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Everyday Democratic Defense Ongoing

When and why do ordinary citizens defend democracy in their everyday lives?

A substantial body of research explains why citizens elect or tolerate undemocratic elites, but far less is known about what drives people to actively defend democracy in their daily lives — not just at the ballot box, but in the routine encounters of everyday life. This project develops and tests a theory of everyday democratic defense: norm-enforcing behavior undertaken by ordinary citizens in response to perceived democratic violations.

A central theoretical contribution is the distinction between intentional and unintentional democratic acts. Only citizens who actively and consciously connect their behavior to democratic principles can be expected to sustain that behavior under pressure and reinforce democratic norms in ways that matter for resilience. The project pursues these questions through a comparative, multi-method empirical program.

Connection to Prior Work

SAFEDEM builds directly on findings from the DEMNORM project: if citizens systematically misperceive how much others support democratic norms, and if correcting these misperceptions changes behavior, the natural next question is whether and how citizens translate democratic commitment into action in their everyday lives.

Funding