TY - JOUR
T1 - The consistency principle
T2 - Crisis perceptions, partisanship and public support for democratic norms in comparative perspective
AU - Driscoll, Amanda
AU - Krehbiel, Jay
AU - Nelson, Michael J.
AU - Kim, Sangyeon
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 European Consortium for Political Research.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - A growing body of research theorizes that partisanship can undermine democracy as citizens prioritize their political interests over abstract norms and values. We argue that crises might counteract intense partisanship by giving citizens clarity on the threats posed by rule of law violations. Examining the differential application of a law – a breach of democratic norms – we draw on an experiment embedded in representative surveys of Germany, the United States, Hungary and Poland to examine citizens’ sense of appropriate punishment for elites’ violation of a municipal mask-wearing ordinance. We find evidence of partisan bias in citizens’ willingness to support punishment in all four countries. But, in the two consolidated democracies, we find that concern about the Covid-19 crisis diminishes partisan biases in punishment preferences: citizens who are most concerned about the crisis also model the most consistency in their willingness to hold copartisans into account.
AB - A growing body of research theorizes that partisanship can undermine democracy as citizens prioritize their political interests over abstract norms and values. We argue that crises might counteract intense partisanship by giving citizens clarity on the threats posed by rule of law violations. Examining the differential application of a law – a breach of democratic norms – we draw on an experiment embedded in representative surveys of Germany, the United States, Hungary and Poland to examine citizens’ sense of appropriate punishment for elites’ violation of a municipal mask-wearing ordinance. We find evidence of partisan bias in citizens’ willingness to support punishment in all four countries. But, in the two consolidated democracies, we find that concern about the Covid-19 crisis diminishes partisan biases in punishment preferences: citizens who are most concerned about the crisis also model the most consistency in their willingness to hold copartisans into account.
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U2 - 10.1111/1475-6765.12673
DO - 10.1111/1475-6765.12673
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85190253766
SN - 0304-4130
JO - European Journal of Political Research
JF - European Journal of Political Research
ER -