This paper asks whether voters are more tolerant of politicians’ undemocratic behavior when those politicians share voters’ partisanship or policy preferences. Using conjoint experiments run in five countries (United States, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Mexico, South Korea), the study contrasts a social‑psychological partisan‑attachment account with Downsian spatial policy‑preference expectations to see which, if either, reduces voters’ punishment of undemocratic conduct.
Conjoint experiments across five countries Direct comparison of partisanship vs. policy agreement Finds limited blinding effects of either factor
Data and methods
The analysis relies on conjoint experiments conducted in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Mexico, and South Korea. The design varies candidate attributes including measures of undemocratic behavior, partisan alignment, and policy agreement so the author can estimate how each attribute affects stated voting intentions while holding other features constant.
Main findings
Across all five countries, partisanship did not eliminate the negative effect of undemocratic behavior on voting intentions. Unexpectedly, policy agreement sometimes increased voters’ punishment of undemocratic behavior. At the same time, partisanship exerted a stronger direct influence on voting intentions than either policy agreement or undemocratic behavior.
- Partisanship does not suppress voters’ negative responses to undemocratic behavior.
- Policy agreement can amplify punishment rather than attenuate it.
These results are interpreted cautiously in light of the experimental design: voters appear better able to set aside policy agreement than partisan attachments when evaluating threats to democratic norms, but neither factor completely blinds citizens to undemocratic conduct.
