Democratic norms and accountability †

Drew Cagle
PhD Candidate
Department of Political Science
University of Alabama

Nicholas T. Davis ‡
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science
University of Alabama

Norms successfully regulate social and institutional behaviors when there is sufficient
threat of punishment for breaking them. This paper investigates the role that punishment
(or lack thereof) for norm-breaking plays in sustaining norm compliance and
(dis)approval of wrong-doing. Study 1 tests how punishment shapes norm support and
punitiveness when faced with in- and out-group norm-breaking. Study 2 investigates
whether people respond to broken social and political norms differently. Finally, study 3
contrasts how different elite reactions to norm-breaking – punishment for vs. approval of
wrongdoing – affect norm and punishment support. On balance, we observe little
desensitization to norms in the face of norm-breaking, irrespective of whether elites hold
each other accountable. Yet, while accountability increases acceptance for punishing
norm-breaking, it does so asymmetrically: Republicans are less supportive of punishment
than Democrats. These findings reveal how shared normative commitments are no
guarantee that equal appetites for accountability will follow.

Abstract word count: 147 words

Manuscript word count: 9,389
Keywords: norm-breaking, intergroup relations, punishment, norms

†
Paper prepared for presentation at the 2022 annual meeting of the Midwestern Political Science
Association, Chicago, Illinois, April 7 – 10, 2022. The authors thank the University of Alabama Graduate
School and Department of Political Science for generously funding parts of this research. The authors thank
Katie Clayton and Scott Clifford for helpful comments about earlier drafts.
‡
Corresponding author, ntdavis2@ua.edu
Democratic norms and accountability

A body of men holding themselves

accountable to nobody ought not be
trusted by anybody.
Thomas Paine, 1791

While law-breaking with impunity is probably the most obvious threat to democracy, it is not the
only form of wrongdoing that creates democratic crises. In fact, elites can damage fragile institutional
legitimacy in significant ways when they break democratic norms that guide interpersonal
interactions or political processes designed to produce fair outcomes. As the unwritten rules that
govern “the conduct of democracy” (Bergan 2021, 251), norms (theoretically) prohibit behaviors like
threatening opposing politicians with violence, 1 using offensive speech to describe minorities, 2 and
questioning the validity of free and fair elections. 3 But their (practical) force seems mostly attributed
to the extent to which elected officials willingly self-police themselves; after all, “democracy is a
garden that has to be tended,” 4
Over the past several years, public and scholarly interest in norm-breaking has increased
dramatically. While this may be partly due to the presidency of Donald Trump, the fragility of
political norms is concerning within many mature democracies (Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018). Yet,
while elites' refusal or inability to constrain norm-breaking is one indication of democratic
backsliding, the public’s response to such events also conveys the depths of such political
dysfunction. Yet, curiously, scholars still know surprisingly little about the mechanics of political
accountability with respect to norm-breaking. 5 Much of the current attention to public opinion about

1
Like threatening opponents with firearms, as in the case of Louisiana state Representative Malinda
White (D-Bogalusa), or using riflescope crosshairs to “target” the opposition, in the case of former
Republican governor Sarah Palin’s 2011 political attack ads.
2
For example, consider Representatives Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA) and Paul Gosar’s (R-AZ)
speeches on several occasions at white supremacist conferences or former White House adviser
Stephen Miller’s comments about immigration “decimating” America.
3
This includes former Republican President Donald Trump’s statements about election-rigging that
preceded the January 6th, 2021 insurrection, as well as similar, more recent statements made by a
litany of pro-Trump candidates running for office in 2022.
4
A remark made by former president Barack Obama in early February, 2019. See:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/barack-obama/facts-rule-law-democracy-obama-governing-
n980421
5
There are, however, robust literatures on punishment and conformity (see: Bicchieri et al. 2021 for
a review) and public opinion about scandal. The latter often involves either patently illegal acts (e.g.
taking bribes; Puglisi and Snyder Jr., 2011) or sexual indiscretion (e.g. affairs; Gamson and Lowi,

