Learning to Lose: Election Outcomes, Democratic Experience and Political Protest Potential

Abstract

Do democratic elections and experience with democracy affect citizens' propensity to engage in political protest? If so, how? A model of protest potential based on the incentives election winners and losers face in new and established democratic systems is presented. Using surveys conducted by the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) in seventeen democracies around the globe, the effect on political protest potential of being in the political minority or majority after an election is compared. Being in the political minority heightens citizens' political protest potential. Moreover, the effect on protest potential of losing is significantly greater in new democracies compared with established ones. These findings provide systematic evidence that election outcomes should be considered important indicators of political protest potential, and they imply that this effect is particularly salient in countries whose democratic institutions are relatively new and potentially more unstable.