Peter Esaiasson, Göteborg University, Policy studies

2010-2016

Democracy expects its citizens to be good losers who are willing to accept that the other side will have it their way. When playing Monopoly or another game with a fixed set of rules, the definition is straightforward: provided that winners followed the rules of the game, good losers are willing to play again, whereas bad losers refuse to play unless the rules are changed to their advantage (Haugaard 1997). As we shall see, the problem is more complicated in real-world democracies. Nevertheless, one fact applies in both contexts - collectives work better when its individuals graciously accept the burden of loss.

Democracy as a system of government is designed to make unfavorable outcomes acceptable to its citizens. The most radical claims of this purport are associated with Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the notion of self-government. By Rousseau's account there are no losers under a perfect popular rule - the people choose their own rules, and since all individuals want to live under the same rules no one needs to be coerced to follow them (Przeworski 2009). Making a more realistic claim, Robert Dahl (1989) advocates democracy because it minimizes state coercion of citizens.

Even so, citizens in advanced industrialized democracies - arguably the best functioning societies in the world - frequently experience political loss in the meaning of unwanted government interventions in their life (Przeworski 2010). There is nothing remarkable about these interventions. On the contrary, unwelcome government interventions are part of normal political operations in a democracy. They follow inevitably from the right of the democratic state to tax, to redistribute and to regulate (Lowi 1972). And given the immense reach of the modern democratic state they affect all citizens, left and right. However, for individuals who would have preferred different authoritative decisions the interventions are a nuisance.

For illustration, consider some political decisions that are regularly made (or could be made) in contemporary representative democracies: Increased property taxes will reduce the disposable income for affected households; school closures for budgetary reason will force changes in families' everyday life; location of wind farms in a certain geographical area will change the living environment for residents; and rejection of applications for aid from unemployment insurance makes it difficult for individuals to secure their own livelihood. Examples can easily be multiplied. Once we start to pay attention to the coercive power of the democratic state it becomes clear that citizens are frequently subjects to unwelcome authoritative decisions. Frankly, even in the best functioning democracies the vast majority of citizens are ruled rather than rulers also when our favored party is in government (Dunn 1999).

The Purpose of the project
Political loss is something that democratic citizens must relate to. For the individual, each unwelcome government intervention generates a reaction. He or she must decide how to handle the situation. A fundamental insight from political legitimacy research is that societies work better when its citizens voluntarily comply with state dictates (e.g. Levi 1997; Tyler 2006). With this in mind, citizens' reactions when they experience the coercive power of the state are important micro-level processes in democracies. Targeting these processes, this is a book about how citizens in established democracies deal with political loss.

Empirical studies on citizens and democratic legitimacy typically focus economic crisis and extraordinary events with potentially profound systemic implications (e.g. Bermeo 2003). In contrast, this project is about political loss within the realm of normal politics. As in the examples above, the government interventions that interest us will not necessarily make the national news. For affected citizens, however, they matter substantially. In a way, then, it is a study of ordinary people in ordinary times. This is not to say that the situations are unexciting. When we know what to look for, there is a wealth of drama in every day politics.

As was indicated in the opening paragraph, I approach citizens' reactions to unwelcome government interventions from the perspective of good losers in democracy. The good loser perspective shapes our expectations about citizens. It implies that democratic citizens have a reason to react constructively towards unfavorable authoritative decisions.

Reflecting over the relevance of the good loser perspective, it seems safe to assume that the notion of "good loser in democracy" speaks to peoples' general sense of fairness. Most of us agree that we as individuals have an obligation to accept loss when certain conditions are fulfilled. A theoretical foundation for the good loser perspective is presented by John Rawls, whose Theory of Justice maintains that moral agents have "a duty to defend just institution" (Rawls 1971). Rawl's normative theory links directly to the situations of interest here. If democracy as a system of government has intrinsic values for citizens, it follows that citizens must make an effort to maintain democratic institutions. And if legitimacy scholars are right that voluntary compliance is conducive for well-functioning societies, responsible citizens should think carefully before refusing to comply with state dictates.

A demand for constructive reactions to political loss is challenging to the individual. It is challenging because no one likes to lose, and because the rewards of a normatively good behavior are felt in the long-term and by all citizens regardless of whether they themselves complied. This book is about how individual citizens in established democracies handle the challenge. In the pages that follow I will estimate citizens' reactions to various types of political loss, map their motivations for reactions, and identify the conditions that facilitate constructive reactions. The analysis, thus, is distinctively micro.

Some Conceptual Clarifications
An obvious objection at this point is that democratic citizens are not expected to unconditionally accept every authoritative decision. Under some conditions the correct response from principled democrats is one of resistance (e.g. Dahl 1989; Beitz 1989). Indeed, for someone who shares Rousseau's concern about self-government, the very idea of compliance with unwelcome state dictates is ill-conceived (see Przeworski 2010).
However, it should be noted that we are studying citizens under conditions that are generally conducive for constructive reactions to political loss. First, we are focusing on decisions that are part of standard operational routines in a democracy. While difficult for the individual citizen, the unwelcome interventions do not threaten fundamental democratic rights and freedoms. Second, the analysis will be situated in contemporary advanced industrialized democracies. This means that the institutional framework for authoritative decision-making meets basic standards of fairness.

The term "constructive reaction to loss" refers to the wider generalizations people make from unwelcome government interventions in their lives (Kumlin 2004). Clearly, people are not expected to change their minds about the subject matter at hand. Thus, opponents to increased property taxes are not supposed to start defending the fairness of the tax raise, and citizens who dispute the location of wind mill farms are not assumed to embrace the presence of wind craft technology in their neighborhood. To react constructively, individuals are however expected to not obstruct the implementation of unfavorable decisions (when obstruction is an option), and to not let their disappointment undermine their attitudinal support of the general political system.

