional essentials and basic justice.