Eri Bertsou

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Title
Prof. PhD
Last Name
Bertsou
First name
Eri
Email
eri.bertsou@unisg.ch
Phone
+41 71 224 2600

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    Item type:Publication,
    Winners’ Restraint in Established Democracies: How far do winners’ have to go before rejecting political outcomes when democratic norm violations accumulate?
    (2023-06-24)
    Eri Bertsou  
    ;
    Hannah Werner
    ;
    Sofie Marien
    Recent concerns about democratic backsliding in established democracies have raised the question: Will citizens notice violations of democratic norms and reject political decisions that lead to their desired outcome? Existing studies paint a pessimistic picture, suggesting that citizens are unable to restrain themselves when on the winning side of political competition and to call out undemocratic behaviour for what it is. This paper investigates winners’ restraint in the UK. It adds to the literature on citizens’ ability to resist undemocratic practices by examining winners’ reaction to accumulating violations of democratic norms. Just as in the real world democratic erosion happens gradualy, we test whether citizens are responsive or become immune to repeated violations of democratic norms. Results show that, while double standards exist and winning is the main predictor for peoples’ perceived legitimacy of political decisions, citizens are sensitive to repeated norm violations. In two experimental studies, we investigate how far winners are willing to go before rejecting flawed processes, and find that a majority of winners change their perceptions of fairness and legitimacy when exposed to multiple flaws.
    Type:conference paper
    URI:https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/118701