By:
Damjan Tomic
Sergi Ferrer
Enrique Prada
Enrique Hernández
Recent studies suggest that partisan animus might pose a threat to the stability of democracies. At the same time, some studies indicate that being an election winner or loser affects individuals’ support for core democratic principles. However, these two perspectives have not been integrated. Combining the insights from these literature strands we test how supporting the winning party in elections interacts with affective polarization in influencing the degree to which people prioritize majority rule at the direct expense of the rights of minorities. We leverage changes in winner/loser status following national elections, out-party dislike and variation in the timing of survey interviews with respect to elections in the CSES to study individuals’ positions on the trade-off between unconstrained majority rule and the protection of minority rights. This allows us to assess if electoral winners exercise restraint without abusing their position as winners and the degree to which such majoritarianism is reinforced by partisan animosity towards the opposition. Moreover, by exploiting variation in the timing of survey interviews we analyze if winners’ prioritization of majority rule at the expense of the rights of minorities fades as time goes by after elections. This study contributes to our understanding of how individuals’ democratic restraint is influenced by winning and losing dynamics and how this process is intimately linked to affective polarization.