1
Democratic norms and accountability

norms finds that citizens can recognize norm-breaking (Bright Line Watch 2021; Davis, Gaddie, and
Goidel 2022; Frederiksen 2022) but are willing to accept it for political gain (Graham and Svolik
2020; McCoy et al. 2020). It is less clear, however, how punishment (or lack thereof) shapes both
citizens’ views of norms and their sense for whether punishment is appropriate.
This paper investigates these dynamics using several survey experiments. Study 1 tests how
punishment of wrongdoing shapes norm and outcome attitudes when individuals are faced with in-
and out-group norm-breaking. Study 2 investigates whether people respond to broken social and
political norms differently. Finally, Study 3 investigates whether different punishments or approval
affects norm support and (dis)approval of norm-breaking. On balance, we observe two important
patterns. First, there is little “desensitization” to norms in the face of norm-breaking, irrespective of
whether elites hold each other accountable. In other words, despite exposure to norm-breaking,
subjects remain committed to punitiveness norms regarding the appropriateness of punishing
misbehavior. Second, the presence of punishment consistently increases support for punishing norm-
breakers, with the caveat that Democrats are more approving of material punishment for wrongdoing
than are Republicans. These findings correspond to a serious, ongoing problem in American politics:
nearly all citizens give lip service to the importance of accountability norms, yet Republicans are
much less willing to accept punishment for wrongdoing than Democrats. That asymmetric
acceptance of responsibility communicates that a political system built on weak checks like norms
is susceptible to serious abuse.

Norms in politics
In their colloquial use, norms are usually conceptualized as informal rules that govern how society
and its people ought to behave at a given time and place. In other words, these guidelines set the
boundaries of what constitutes acceptable interpersonal behavior in different social contexts
(Bicchieri, 2005; 2016). While norms may shift over time, they nevertheless must be “shared by
other people and partly sustained by their approval or disapproval” (Elster 1989, 99-100). In other
words, these informal guidelines are relational – individuals must believe that others follow the
same rules and, crucially that they will face some sort of reprimand when they violated.

2004). These may be cases of norm-breaking in some sense: both corruption and philandering are
faux paus. For our purposes, however, we are more interested in norms that guide political
interactions.

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Democratic norms and accountability

Research on norms often separates these “social” norms from “political” ones. This
distinction may seem thin, but political norms usually involve conventions by which lawmaking and
politicking occur in the absence of written (legal) rules. Because it is impossible to codify all range
of acceptable behaviors, political norms are a useful shorthand for the conventions that allow politics
to proceed without having to attend to pedantic minutiae in rules (Azari and Smith 2012). Thus, for
example, deference to parliamentarians is accepted to keep the business of politics moving along,
while particular process norms like the filibuster are maintained under the guise of protecting debate.
For our purposes, we are interested in a set of norms that guide legislators’ social behavior
in politics – something we label “democratic norms” – which are political in the sense that their
application involves a political setting but social in the sense that they involve behavioral guidelines
that are enforced relationally. If norms are those constraints on what a person should or should not
do given their immediate social context (Hechter and Opp, 2001), then democratic norms are
relatively straightforward to identify in politics. Politicians and government officials should be
honest and ethical in their behavior, complying with traditional conventions where appropriate. They
should seek compromise where possible and listen earnestly to opponents despite disagreement. The
tenor and substance of their words should be direct, yet civil, and, above all, their actions should not
threaten legitimate democratic outcomes. But what gives these behavioral expectations their
normative quality is that elites expect to be reproached if they violate these conventions. When elites
are dishonest, refuse to hear other perspectives, treat others poorly, or violate democratic values, they
should expect some reputational punishment (Parker 2004). Consequences, then, make the norm. 6
Although it is the responsibility of elected figures to uphold democratic norms, political
officials are not the only body of persons who may sanction misbehaving politicians. A curious
feature of democratic norms is that citizens play a nontrivial role in maintaining the integrity of
normative behaviors (Davis, Gaddie, and Goidel 2022). Elites serve on behalf of citizens; if they fail
to uphold their end of the social contract, then they ought to be recalled or punished at the ballot
box. 7 In turn, if elites are indeed single-minded (re)election seekers, then they should seek to conform

