2025/01/01 by Melek Hilal Eroğlu, Steven E. Finkel, Anja Neundorf +2 · 1 voice · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Business, Management and Accounting · #Social Media and Politics #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Political Influence and Corporate Strategies
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s000712342500016x
Abstract How, can the negative effects of partisan polarization on democratic attitudes be mitigated? Can polarized individuals be persuaded to choose democracy over party, that is, support a candidate from an opposing party who upholds democratic norms when their co-partisan candidate fails to do so? We tested the effect of an online civic education intervention conducted on over 41,000 individuals in thirty-three countries that was designed to promote the choice of ‘democracy’ by emphasizing the benefits of democratic versus autocratic regimes. The results are striking: exposure to civic education messages significantly dampens the negative effect of partisan polarization on anti-democratic co-partisan candidate choice. Civic education also has a small positive effect on polarization itself, with further exploration showing that this is the result of increased evaluations of parties that uphold democratic norms and practices, resulting in greater differences between democratic and anti-democratic parties.