Are Citizens Willing to Trade Away Democracy for Desirable Outcomes? Experimental Evidence from Six Countries

To what extent do citizens prioritize living in a democracy over other indicators of good governance or personal well-being? This question has become contested as democracies come under pressure worldwide. We address this gap through cross-national conjoint experiments in which survey respondents choose between hypothetical countries that differ in terms of societal-level attributes (e.g., elections, health care) and individual-level outcomes that the respondent would experience (e.g., wealth, minority status). Citizens across Egypt, India, Italy, Japan, Thailand, and the United States consistently prioritize living in a safe country with free and fair elections over other factors, including other components of democracy like civil liberties and checks and balances. Many people would forfeit democratic elections to avoid living in a dangerous society but not to obtain wealth and other goods. Electoral democracy is attractive globally but can be undermined by concerns about crime and safety.