6
Elster (2009) argues that, without the threat of punishment, a set of values or expectations are mere
conventions. However, the application of punishment requires a delicate touch. Sanctions may
sustain cooperation and order (Ostrom 1990; Gelfand et al. 2017), but wanton or particularly harsh
sanctions may threaten peace by creating costly conflict (Nikiforakis and Engelman 2011; Eriksson
et al. 2021).
7
In some sense, the public acts as both second- and third-party punishers (c.f. Fehr and Fischbacher
2004). Citizens can be directly affected by norm-breaking, but it is also possible that the public acts
more generally as an important third-party, “referee”-like institution. Citizens may not be directly

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Democratic norms and accountability

to citizens' expectations by behaving in ways that reflect accepted cultural and social values. But of
course, in a deeply divided public, where values are contested (Ciuk 2022) and partisanship structures
even non-political behaviors (Iyengar, Westwood, and Llekes, 2019), norm compliance may be 1)
short-circuited by enterprising politicians who attempt to shift normative expectations in a case-by-
case fashion, or 2) selectively applied depending on whether the political in- or out-group is accused
of wrongdoing. In those cases, sanctions for misbehavior may be absent because citizens are
motivated to suppress their appetite for accountability. 8
Today, increases in elite polarization (McCarty et al., 2016) and social sorting (Mason 2018;
Davis 2018) and the moralization of American politics (Ryan, 2017) have cemented a set of aligned
cleavages that not only frustrate democratic deliberation (Neblo, 2015; Gutmann and Thompson
2012), but have repercussions for how citizens think about the application of norms. Simonovits et
al. (2022), for example, find that citizens may engage in democratic hypocrisy when confronted with
wrongdoing, a form of motivated reasoning that implies that an individual's approval of elites
violating democratic norms depends on how citizens feel about the party in power. In that case,
partisans are more willing to accept norm-breaking when they enjoy majority status compared to
when they are in the minority (see also: Graham and Svolik, 2019; Mazepus and Toshkov 2021;
Frederickson 2022).
This hypocrisy notwithstanding, the focus on public opinion regarding democratic norms has
focused chiefly on reactions to unchecked deviant behavior. In turn, the mechanics of public opinion
involving political elites, broken norms, and punishment are unclear. What happens to citizens' views
of norms when elites condemn (approve) norm-breaking and punishment is doled (absent)?

affected by political norm violations, but can still reprimand politicians at the ballot box for
misbehavior.
8
Consider former President Trump’s two impeachment cases. Reactions to this prospective
punishment were universally one-sided – how citizens viewed these events, and norm-breaking more
generally, were filtered through the lens of partisanship (see: Bycoffe, Aaron, Ella Koeze, and
Nathaniel Rakich. Feb 12, 2020. “Did Americans support removing Trump from office?”
FiveThirtyEight. Retrieved from: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/impeachment-polls/).

4
Democratic norms and accountability

Sanctions and accountability

Much of what scholars know about how sanctions shape reactions to norm-breaking events comes
from studies of scandal and research on social norm breakdown in interpersonal exchange. Beginning
first with the scandal literature, it is true, as Dziuda and Howell (2021, 197) write, that “American
politics is awash in scandal.” One need not look very hard or far to discover serial episodes of
wrongdoing by politicians. 9 And such events generally elicit negative reactions. Moral appetites for
misbehavior – particularly sexual indiscretions – are low; disgust is powerful, and people generally
react negatively to socially taboo situations. Several additional features appear to guide how the
public responds to these events, ranging from politicians' personal demographic characteristics, their
response to accusations and admission or denial of wrongdoing, citizens' attitudes about both
politicians and the particular context, and the type of scandal (Von Sikorski 2018).
In particular, group memberships play a role in mediating how people respond to
misbehavior. Drawing implicitly from social identity and intergroup relations theories, the scandal
research finds that partisanship can be activated and strengthened when people are confronted with
wrongdoing (e.g., Robinson 1974). Politics involves a struggle for scarce resources, and when group
members are accused of wrongdoing, partisans may be motivated to engage in zero-sum defenses of
their group. Thus, not only are individuals are generally more supportive of out-group compared to
in-group punishments (McDermott et al., 2015; Graham and Slovik, 2020), but financial support for
perpetrators of scandal can actually increase in the aftermath of their wrongdoing as they attempt to
rehabilitate their public image (Hamel and Miller, 2019). 10
Further, responses to scandal depend heavily on the social construction, framing, and media
coverage of the scandal itself. Scandal is highly idiosyncratic, and public reactions hinge critically
upon the political, social, and media context surrounding them (Nyhan, 2015). In many cases, the
prospect of punishment for wrongdoing is generally low because removing norm-breakers from

