Replication Data for: Building Tolerance for Backsliding by Trash-Talking Democracy: Theory and Evidence from Mexico

Leaders who seek to build public toleration for democratic backsliding have a little-noticed strategy at their disposal: degrading their democracies in the eyes of their citizens. If voters can be induced to believe that their democracy is already broken, then nothing of value is lost when leaders attack the courts, vilify the press, or undermine confidence in elections. We call this strategy trash-talking democracy, and study it in the context of contemporary Mexico. We use text-as-data methods to show that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador spent more time trash-talking his democracy than he did deepening partisan polarization. With a survey experiment we show that exposure to López Obrador's trash-talking of the courts elicits anti-democratic attitudes among Mexicans -- both among his supporters and among supporters of the opposition. Strategies to resist backsliding should include not just efforts at de-polarization but also at restoring confidence in democratic institutions.

那些试图为民主倒退博取公众容忍的领导者，掌握着一项鲜为人知的可用策略：在民众眼中贬低本国民主。若能诱导选民相信本国民主已然崩坏，那么当领导者攻击司法机构、诋毁新闻媒体或削弱民众对选举的信心时，便不会有任何有价值的事物蒙受损失。我们将这一策略命名为民主诋毁（trash-talking democracy），并以当代墨西哥为研究语境展开相关分析。我们借助文本作为数据（text-as-data）方法证实，安德烈斯·曼努埃尔·洛佩斯·奥夫拉多尔（Andrés Manuel López Obrador）总统花费在诋毁本国民主上的时间，多于其加剧党派极化的时长。通过一项调查实验（survey experiment），我们发现，接触洛佩斯·奥夫拉多尔针对司法机构的诋毁言论，会促使墨西哥民众滋生反民主态度——无论是其自身的支持者，还是反对阵营的支持者均受此影响。抵制民主倒退的相关策略，不仅应包含去极化举措，还应着力恢复民众对民主制度的信心。