Political elites sometimes seek to delegitimize election results using unsubstantiated claims
of fraud. Most recently, Donald Trump sought to overturn his loss in the 2020 US presidential …

Democracy often confronts citizens with a dilemma: stand firm on democracy while losing
out on policy or accept undemocratic behavior and gain politically. Existing literature …

Democratic stability depends on citizens on the losing side accepting election outcomes.
Can rhetoric by political leaders undermine this norm? Using a panel survey experiment, we …

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 …

Scholars warn that partisan divisions in the mass public threaten the health of American
democracy. We conducted a megastudy (n= 32,059 participants) testing 25 treatments …

With widespread democratic backsliding globally, people's support for democracy-eroding
leaders is receiving overdue attention. But existing studies have difficulty disentangling …

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 …

Winners and losers of elections have different stakes in protecting democratic institutions.
We provide new evidence for the effects of partisanship and economic performance on …

The legitimacy of democratically elected governments rests in part on widespread
acceptance of the outcome of elections, especially among those who lost. This “losers' …

In several world regions, democracy is in retreat. This retreat is taking place amid growing
polarization in many countries, and analysts are increasingly concerned with the role that …