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Does Competence Make Citizens Tolerate Undemocratic Behavior?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 February 2022

KRISTIAN VREDE SKAANING FREDERIKSEN Open the ORCID record for KRISTIAN VREDE SKAANING FREDERIKSEN [Opens in a new window]
KRISTIAN VREDE SKAANING FREDERIKSEN*
Affiliation:
Aarhus University, Denmark
*
Kristian Vrede Skaaning Frederiksen, PhD Candidate, Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Denmark, ksf@ps.au.dk.
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Abstract

Are citizens willing to tolerate violations of democratic rules and norms by competent political leaders? I examine this question employing well-powered conjoint experiments in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Mexico, and South Korea. The findings yield good as well as bad news for democracy. I find that undemocratic behavior by political candidates decreases voter support, whereas candidate competence increases support. Contrary to expectations, the effects of undemocratic behavior and competence do not interact. This means that competent candidates are sanctioned for violating democratic principles but also that support for undemocratic candidates increases with their competence. These findings can help explain the successes and failures of undemocratic political leaders around the world: although these leaders can gain support by appearing to be competent, competence does not make citizens tolerate undemocratic behavior entirely.

Type
Letter
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 116 , Issue 3 , August 2022 , pp. 1147 - 1153
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

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Supplementary material: Link

Frederiksen Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/NGFLRO
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Supplementary material: PDF

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