CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 138Electoral Systems and Political ParticipationPolitical Theory and DemocracyPolitical Conflict and Governance

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 59 of the 59 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Why voters who value democracy participate in democratic backsliding

Open access
Braley, Alia, Lenz, Gabriel S., Adjodah, Dhaval, Rahnama, Hossein, Pentland, Alex·2023·Nature Human Behaviour
DOI 10.1038/s41562-023-01594-w

Published version of a preprint

Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

Abstract Around the world, citizens are voting away the democracies they claim to cherish. Why are they voting against their own values? In this article, we provide evidence that this behavior is driven in part by fear that their opponents might dismantle democracy first. In an observational study (N=1,973), we find that US partisans who most fear the other party’s willingness to subvert democracy are also those most willing to support subverting democracy themselves. In an experimental study (N=2,543), we use an intervention to reduce these often exaggerated fears. With these fears reduced, partisans become more committed to upholding democratic norms. They also become more willing to vote against candidates of their own party who break these norms. The findings suggest that we can foster democratic stability by strengthening trust in opposing partisans’ commitment to democracy.

Overview

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1038/s41562-023-01594-w

Cites

59 of 59 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Verification

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Citations

Cites

Show all 57 references

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. Broockman, D., Kalla, J. & Westwood, S. Does affective polarization undermine democratic norms or accountability? Maybe not. Amer. Jour. Pol. Sci. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.1271 (2022). · DOI

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Items 101–125 of 125

Related

See all

Metadata

Authors
Braley, A., Lenz, G. S., Adjodah, D., Rahnama, H., & Pentland, A.
Affiliations
  • University of California, Berkeley (US)
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
  • MIT Media Lab (US)
Corresponding author
Braley, Alia
ORCID
Venue
Nature Human Behaviour
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2023-05-22
Volume
7
Issue
8
Pages
1282-1293
ISSN
2397-3374 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1038/s41562-023-01594-w
OpenAlex
W4377225348
Cited by
138
References
57
Citations by year
2026: 29 · 2025: 47 · 2024: 45 · 2023: 12
FWCI
98.21
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Nature Human Behaviour (publishedVersion)
  • Research Square (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • University of California Berkeley (NA)
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology (NA)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Electoral Systems and Political Participation
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Political Theory and Democracy
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Political Conflict and Governance
Keywords
democratic backsliding, democratic norms, partisanship, democratic stability, authoritarianism, voting behavior
MeSH terms
Democracy, Humans, Politics

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review