Congratulations to UC Merced Political Science Assistant Professor Anil Menon and coauthor Pawel Charasz on their new innovative registered report "Borderline Democracy? The Electoral Consequences of the 2021 State of Emergency on the Poland-Belarus Border" in The Journal of Politics.
Abstract: Are citizens willing to compromise their civil liberties in pursuit of salient policy objectives? We tackle this question in the context of the 2021 migration crisis on the Poland-Belarus border. To curb migrant flows, Poland introduced a state of emergency, infringing on citizens’ democratic freedoms. Drawing on 2019 and 2023 parliamentary elections, this registered report exploits the highly localized nature of these restrictions to investigate their electoral consequences. Using a difference-in-discontinuities design, we do not find evidence that voters punished the incumbent Law and Justice (PiS) for restricting their civil liberties. However, we cannot completely dismiss effects smaller than→3 to→4 percentage points of vote share. Even then, these findings are consistent with the notion that most voters may tolerate (though not reward) substantial infringements on civil liberties in return for decisive action on salient issues, providing one explanation for the growing use of strongman policies in democracies worldwide.
Read the Article HERE.