9
Despite there being a prodigious literature about scandal, there are few global summaries of this
research that draw firm distinctions regarding the boundaries of “political misconduct.” That more
general parent category of wrongdoing includes “a myriad of behaviors that may fall within the
categories of corruption (i.e. embezzlement, bribery and nepotism), financial misconduct (i.e. tax
evasion and campaign finance violations), abuse of power (i.e. illicit surveillance of political
opponents), but may also include things such as sexual misconduct (i.e. sexual assault and infidelity)”
(Wolsky 2021, 23). Norm-breaking is a type of political misconduct, but not all political misconduct
is norm break – distinctions we return to below.
10
For example, Republicans were quick to condemn President Clinton for his transgressions leading
to his impeachment in the late 1990s; however, the furor did not carry the same weight or tenor when
their own Speaker of the House’s affair was discovered shortly thereafter.

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Democratic norms and accountability

office requires consensus and power. That is, in order to rally sufficient support for punishment, there
must be widespread dissatisfaction combined with access to the appropriate levers of power. Former
governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY), for example, resisted calls to resign despite high-profile, public
accusations of indiscretion. The mechanisms for accountability were further blinkered by virtue of
his position atop the New York political apparatus – despite appeals from co-partisans to step down,
he was relatively insulated compared to, say, former Minnesota Democrat Al Franken, who resigned
from his Senate seat amid significant political and constituent pressures.
Still, despite general tendencies to “circle the wagons” after wrongdoing, politicians who
find themselves embroiled in scandal still face punishment when voters hold politicians responsible
for past misconduct (Manin, Przeworski, and Stokes 1999). In lower-stakes elections, research
suggests that misbehaving politicians and their parties do face declining political support post-
scandal (Maier 2011). These officials are more likely to get a smaller percentage of the vote share
and are less likely to win office again in the next election cycle (Hamel and Miller, 2019). Those
findings suggest voters may punish wrongdoing even when elites avoid punishing their peers,
although the cases of former Republican President Donald Trump and Representatives Mo Brooks
(R-AL), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), and Lauren Boebert (R-CO) – who have all managed to thwart any
accountability for their own scandals – suggest that public demands for punishment may function
asymmetrically by party (an idea we return to below).
In turn, accountability and, by extension, punishment for norm-breaking are not necessarily
valuable for moral purposes, but because they transmit informational signals that help obtain
compliance with norms (Boyd et al. 2003). Some research on social norms argues that sanctions
function via two channels. First, the threat of being held accountable increases the cost of deviance
– something called an incentive effect. If individuals perceive that they will face punishment for
wrongdoing, then they are less likely to commit indiscretions. Second, punishment has a
communication effect, which provides a record of what will happen in the case of noncompliance
(Bicchieri et al. 2021). When people observe the delivery of punishment after wrongdoing, they
should be likely to factor those outcomes into their own behavioral judgements.
Although fine-tuning punishment delivery and severity are critical to these dynamics in the
case of social norms, democratic norm-violations do not seem to involve the same concerns about
the risks of retaliation that generally accompany punishment in the context of purely social norms
(e.g. Balafoutas et al. 2016; Nikiforakis 2008). Moreover, where democratic norms have been
violated, the wrongdoing can particularly severe forms. That is, challenging the legitimacy of an

