Defining and Measuring Democratic Norms

If scholars and pundits are right, the erosion of norms in the United States and abroad poses a significant danger to democracy. Understanding what exactly norms are, what makes them democratic, and how best to measure them is thus essential for generating and evaluating explanations of how such norms weaken and collapse. Our article addresses each of these key elements. On the conceptual front, we argue for more precision in defining norms and more consideration in labeling them as democratic. On the measurement front, we develop a general utility function and use it to evaluate the various methodological strategies that researchers have deployed to causally identify democratic norms. In between, we synthesize the fast-growing literature on norms and democratic backsliding using a fourfold typology, with transgressors and enforcers on one dimension and political elites and citizens on the other. We conclude by pinpointing several new areas for future research.