Does Electoral Defeat Erode Attitudes Toward Democracy Among Politicians? Evidence From a Comparative Analysis and an RDD

The foundation of democracy rests on losers’ consent to electoral results. While voters’ attitudes have been extensively studied, we know far less about how electoral defeats shape politicians’ democratic attitudes and preferences. This paper makes two key contributions. First, it introduces a theoretical framework to understand politicians’ reactions to electoral losses by distinguishing losses at the individual and the party level. Second, it presents observational evidence from 27 elections consistent with our expectations. Losing is linked to lower satisfaction with democracy and weaker support for representative institutions, especially at the party level. In addition, we provide causal evidence using Icelandic administrative data that demonstrates that these associations —at least at the individual level— are causal. These findings have crucial implications. They reveal the striking malleability of democratic attitudes among rank-and-file politicians following electoral defeat, suggesting that support for top-down democratic backsliding may stem from psychological reactions to electoral outcomes.