Permissive Winners? The Quality of Democracy and the Winner–Loser Gap in the Perception of Freedoms
| Author | Alejandro Monsiváis-Carrillo |
| Date | 01 February 2022 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321720952230 |
| Published date | 01 February 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321720952230
Political Studies
2022, Vol. 70(1) 173 –194
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321720952230
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Permissive Winners? The
Quality of Democracy and
the Winner–Loser Gap in
the Perception of Freedoms
Alejandro Monsiváis-Carrillo
Abstract
Voters usually differ in their assessment of the regime’s legitimacy, depending on their status
as winners or losers. However, how wide or narrow the winner–loser gap is also depends on
the quality of democratic institutions. Using survey data from 18 Latin American countries,
this research provides evidence that winners and losers respond differently to the quality of
democracy. While most research is concerned with the losers’ consent, this study shows that the
winners express more favorable assessments of the supply of freedoms, even in regimes where
democracy is weak or undermined by the deliberate efforts of the political authorities. Instead, in
their perception of freedoms, losers are more willing to acknowledge if the quality of democracy
improves or declines. These results suggest that the potential consequences of the winner–loser
gap for regime stability are highly dependent on the democratic attributes of the political context.
Keywords
winner–loser gap, regime legitimacy, basic freedoms, liberal democracy, political context
Accepted: 3 August 2020
In the study of political support, the winner–loser gap constitutes a significant puzzle.
Political trust and regime support are usually deemed valuable attributes of robust and
stable democracies (Diamond, 1999: 168). Nevertheless, voters whose preferred parties
or candidates succeed in winning elections are usually more satisfied with democracy or
trustful of political institutions than citizens who find themselves on the losing side (see,
for instance, Anderson and LoTempio, 2002; Banducci and Karp, 2003; Nadeau and
Blais, 1993; Nadeau et al., 2019). Thus, as a by-product of democratic elections, winners
and losers consistently diverge in their support for institutions, opening a gap in the
Department of Studies in Public Administration, El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Tijuana, México
Corresponding author:
Alejandro Monsiváis-Carrillo, El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Escenica Tijuana-Ensenada, Km 18.5,
San Antonio del Mar, 22560 Tijuana, México.
Email: amonsi@colef.mx
952230PSX0010.1177/0032321720952230Political StudiesMonsiváis-Carrillo
research-article2020
Article
174 Political Studies 70(1)
regime’s legitimacy that could increase the risk of political instability (Anderson et al.,
2005).
In the literature, the influence of the winner–loser status on political support is primar-
ily linked to the configuration of political representation. A substantial body of research
demonstrates that political institutions and processes, such as constitutional designs, elec-
toral systems, or electoral contests, interact with voter’s winner or loser status to define
political support (Anderson and Guillory, 1997; Anderson and Tverdova, 2001; Banducci
and Karp, 2003; Blais et al., 2017; Blais and Gélineau, 2007; Curini et al., 2012; Esaiasson,
2011). At the same time, an increasing number of studies show that system-level attrib-
utes also perform an essential function in explaining the legitimacy gap between winners
and losers (Anderson and Tverdova, 2001; Han and Chang, 2016; Martini and Quaranta,
2019). Specifically, Dahlberg and Linde (2016) highlight the role that the quality of dem-
ocratic elections and the rule of law play in defining the winner–loser gap in satisfaction
with democracy. Nonetheless, the variation of the winner–loser gap across different lev-
els of democratic quality remains largely understudied.
This article contributes to an ongoing research agenda focused on how the country-
level quality of democratic governance interacts with the winner–loser status at an indi-
vidual level to explain political support and regime legitimacy. This study uses survey
and contextual data from 18 Latin American nations—a region where the strength of
democratic institutions varies widely—to examine the conditional relationship between
the quality of democracy and the winner–loser status. The analysis is performed on a
group of indicators measuring citizen’s appraisal of the regime’s supply of basic demo-
cratic freedoms: freedom of the press, freedom of expression, freedom of political opin-
ion, and protection of human rights. Using concrete measures of the citizen’s views of
democratic rights and freedoms, it helps to bridge the scholarship on the consequences of
the winner–loser gap and the study of the citizens’ perspective on the quality of democ-
racy (Mayne and Geißel, 2018; Pickel et al., 2016).
The argument put forward is that winner–loser gap reflects the polarization that exists
in the electorate regarding the democratic quality of political institutions. Citizens are
expected to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of the regime’s democratic attributes,
but their assessments will diverge as a function of their electoral choices. If the legitimacy
of the political system is usually a contested issue, variations on the quality of democracy
should accentuate the divergence between winners and losers. Accordingly, this study
shows that citizen’s appraisal of basic freedoms is dependent on both their winner–loser
status and the regime’s democratic quality. In political systems where liberal-democratic
institutions are unstable or weak, the gap between winners and losers is wider. These
results contribute to underscoring that the risks posed by the political polarization between
winners and losers largely depend on the democratic features of the political context.
Loser’s consent may be essential in cases where support for democratic institutions is
desirable (Anderson et al., 2005). Instead, the winners’ restraint might be crucial in cases
where democracy is fragile (Singer, 2018). As this research illustrates, winners are more
willing to provide favorable assessments of the protection of freedoms than losers, par-
ticularly in regimes where liberal-democratic institutions are severely limited. In some
cases, this implicates conferring legitimacy to regimes where authoritarian incumbents
have eroded democracy.
This article is organized as follows: the first section briefly discusses why the winner–
loser gap is relevant for regime support. The second section provides a review of the lit-
erature, formulates the theoretical argument, and establishes the hypothesis. Then,
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