6
Democratic norms and accountability

election outcome, spying on political opponents, threatening the safety of their fellow citizens, or
participating in deadly riots are all such severe breaches of normative expectations that the
consequences should, presumably, be serious as well. However, severe punishment is costly and may
have undesirable side effects (e.g., Tyler 2006; Balafoutas, Nikiforakis, and Rockenbach 2016). As
a result, weak or even no punishment can occur, which can signal there is a small price to pay for
deviance, and, worse, may sustain future transgressions (Gneezy and Rustichini 2000; Bicchieri,
Dimant, and Xiao 2021).

Expectations
How do ordinary Americans evaluate depictions of democratic norm-breaking? We begin by
acknowledging that individuals tend to espouse robust support for norms and civil liberties, at least
in principle (Davis, Gaddie, and Goidel 2022; Wolak, 2020; Gibson 2011; Sullivan and Transue,
1999). People are socialized to hold certain civic values and behaviors as desirable and are similarly
taught that punishing deviant actors is appropriate; indeed, across societies and time, “humans punish
norm violations” (Molho et al. 2020). While we expect that individuals will express broad support
for norms in principle – i.e., “If someone acts in an inappropriate way, then they should be punished”
– the provision of norm information likely guides the way in which individuals respond to norm-
breaking. Bicchieri (2005) argues, for example, that (social) norms possess both an empirical and a
normative component. That is, they inform people how things usually work (e.g., rates, probabilities;
thus, empirical) and what is expected or condoned (e.g., the acceptable behavior; the normative
piece). These two elements interact. Consider that, while the empirical dimension “may indirectly
suggest the underlying normative appropriateness of a behavior,” normative information is crucial
because it “provides a direct and explicit signal about whether an action is appropriate, although it
does not necessarily imply that most people behave accordingly” (Bicchieri, Dimant, and Xiao 2021,
210).
In our case, we investigate these aspects of norms in different ways using several survey
experiments that vary the provision of normative and empirical information to subjects after norm-
breaking occurs. However, our central focus here involves the role of sanctions. In each experiment,
we test how subjects react to norm violations in the presence (absence) of punishment under varying
types of norm-breaking and punishment. In general, we expect that norm support and approval of
punishment should be highest when political elites hold norm-breakers accountable. That

7
Democratic norms and accountability

informational signal should communicate the (normative) appropriateness of punishment (e.g., an

official loses their job or committee assignment).
However, individual-level differences should also play a role in how people evaluate
wrongdoing. Research suggests, for example, that people may apply moral principles to behavior and
judge said behavior as moral or immoral if it violates their belief system(s) (Landmann and Hess,
2018). These moral tenants, such as honesty, care, and fairness, condition the ways in which people
evaluate everyday occurrences. These moral principles are linked to rapid emotional responses and
do not require extensive thoughtful deliberation (Rozin et al., 1999). Moral transgressions, as with
norm-breaking, play on the most basic instincts of human behavior – that some things are inherently
right or wrong (Clifford et al., 2015).
Past research demonstrates that those with left- and right-leaning identities approach moral
transgressions in different ways. Specifically, liberal individuals tend to endorse the principles of
compassion and fairness more strongly, while conservatives more strongly endorse the principles of
authority, loyalty, and sanctity (Clifford et al., 2015; Graham et al., 2009). This conditioning also
affects how partisans evaluate transgressions or inappropriate behavior in systematically different
ways (Clifford et al., 2015). Thus, in the following analysis, the critical factor that should moderate
the relationship between norms and views about norm-breaking is partisanship. Under minimal
conditions, people will self-categorize into groups (Turner 1975; Huddy, 2001), and social identity
theory holds that individuals evaluate in-group members more positively than out-group members
(Tajfel 1981). Partisanship functions as a valued group membership that structures conflict within
the socio-political environment, and individuals reliably internalize the importance of partisan
affiliations (Greene 1999; Huddy, Mason, and Aaore 2015; Huddy and Bankert, 2017; Green et al.
2002).
These in-group/out-group distinctions can result in polarized opinions when combined with
political cues (e.g. Nicholson 2011; Merkley and Stecula 2020; Benegal and Scruggs 2018).
Accountability is uncomfortable, and group members may excuse norm-breaking when committed
by their group (e.g. Graham and Svolik 2020; McCoy et al. 2020; Frederiksen 2022). Thus,
throughout our series of experiments, we expect exposure to out-party (in-party) wrongdoing to
generate the most (least) punitive attitudes.

