Democratic restoration

In this research project, I explore the role of opposition parties and how voters react to electoral outcomes in electoral autocracies. This is joint work with Jonas Bergan Dræge, and we are currently working on two studies that explore the consequences of electoral outcomes on voter perceptions and political attitudes in electoral autocracies.

In the first, an exploratory study of the 2023 Turkish election, we find suggestive evidence for what we call a dual challenge for opposition parties in electoral autocracies: they have to compete on an uneven playing field but are judged by the same standards as in democracies. The second study uses a two-wave panel around the 2026 Hungarian election to explore whom voters blame for defeat and whether this has downstream consequences for their commitment to democracy.

Please drop me an email if you are interested in reading the working papers.