Crisis of Democracy and Democratic Conceptions

This chapter introduces the core theoretical arguments of the book and presents the main research framework, as well as related research design and empirical data. It poses the question: Why, despite its popularity, is democracy in trouble? Attempts to answer this question have mostly focused on supply-side dynamics, such as evolving political practices and institutional engineering led by political elites, while demand-side dynamics have been given scanty attention so far. We focus on some key micro-dynamics that have driven related mass attitudes and behaviors, all of which are centered on how people understand democracy in different ways. This chapter concludes with a roadmap for subsequent chapters.

Constrained Citizens? Ideological Structure and Conflict Extension in the US Electorate, 1980–2016

Past the half-century mark of Converse's (1964) field-defining essay, the nature of political ideology in the mass public and how it has changed in response to partisan polarization remains enigmatic. To test the ideological structure of US public opinion, I develop and implement a Bayesian dynamic ordinal item response theory model. In contrast to static scaling procedures, this method allows for changes in the mappings between issue attitudes and the underlying ideological dimension over time. The results indicate that over the last forty years, mass attitudes on a range of long-standing policy controversies better fit a unidimensional ideological structure. As among elites, the left–right dimension has come to encompass a wide range of policy, partisan, and value divides in the mass public. Further, these trends hold for voters at all levels of political sophistication. Widespread conflict extension appears to be a defining feature of mass polarization in contemporary US politics.

Homonegative attitides after Obergefell v. Hodges. Quasi-experimental evidence of anticipatory backlash abroad

Does the expansion of LGBT+ rights in the US affect mass attitudes towards sexual minorities abroad? Relying on a quasi-experiment presented by the as good as random exposure to news regarding the US’s legalisation of same-sex marriage in the landmark US Supreme Court case - Obergefell vs Hodges – in Israel, I present an empirical test of the cross-national effect of LGBT+ rights advances in the US on mass attitudes abroad. Empirically, I rely on data from wave 7 of the European Social survey to show that legalising same-sex marriage engendered a popular backlash towards homosexuality amongst Israeli citizens and that this rise in homonegativity was greatest amongst women. In contrast to the domestic tolerance-inducing effects of policy feedback at home, this study shows that advances in domestic LGBT+ rights can trigger a negative response among citizens beyond the confines of a state’s borders.

Illiberal democratic attitudes and support for the EU

Are those who support the core values of liberal democracy also more likely to support the European Union? In this article, we study the relationship between EU support and support for the principles of liberal democracy among citizens in the 28 EU member states, using data from the European Election Studies 2019. Our findings demonstrate that supporters of liberal principles of democracy tend to be more supportive of the EU, while supporters of more direct forms of citizen influence are more Eurosceptic. We argue that this may be in part due to the design of the EU with strong institutional checks-and-balances, but a weak link to citizens. Attitudes towards liberal democracy are less structured than previous research suggests. Yet, the structuration of attitudes towards liberal democracy and the association between these attitudes and EU support is stronger in contexts where the role of the institutions of liberal democracy is more contested. This reconfirms that elite cues are essential for the formation of structured mass attitudes.

Analyzing Mass Attitudes Toward the International Court of Justice

This paper analyzes public attitudes about the International Court of Justice (ICJ). We explore two questions: (1) Why are some people in favor of submitting their country's disputes to the ICJ while others are opposed? (2) How can we explain variations in public support for compliance with a costly ICJ ruling? We argue that individual-level attitudes about both issues are driven by different psychological dynamics. While we expect that cost–benefit calculations and cosmopolitan social identity will affect attitudes in both contexts, people's views on compliance should also be shaped by their level of social dominance orientation (SDO). Our statistical analysis is based on original survey data, collected in Belize in April 2019. We obtain three main findings. First, people's ex ante beliefs about the costs of an ICJ ruling have tangible effects on attitudes toward ICJ adjudication. As predicted, higher expected costs lead to decreased support for adjudication. Second, cosmopolitanism is positively associated with support for adjudication, but it has no effect on attitudes about compliance with international court rulings. Third, high-SDO respondents are less likely to favor the implementation of a costly ICJ verdict. However, SDO only reduces support for compliance in individuals with narrow social identity attachments.

Many Ways to be Right: Cross-Pressured Voters in Western Europe

Mainstream parties in Western Europe are increasingly struggling to hold together their base of support. As a lens for exploring this changing electoral landscape, this article focuses on the growing share of the electorate that is cross-pressured between conservative and progressive attitudes on economic and cultural issues. It argues that a stable asymmetry characterizes Western European mass attitudes: while support for the left is common among voters with progressive attitudes on both issues, it is enough to be conservative on one issue to turn right. Analyzing survey data collected from 1990 to 2017, the study shows that cross-pressures are resolved in favor of the right and examines the trade-offs this poses to center-right parties. These findings contribute to debates on electoral dealignment and realignment and shed light on the electoral choices of the center-right.

Schooled by Strikes? The Effects of Large-Scale Labor Unrest on Mass Attitudes toward the Labor Movement

Strikes are a central tool of organized labor, yet existing research has focused on the economic consequences of strikes, rather than their political effects. We examine how labor actions by teachers, a well-organized group of public sector workers, affect mass attitudes about the strikes and interest in the labor movement more generally. Our context involves large-scale teacher strikes and walkouts in six states in 2018. Using an original survey in the affected states, we study the causal effect of strike exposure among parents whose children’s ages place them in or out of school. Firsthand strike exposure increased parents’ support for the teachers and for the labor movement, as well as parents’ interest in labor action (though not necessarily through traditional unions). Our results highlight the importance of strikes as a political strategy for unions: not only can they build stronger public support for the striking workers but they can also inspire greater interest in further labor action among other workers.