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Democratic norms and accountability

Study 1: Norm violations and sanctions

Our first study explores whether the presence of a punishment (sanction) after a norm violation
affects both the support for the norm being violated and a proposed punishment (outcome). Given
the tensions between abstract (symbolic) vs. episodic (operational) beliefs (e.g., Davis [2018] in the
case of compromise preferences; Ellis and Stimson [2012] in the case of ideology more generally),
people may regard wrongdoing as symbolically inappropriate while demurring on whether particular
wrongdoing is bad. It is entirely possible, for example, that someone recognizes the underlying
principle at hand and supports a norm in theory, but excuses the action in practice (e.g., people show
little hesitation to vote for norm-breakers [Graham and Svolik 2020]). Given the discussion in the
previous section about the effect of elite cues on public opinion, generally, and the relevance of
punishment to norm attitudes, specifically, we expect the following outcomes: 11

H1 Norm support: Agreement with the statement "If someone acts in an inappropriate way, then
they should be punished" should be higher when a norm-violator is punished.
H2 Conditional norm support: Support for punishment norms is higher when an out-party elite is
punished.
H3 Sanction support: Learning that a norm-violator was punished should increase agreement with
the statement "The official [norm violator] deserved to lose their job."
H4 Conditional sanction support: Agreement that a norm violation deserves punishment should be
lower among in-group compared to out-group members.

Sample. In February 2022, we collected data from 1,510 subjects recruited from Amazon's
Mechanical Turk worker pool using CloudResearch (formerly TurkPrime; see Litman et al., 2017;
Litman & Robinson, 2020). 12 We used the CloudResearch "Approved List" to screen participants
with histories of producing low-quality data (see Hauser et al. 2021). This included filtering potential
subjects by suspicious I.P. or geocodes and those who did not reside in the United States. Finally,
the sample included only those subjects who had previously identified as liberal or conservative. This

11
These four expectations are consistent across the various studies. Studies 2 and 3 introduce
additional wrinkles like whether norm violation or punishment type matter, but we expect that this
basic pattern should hold across these additional research designs.
12
Data collection protocol and instruments, as well as description of ethical practice are available in
Appendix A. Analysis plans for studies 1-3 were pre-registered and are available via the following
OSF registry hyperlinks: Study 1, Study 2, Study 3.

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Democratic norms and accountability

decision was made for two reasons: (1) reactions to political officials committing norm violations
are inevitably sensitive to in-, and out-group memberships, and (2) limited funding resources meant
balancing power against collecting additional data about moderates. As is common to such online
convenience samples, participants were better educated (modal educational attainment was
possessing a college degree; roughly 40% of subjects) and more left-leaning than representative
samples (by a ratio of about two to one). 13

Design. Subjects were block randomized by ideology into one of four treatment groups or a control,
in which they read a human interest story about collectible antiques. The experimental matrix
involved a 2 (partisan cue: Democrat, Republican) x 2 (sanction: punishment, no punishment) design.
All subjects in the treatment conditions read a brief vignette based on a news story from February
2021 about former White House deputy press secretary TJ Ducklo and his treatment of a Politico
reporter who asked him for a comment about his romantic relationship with (MS)NBC contributor
Alexi McCammond. The treatment text reads as follows, with the only difference being the party
cue:
A senior communications official in the [Trump / Biden] administration has emerged
unscathed after reportedly making demeaning and profane remarks to a reporter.
The two were engaged in a private interview on the record, in which the
administration official was operating in their official capacity. During the interview,
the official became aware that the reporter was working on a story that would cast
the official in unfavorable light, causing them to launch into a tirade. They
threatened the reporter's well-being and livelihood, reportedly saying, "I will
destroy you."

It is not normal for administration officials to act in this manner. Other

administrations have made it a point to treat the press with respect.

Then, subjects in the "no punishment" conditions read the following snippet:
The [Trump / Biden] White House has been coy in their response to the allegations,
largely downplaying the incident. They have made it clear that the communications
official will not be fired and remains in their senior position.

In contrast, subjects assigned to the "sanction" conditions read a slightly different conclusion, where
it was made clear that the official was formally punished by being removed from his post:

13
Full descriptive statistics associated with sample demographics are available in Appendix E.

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Democratic norms and accountability

The incident was met with swift condemnation by the [Trump / Biden]
administration, and the communications official has been forced out. They submitted
their resignation last week, which the White House encouraged.

Measures. We collected responses to two separate dependent variables. First, norm support was
measured by asking subjects whether they agreed or disagreed with the following statement: “If
someone acts in an inappropriate way, then they should be punished.” Responses were coded to range
from “strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree” (5). Second, outcome support was collected for
subjects assigned to the treatment conditions. We asked individuals whether they agreed or disagreed
with the following statement: “The communications official deserved to lose their job.” Again,
responses ranged from "strongly disagree" (1) to "strongly agree" (5). 14

Results. We present mean norm and outcome support across the sanction arms in Figure 1. Beginning
with norm support in Panel A, we observe substantively minor, but statistically significant
differences in commitments to punishment norms conditional upon whether the official was fired.
Subjects in the punishment conditions express slightly more agreement with the idea that
inappropriate behavior should be punished than those in the no-punishment conditions (b = 0.12 ,s.e.
= 0.5). It is noteworthy, however, that norm support is higher for all subjects randomly assigned to
the treatment conditions compared to those in the control group. Observing a norm violation
seemingly primes more support for punitive beliefs. 15
Panel B illustrates differences in support for the firing of the political official. Subjects who
learned that the political official was fired for his inappropriate comments were more supportive of
the firing than those in the tacit approval (no-sanction) condition. While this difference may seem
obvious, it was possible that the overriding, though general punishment norm was insufficiently
strong to motivate punitiveness in this specific case. Had that happened, we might have observed a
bit of a back-fire type effect, where subjects in the sanction condition communicated less support for
the outcome because the punishment did not fit the crime. While that does not appear to be the case,
here, there is still one more wrinkle to the experiment that deserves attention: the matter of the

14
We also collected party thermometers, trust in government, and satisfaction with democracy. For
brevity’s sake, we do not report on these measures in this paper.
15
To the extent that punitivity is “high” in the mass public, survey context likely plays a role
regarding the specific amount of latent punitiveness researchers observe (see: Adriaenssen and
Aertsen 2015).

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Democratic norms and accountability

partisan cues. Perhaps one might disagree with the outcome when the fired official belongs to the in-
party compared to an official belonging to an out-group.

Figure 1. Support for punishment norms and outcomes by sanction presence in study 1

Notes: Point estimates represent group means. In case of “no sanction” and “punished” conditions,
we have collapsed the Republican and Democratic partisan cue groups. Solid bands represent 95%
confidence intervals. Distribution of responses are arrayed along y-axis and have been lightly jittered
for legibility.

To assess how the in-group/out-group distinction shapes these attitudes, we present the same
dependent variables from Figure 1 broken out by whether the official belonged to the same (in-group)
or opposing (out-group) party in Figure 2. Several findings are notable. First, across all treatment
conditions in Panel A, we find that support for the punishment norm is substantively robust: the
modal response, even among those assigned to in-group wrongdoing, is to “agree” with the norm
that inappropriate behavior should be punished. In addition, when primed with a norm violation,
group distinction and sanction presence matter mostly in the case of an in-group norm violator who
was not punished. Although norm support is not different among out-group and in-group violators
who were punished (b = 0.003, s.e. = 0.06), subjects who read about an in-group norm violator were

12
Democratic norms and accountability

less supportive of the punitiveness norm than persons who learned about an out-group norm violator
(b = -0.26, s.e. = 0.07).

