Motivations, causes and consequences of losers’ consent and its breakdown in established democracies

Losers’ consent is both a foundation of democracy and one of the big puzzles in political science. In democracies, elections divide citizens between winners and losers, and the expectation is that losers consent to be ruled by the winners. Despite the established notion that losers' consent is fundamental to democracy, recent events like the 2021 Capitol attack in the U.S. and the 2023 Congress attack in Brazil highlight its fragility. Without the losers’ consent, democracies are in danger.This project addresses three central questions: 1) how can we conceptualize and measure consent; 2) which are the determinants of the losers’ consent and its breakdown, and 3) what are the consequences of the breakdown of consent. This research will provide a novel and comprehensive conceptualization of consent that encompasses three dimensions: acceptance of election results, recognition of the winners’ legitimate authority, and willingness to be governed by them. In addition, the project will develop a new typology of consenting losers based on their rationalization of electoral defeat and motivations to accept the legitimacy of the government. This typology will be validated using qualitative data.The project will then develop an original quantitative measure of consent. This measure will be used to track consent in a large set of countries over a long period, and explore the factors that shape it. Special attention will be paid to the role of elites’ narratives and policy proposals in enhancing or eroding losers’ consent. Finally, the project will explore for the first time the impact of the breakdown of consent upon voting, contentious political behavior and social cooperation. Using a range of methods – focus groups, cross-country surveys, longitudinal analysis, and survey experiments across twenty established democracies – the project will deliver new insights into the dynamics of losers' consent and its importance for democratic resilience and stability.