The Public’s Constraint of Undemocratic Elites

Abstract

There is much scholarly discussion about antidemocratic political rhetoric, the erosion of public support for democratic norms, and the implications for democratic backsliding. Underlying this literature is a concern about whether the citizenry holds officials accountable for efforts to undermine democratic principles and institutions. We theorize that priming an injunctive civic norm about how political leaders “ought” to behave increases the electorate’s willingness to hold elites accountable. We implement survey experiments in the United States focused on an election in which a candidate advocates for violating democratic norms in service to political goals. We demonstrate that priming an injunctive civic norm reduces people’s support for their party’s norm-violating candidate, and, in some contexts, increases the self-reported likelihood of voting for an opposing party candidate. Although an appeal to civic norms increases the public’s willingness to constrain elite efforts to subvert democratic principles, our results make clear that it is not a panacea.