Replication of “Why voters who value democracy participate in democratic backsliding” in Germany’s multi-party context

This report documents our replication of Braley et al.’s (2023) study, which examined whether voters become less willing to subvert democratic norms upon learning that their political opponents are more committed to democracy than previously assumed. The original study found that correcting voters' misperceptions about their opponents' democratic commitments effectively reduced their own willingness to undermine democratic norms. We replicate this finding within the German multiparty context, performing a direct replication with minimal modifications to the original design. Necessary adaptations address the multiparty structure in Germany, where identifying an out-party is less straightforward than in a two-party system. Additionally, we refined some survey items to enhance clarity. Consistent with the original findings, our replication study shows that correcting voters' misperceptions about the democratic commitment of out-partisans reduces their own willingness to subvert democratic norms, from 0.25 in the control group to 0.19 in the treatment group (on a 0-1 scale). In standardized terms, the observed treatment effect size (Cohen’s d = 0.4) closely matches the original effect, exceeding it by 8%.