Strong Partisans, Conditional Democrats? Partisanship and Reactions to Electoral Outcomes in Argentina

Partisans who back self-interested illiberal measures jeopardize democracy. We explore important precursors of support for backsliding using survey and focus group data from severely polarized Argentina. First, we show that partisans construct regime stereotypes, depicting “friends” as democratic and “foes” as authoritarian. This offers fertile ground for justifying exclusionary policies. Second, through an experiment with post-election scenarios describing a party’s landslide victory we study whether partisan affect exacerbates emotional reactivity and/or shapes democratic values in the face of victory/defeat. All partisan groups are emotionally reactive, whereas democratic attitudes vary more among Kirchnerists/Peronists. This difference is due to the nature of their partisanship: unlike non-Peronists, Peronists/Kirchnerists profess a strong positive creed. Elections can therefore turn into moments of existential angst and loss becomes particularly intolerable. Overall, the results illuminate the emotional and attitudinal reactions that render partisan affect dangerous, allowing leaders to manipulate feeble democratic commitments in the event of defeat.