Does democratic backsliding depend on the policy issue? Evidence from a conjoint experiment

Citizens in established democracies have been shown to make trade-offs between political goals and democratic principles. Yet we know less about which policy issues citizens are more likely to prioritize over democratic norms. This is particularly important in European multiparty systems where issue-based voting has become salient. We hypothesize that socio-cultural issues are more likely to generate trade-offs between issue congruence and democratic principles than “left-right” issues, and that these effects are asymmetrical between proponents and opponents of an issue. We test these hypotheses with evidence from a pre-registered conjoint experiment (n = 2406) from Finland. We find strong evidence that citizens are willing to prioritize issue positions over democratic principles. However, contrary to our expectations, these effects are similar when it comes to socio-cultural policy issues and the more established “left-right” issues, nor are the effects asymmetrical between opponents and proponents of various policies.