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Winning, Losing, and the Quality of Democracy
[journal article]
Abstract Citizens who voted for a party that won the election are more satisfied with democracy than those who did not. This winner - loser gap has recently been found to vary with the quality of electoral democracy: the higher the quality of democracy, the smaller the gap. However, we do not know what drive... view more
Citizens who voted for a party that won the election are more satisfied with democracy than those who did not. This winner - loser gap has recently been found to vary with the quality of electoral democracy: the higher the quality of democracy, the smaller the gap. However, we do not know what drives this relationship. Is it driven by losers, winners, or both? And Why? Linking our work to the literature on motivated reasoning and macro salience and benefiting from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems project - covering 163 elections in 51 countries between 1996 and 2018, our results show that the narrower winner - loser gap in well-established electoral democracies is not only a result of losers being more satisfied with democracy, but also of winners being less satisfied with their victory. Our findings carry important implications since a narrow winner - loser gap appears as a key feature of healthy democratic systems.... view less
Keywords
democracy; quality; thinking; satisfaction; election result
Classification
Political Process, Elections, Political Sociology, Political Culture
Free Keywords
satisfaction with democracy; electoral democracy; winners; losers; abstainers; quality of democracy; motivated reasoning; Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES)
Document language
English
Publication Year
2023
Page/Pages
p. 483-500
Journal
Political Studies, 71 (2023) 2
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/00323217211026189
ISSN
1467-9248
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed