The health of liberal democracies has been the focus of interest for political science for some time, against a global backdrop marked by the rise of political polarization and tense incidents like those that took place in the United States in 2021 and Brazil in 2023. A recent study involving the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) has examined whether winning or losing a polarized election has an impact on citizens' satisfaction with democracy and their support for its basic rules. The results of the research, which have been published in open access in the journal Comparative Political Studies, suggest that citizens' perceptions of the democratic system are surprisingly resilient.

The study is based on a comparative analysis of 35 elections and those involved included Sergi Ferrer, a researcher in the eGovernance: electronic administration and democracy (GADE) group at the UOC and Enrique Hernández, Damjan Tomic and Enrique Prada, researchers from the Department of Political Science and Public Law at the UAB. The project examined whether election results and the degree of partisan animosity are factors that determine adherence to basic democratic principles, such as institutional restraint (the majority's willingness not to abuse its power and respect minorities) and losers' consent (acceptance of the results and the majority's right to govern according to the rules).

One of the initial hypotheses was that affective polarization, i.e., distrust or animosity towards people voting for other parties, who in extreme cases may be seen as enemies – could change these attitudes and lead citizens to question democratic norms that run counter to their immediate interests. However, the results show that while people voting for winning parties are more satisfied with democracy than those who have voted for losing parties, the differences are much smaller when their support for fundamental democratic norms is examined.

"Being more satisfied when you have won than when you have lost is normal. It happens in all areas of life. What can be problematic is when winning or losing makes you more or less democratic, or leads you to support undemocratic acts in cases with high levels of polarization. We thought that this might be the case, but the results show the opposite, even though we studied it in different environments and using different methods," said Sergi Ferrer, a member of the Faculty of Law and Political Science.


Trust in the rules of the game

The study shows that even in highly polarized environments, winning voters do not usually support leaders who 'take revenge', and losers continue to accept the majority's right to govern, provided that minority rights are protected. There are differences between winners and losers in these areas, but they are statistically very small when compared to the decline in satisfaction with democracy. This suggests that there is a bedrock of public support that contributes to maintaining democratic institutions, even in politically tense environments.

These results therefore provide fresh evidence on the role of citizens in the quality of democracy. Most of the previous academic literature had focused on "satisfaction with democracy", an indicator that usually reflects whether the individual is happy with how the system works, or with the current government. This study confirms that winning voters are consistently more satisfied than losers, and that this difference increases as affective polarization increases. "On the other hand, if there is a difference between winners and losers in terms of support for basic democratic norms, it remains constant regardless of the level of polarization," said the researcher, who is affiliated to the UOC-DIGIT centre.

The research was carried out by analysing data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), which covers 35 elections held in 30 countries between 2016 and 2021. Its objectives did not include ascertaining why polarization has a particularly marked effect on satisfaction with democracy but not on support for democratic norms, but Ferrer gave his own perspective: "The two aspects are different in academic terms. To make a comparison with football, being angry at losing to your biggest rival is one thing, and wanting to change the basic rules of football after you lose is something else entirely."


A political environment that encourages further research

In view of the democratic backsliding that is evident in some Western democracies, which has taken place at the same time as increased polarization, the research team highlighted the need to continue studying these dynamics in depth. "If we want a democracy to work properly, the winners must not use their status as winners to give themselves more powers, and the losers must accept that they have lost and that the way to achieve power is simply to win elections in the future," said the UOC researcher.

The research team aims to continue broadening its knowledge in order to contribute more information to the recent debate on the extent to which it is necessary to restrict or permit the existence of parties with strong autocratic tendencies. "The situations or circumstances in which polarization does have a negative effect on democracy are not yet entirely clear. We are investigating whether it is necessary to identify which parties polarize and how their opponents react, a process known as asymmetric polarization," said Ferrer. The research team has also begun new lines of work to find out whether polarization affects other principles, such as banning political parties or judicial review processes.


This study is aligned with the UOC's Culture for a critical society research mission, and supports the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially numbers 4, Quality Education, and 16, Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.

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