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Subverting democracy in the name of democracy
Bor, Alexander Mazepus, Honorata
Bor, Alexander
Mazepus, Honorata
Title / Series / Name
Democratization
Publication Volume
Publication Issue
Pages
Author
Editors
Keywords
Democratic backsliding
Justification
Manipulation
Partisan bias
Polarization
Geography, Planning and Development
Political Science and International Relations
Justification
Manipulation
Partisan bias
Polarization
Geography, Planning and Development
Political Science and International Relations
Files
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Bor-Alexander_2026.pdf
Adobe PDF, 445.13 KB
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14018/28796
Abstract
Attempts to subvert democracy are often justified, paradoxically, as an effort to save or improve democracy. Yet, little is known about the effectiveness of these justifications. Here, we conduct two original vignette experiments, where US American and Polish respondents are introduced to a proposal of executive aggrandizement, usurping control over election results and capturing the media, respectively. We manipulate the proposal's party and the justification they provide in a 2 Ć 3 between participants experiment (total Nā=ā5,008). Our experiments replicate well-known effects of partisan bias in support for the subversion of democracy: respondents in both the US and Poland are more tolerant of subversion when it is initiated by their in-party. However, respondents are surprisingly resistant to justifications, especially in the high external validity design implemented in the US. Even in Poland where we āforcedā respondents to pay attention to the justifications, support for subversion is increased only among in-partisans and not by much. These results raise doubt that democratic subversion can be effectively masked as a pro-democracy intervention by pro-democratic rhetoric.
Topic
Publisher
Place of Publication
Type
Journal article
Date
2026-01-07
Language
ISBN
Identifiers
10.1080/13510347.2025.2592846