*Joint work with Milan Svolik (Yale University), Johanna Lutz (Friedrich Ebert Foundation) and Filip Milacic (Friedrich Ebert Foundation) *
The study investigates why voters support politicians who violate democratic norms and how such candidates are able to weaken democracy in their respective countries. To achieve this, we used candidate choice experiments and surveyed 10,001 individuals from Germany, Poland, Sweden, Spain, Estonia, Ukraine, and Serbia. By comparing the vote shares of undemocratic candidates with those of democratic candidates who were otherwise identical, we could measure a country’s democratic resilience – how willing its electorate is to penalize a preferred candidate or party for undermining democracy. The findings indicate that voters prioritize policy preferences and party allegiance over democratic principles, particularly in relation to identity policies like same-sex couples’ rights and immigration. The study also highlights two groups of citizens who display little concern for candidates who violate key democratic principles: illiberal-right voters and disengaged citizens who tend to align with the illiberal-right when re-engaging in politics. These groups can serve as reservoirs of tolerance for authoritarianism, which authoritarian politicians may use to their advantage.