They neither agree nor disagree on important issues. But there are elected officials who take advantage of these neutral attitudes.
Os neutral voters are those who are not strong supporters of issues important to democracy; but they don’t show themselves to be big opponents either. They’re comfortable, apparently.
A new one shows that these voters could be the largest group responsible for democratic decline.
The analysis was carried out in the USA. There were three surveys of more than 45 thousand voters.
And a conclusion jumped out: about half of the North American population is neutral in relation to democracy; shows “reluctance to support or oppose policies or practices that undermine democracy,” Matthew EK Hall, lead author of the study. Because “not actively opposing undemocratic practices is different from actively supporting democracy”.
In the surveys, four examples of undemocratic practices: reducing the number of polling stations belonging to opposing parties, disregarding judicial decisions from opposing parties, loyalty to the party to the detriment of the Constitution and censorship of party media.
Nearly 50% of participants responded “neutral” for at least one issue – although explicit agreement with anti-democratic practices was much less common.
Up to two-thirds of respondents did not actively oppose undemocratic practices by government officials, political candidates and leaders.
And the authors warn: “Neutrality towards democracy, rather than declared opposition, allowed the democratic setback in several Western democracies, as elected officials take advantage of citizens’ neutral attitudes to seek undemocratic outcomes.”
What is the greatest danger of this mentality: it is a “lukewarm” approach to what matters and the limits that should or should not be crossed when it comes to protecting democracy.
And because it’s problematic: if voters aren’t willing to hold their leaders accountable, nothing will stop leaders from acting undemocratically.
That is, there are political leaders who can take advantage of this apparent indifference to take positions and announce measures that are against democracy.
According to the study’s authors, neutrality is especially worrying because it can be associated with authoritarianism, tolerance for violating norms, extremism, distrust and the concealment of anti-democratic views.
But why?
Five main groups/reasons were found for this neutrality, summarizes .
A large group of voters tolerate politicians who undermine democracy under certain conditions – as long as they apply policies they support; but they do not like these same undemocratic decisions if they are made by leaders of the opposite party. It’s “it depends”.
In a second group, there are undecided or disoriented. They don’t know where to lean, what to believe. Or they say they lack the knowledge or understanding necessary to vote properly.
Other voters are simply indifferent or apathetic; They don’t care about politics.
Some are indecisive because they feel ambivalent in relation to the survey questions: they are very concerned about two conflicting issues.
There is still another group: those who actually support anti-democratic policies, but they say they are neutral due to social pressure.
Whatever their origin, neutral voters “are just as likely to vote for authoritarian politicians as the relatively small number of Americans (less than one in five) who explicitly support undemocratic practices,” warns Matthew EK Hall.
