Out-Party Animosity and the Fragility of Losers’ Consent: Electoral Legitimacy across Democracies

Citizens’ acceptance of elections as fair and binding is increasingly conditional; not on how elections are conducted, but on partisan animosity. Democratic stability depends on losers’ consent: the willingness of those who did not get their preferred outcome to accept it as legitimate. We argue that this conditionality is the central threat to electoral legitimacy today. Drawing on original survey data from five democracies (Germany, Portugal, the Netherlands, Chile, and Peru), we show that out-party animosity – not in-party affinity − systematically lowers perceived election fairness and satisfaction with elections, independently of citizens’ broader democratic attitudes and of who won. This erosion is concentrated almost entirely among electoral losers, where legitimacy is most fragile. Two reactive emotions add a further layer. Relief when the out-party loses raises legitimacy perceptions, while anger when the out-party is praised lowers them. Together, these reactive emotions make legitimacy increasingly contingent on partisan outcomes rather than on procedural standards. These findings suggest that restoring electoral legitimacy in polarized societies requires addressing the affective dynamics behind losers’ consent, not only strengthening democratic institutions. Our cross-sectional design, however, does not allow us to establish causal direction.