Work

Building Tolerance for Backsliding by Trash-Talking Democracy: Theory and Evidence From Mexico

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Leaders who seek to build public toleration for democratic backsliding have a little-noticed strategy at their disposal: degrading their democracies in the eyes of their citizens. If voters can be induced to believe that their democracy is already broken, then nothing of value is lost when leaders attack the courts, vilify the press, or undermine confidence in elections. We call this strategy trash-talking democracy , and study it in the context of contemporary Mexico. We use text-as-data methods to show that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador spent more time trash-talking his democracy than he did deepening partisan polarization. With a survey experiment we show that exposure to López Obrador’s trash-talking of the courts elicits anti-democratic attitudes among Mexicans — both among his supporters and among supporters of the opposition. Strategies to resist backsliding should include not just efforts at de-polarization but also at restoring confidence in democratic institutions.

Source: Comparative Political Studies

DOI: 10.1177/00104140251328024

Authors: Lautaro Cella, Ipek Çınar, Susan Stokes, Andres Uribe

Institutions: University of Chicago, University of Wisconsin–Madison

Language: English

Topic: Political Theory and Democracy

Subfield: Political Science and International Relations

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,900