The concept attitudinal political support and its measurements will be discussed continuously through the pages that follow. At this stage of inquiry, suffice to say that an unconstructive reaction to political loss may mean that affected individuals become less willing to pay their taxes and to obey the law as captured by standard survey indicators.

The project acknowledges that state coercion comes in many forms. First, attention is directed towards elections, the main institution for conflict resolution in representative democracy. Following loss at the ballot box, citizens who support the losing side can foresee a period of unfavorable authoritative decisions (e.g. Anderson et al. 2005). Second, while elections are obviously important in democracy they have only indirect consequences for most citizens. The authoritative decisions that directly impact peoples' lives are made between elections, when elected representatives use their delegated right to tax, redistribute, and regulate (e.g. Esaiasson and Narud 2013). Third, for many individuals the most important political decisions are not made by politicians but by government officials who implement general policies to specific cases (e.g. Rothstein 2009). To get a comprehensive view of citizens' reactions to political loss, we need to consider all these experiences.

By analyzing reactions to unfavorable election outcomes, policy decisions and implementation decisions within a single analytical framework, the book connects situations that are not usually studied together. I thus treat citizens' reactions to all forms of state coercion as one class of events about which "meaningfully generalizations can be made" (King, Keohane and Verba 1994:13). To be concrete, it means that there are analytically relevant similarities between losing on Election Day, to learn that the property tax is to be raised, and to be informed that one's application for a building permit is denied by the local housing administration.

The rationale for joining these widely different experiences into one class of events lies with the experience of the individual. In one way or another all these experiences make citizens subjects to decisions that will inflict negatively upon their lives. I argue that individuals use these experiences to orient themselves towards their political system. Precisely, evaluation of these experiences matters for individual's willingness to be good citizens who cooperate with the democratic state.

The unit of analysis in the empirical part of the book is the individual in political conflicts that involves authoritative decisions widely defined. By political loss I mean that an individual has his or her substantial preferences denied from a process that is political in one or the other sense. For the sake of linguistic variation, and to adapt to the specific characteristics of the situations under study, I have used, and will continue to use, alternative formulations to capture the same phenomenon like "receiving an unfavorable outcome," and "experiencing an unwelcome government intervention."

Major findings
Based on data from multi-wave panel surveys (original data collections and secondary analysis of existing data collections) and from original survey experiments I make three claims about citizens' reaction to political loss: (i) people tend to react poorly to loss (loss undermines diffuse political support attitudes); ii) people blame their poor reactions to loss to faulting procedural fairness; however iii), objective decision-making arrangements have very limited impact upon peoples' reactions to loss. What matter the most is having a favorable outcome.'

Publications

Responsiveness Beyond Policy Satisfaction – Does It Matter to Citizens? Comparative Political Studies Published online January 27, 2016, doi: 10.1177/0010414015626445 (tillsammans med Mikael Persson och Mikael Gilljam) http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0010414015626445
Political Support in the Wake of Policy Controversies. Kapitel i Carolien van Ham, Jacques Thomassen, Kees Aarts, Rudy Andeweg (eds.) Myth and Reality of the Legitimacy Crisis. Explaining trends and cross-national differences in established democracies, Oxford University Press (kommande) Tidigare versioner presenterade på The 2014 Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science, Chicago, Ill, April 3-6. (tillsammans med Mikael Gilljam och Mikael Persson).
Reconsidering the Role of Procedures for Decision-Acceptance, revise and resubmit för British Journal of Political Science, tidigare presenterad på bland annat  The 2013 Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, Ill, April 11-14 (tillsammans med Mikael Persson, Mikael Gilljam och Torun Lindholm), se t ex http://swepub.kb.se/bib/swepub:oai:services.scigloo.org:178176
Attitudinal Political Support and Behavioral Compliance – Do They Move Together? (under bedömning i peer reviewad tidskrift), ingår i Quality of Government Working Papers 2014:01, tidigare presenterad på The 2014 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association Meeting, Washington D.C. August 28-31 (tillsammans med Mattias Ottervik), se t ex http://www.qog.pol.gu.se/digitalAssets/1469/1469178_2014_01_essaiasson_ottervik.pdf
Subjective Well-Being and Quality of Government – Why Happy Citizens Are Good for Democracy. Presenterad på The American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, San Franscisco, September 3-6 och ingår i World Value Survey Working Paper Series, Stellenbosch University, no 7 samt under förbedelse för tidskriftspublicering (tillsammans med Andrej Kokkonen och Stefan Dahlberg). Se t ex: http://sun025.sun.ac.za/portal/page/portal/Arts/Departments/political_science/docs/07%20Subjective%20well-being%20and%20quality%20of%20democracy.pdf
Bokmanuskript under arbete: Good losers in democracy – A study of citizens
Table of Contents:  THE FRAMEWORK: Introduction; Chapter 1. Political Loss: A Challenging Experience; Chapter 2. What Does It Mean To be A Good Loser in Democracy? Chapter 3. The Causal Model; Chapter 4. Data and Measurements. CITIZENS’ REACTION TO POLITICAL LOSS: Chapter 5. Losing an Election; Chapter 6. Receiving Unfavorable Policy Decisions; Chapter 7. Losing against Government Authorities. WHY CITIZENS REACT THE WAY THEY DO: Chapter 8. How People Motivate Their Reaction to Loss – Perceived (Un)Fairness of Decision-Making Procedures; Chapter 9. How Actual Decision-Making Procedures Affect Citizens’ Reactions to Loss;  Chapter 10. Demanding Democrats: How Citizens React to Unhappy Events in Everyday Life. WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED:  Chapter 11. Turning Demanding Democrats into Good Losers