Democratic Hypocrisy: Polarized citizens support democracy-eroding behavior when their own party is in power

Citizen support for democracy-eroding political leaders is receiving much overdue attention, but existing studies have a difficulty disentangling contextual effects (such as who is in power at the time of the survey) from individual differences (like which party one supports and how much). We propose a novel survey experimental design to strip away the political context through hypothetical scenarios. This allows us to gauge the public’s democratic hypocrisy: how much a citizen’s approval of eroding democratic norms and institutions depends on how much one likes the party in power. Findings suggest that while Republicans are more approving of policies that erode democratic norms and institutions no matter which party is in power at a given time, both Democrats and Republicans engage in democratic hypocrisy, supporting a change in democratic practices when it will enhance their party’s advantage. The magnitude of that effect is stronger for individuals with stronger partisan attachment.