| Popis: |
Losers’ consent, the idea that citizens accept and comply with political decisions in democracies even if they are the losers of the decision making process, is based on the premise of alternation in losing and winning. But what happens when this premise is violated? To date, we do not know how accumulated losses or wins affect legitimacy beliefs. In this study, we investigate the effect of repeated losses in referendums on legitimacy beliefs. We designed, preregistered and fielded a unique survey experiment simulating repeated losing in a referendum among Irish citizens (n=2146). As expected, satisfaction with the process and decision acceptance decrease significantly with the amount of losses. Nonetheless, we find a within-subject increase in satisfaction with democracy following three votes even among three time losers, although the gain is smallest within this group. Comparing the effects of consecutive and non-consecutive losses, losing consecutively appears to be less problematic. |
