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The partisan nature of support for democratic backsliding: A comparative perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2026

Elisabeth Gidengil Open the ORCID record for Elisabeth Gidengil [Opens in a new window] ,
Dietlind Stolle Open the ORCID record for Dietlind Stolle [Opens in a new window]  and
Olivier Bergeron‐Boutin Open the ORCID record for Olivier Bergeron‐Boutin [Opens in a new window]
Elisabeth Gidengil*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, McGill University, Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship, Canada
Dietlind Stolle
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, McGill University, Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship, Canada
Olivier Bergeron‐Boutin
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, McGill University, Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship, Canada
*
Address for correspondence: Elisabeth Gidengil, Department of Political Science, McGill University, Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship, Montreal, Canada. Email: Elisabeth.Gidengil@mcgill.ca
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Abstract

This article asks whether the willingness of partisans to condone democratic backsliding is a uniquely American phenomenon and explores why partisans would tolerate a party leader subverting democratic norms. We focus on executive aggrandizement as a key mechanism through which democratic backsliding occurs and develop three potential explanations for why partisans would accept the weakening of checks on the power of the executive. First, in a context of affective polarization, partisans may condone executive aggrandizement in order to advantage their party and disadvantage the opponent. Second, partisans may be willing to trade off democratic norms in pursuit of their ideological agenda. Third, partisans may take cues from the behaviour of party elites. These explanations are tested using a candidate‐choice conjoint experiment administered to Americans and Canadians in 2019 that involved respondents choosing between hypothetical candidates in intra‐party contests. Regardless of party, partisans in both countries proved willing to choose candidates who would loosen legislative and judicial restraints on the executive. While the partisan advantage explanation only held for strong Republicans in the United States, partisans in Canada and the United States alike were apparently willing to weaken restraints on the executive for the sake of their ideological agendas, at least in the case of abortion. Finally, Republicans who approved of the Trump presidency were much less likely than other Republicans to punish undemocratic candidates, lending support to the cue‐taking explanation.

Keywords

affective polarizationcue‐takingdemocratic backslidingexecutive aggrandizementpartisanship

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Type
Research Articles
Information
European Journal of Political Research , Volume 61 , Issue 4 , November 2022 , pp. 901 - 929
Copyright
Copyright © 2021 European Consortium for Political Research.

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