The Attitudinal Scenarios Towards Democracy of Polarized Winners and Losers: the 2023 Spanish Election

This paper examines the contested domain of affective polarization and its influence on democratic attitudes as shaped by electoral processes, building on prior research that connects affective polarization to cross-national trends in autocratization. Specifically, we analyze the conditional effects of affective polarization and its core components — partisan affinity and partisan animosity — on democratic attitudes in the aftermath of elections. Drawing on post-election data from the highly polarized 2023 Spanish general election, we evaluate how these polarization dynamics impact various dimensions of democratic support, measured through a robust set of survey items. Our findings reveal that polarization-related attitudes play a substantial moderating role, particularly in shaping perceptions of liberal democratic principles and democratic performance among electoral winners and losers. This moderating effect cultivates a public opinion climate among the most polarized, potentially enabling political elites to undermine liberal democratic norms and its current performance amplifying public support for leaders prone to such transgressions. Keywords: Winning and Losing, Partisan Animosity, Partisan Affinity, Democratic Attitudes, Support for democracy, Democratic backsliding, Spain