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Democratic norms and accountability

Figure 2. Support for punishment norms and outcomes by sanction presence, group status, and
ideological self-identification in study 1

Notes: Point estimates represent group means. Solid bands represent 95% confidence intervals. In-
group and out-group distinction pools the partisan cue groups together in respective group
category. Distribution of responses are arrayed along y-axis and have been lightly jittered for
legibility.

If the finding that norm support is high regardless of sanction presence seems somewhat
encouraging across Panel A, then Panel B shows how this pattern falls apart when it comes to
supporting the matter of specifically punishing a norm-breaker. The highest levels of observed
support occur in the treatment condition with an out-group norm breaker who is punished, which is
sensible given the desire to legitimize the punishment of out-group members. Yet while support
remains robust for persons in the in-group punishment and out-group no punishment conditions, it
falls dangerously low for subjects assigned to the in-group, no sanction condition. 16 Simply put,
punishment for norm violations is low when individuals face in-group threat, and the reluctance to
approve of punishment is exacerbated when in-group elites fail to act accordingly.

16
Digging deeper beneath this contrast, low approval in the “in-group, no sanction” condition seems
to be mostly driven by conservatives. In the appendix, we break the pooled group estimates out by
subject ideology and find that there are important differences between liberals and conservatives in
the in-group conditions. While both liberals and conservatives exhibit lower support for the
punishment in the in-group conditions, conservatives systematically exhibit lower support for the
firing of the official regardless of whether there is punishment or not – which is perhaps ironic in
some sense because the actual, real-life event involved a Democratic official.

14
Democratic norms and accountability

Study 2: Political vs. social norm violations

In Study 1, we showed that the social norm "wrongdoers should be punished" is sufficiently strong
that the absence (presence) of punishment does little to decrease (increase) substantive support for
it. However, in vignettes where norm violators were punished, we found that that measure of
accountability helped to bring subjects around to the idea that punishing a wrongdoer was appropriate
(albeit asymmetrically in the case of in-group norm violators). What remains unclear, however, is
whether the type of wrongdoing matters. For instance, indiscretions like taking advantage of financial
information gleaned from insider access – an important political norm that should guide the behavior
of political insiders – may be viewed differently than, say, the prohibition against mean or
inappropriate attacks on (political) others – which resembles a common social norm guiding
interpersonal exchange. 17 Our hypotheses about the role of partisan cues and sanctions carry over
from study 1; here, however, we do not have strong priors about whether social or political norms
generate different normative commitments or support for punishment, so we frame this, instead, as
a research question.

RQ1 Social vs. political norm-breaking: Does exposure to a political norm cause lower support than
exposure to a social norm?

Sample. To test the possibility that people respond to different norm violations in particular ways,
we collected data using CloudResearch to screen MTurk participants (full details regarding that
sampling protocol are available in the Study 1 write-up). Notably, subjects who completed Study 1
were excluded from participation here. 18 754 subjects participated in the study, which included 493
(65.4%) Democrats and 261 Republicans (34.6%). Again, a complete demographic profile of the
sample is available in the accompanying appendix.

Design. Study 2 introduces a third arm (norm type) to the 2 (punishment) x 2 (partisan cue) design
tested in Study 1. Here, subjects were randomly assigned to read a story about a Republican or
Democratic official who violated either a social or political norm and who was or was not formally

17
In the pre-registration materials, we termed “political” norm “ethical norm”; in hindsight, we
believe that the label political is much preferable for reasons we discuss below.
18
This exclusion restriction was important to ensure that we weren’t “double-dipping” with
participants from Study 1 who might have been particularly sensitive to norm violations.

15
Democratic norms and accountability

sanctioned by their peers by being removed from a committee assignment. Participants in the political
norm violation treatment conditions read a vignette discussing questionable stock trades. 19 This story
was based loosely on real accusations against Republican Senators David Perdue (R-GA) and Kelly
Loeffler (R-GA) for committing insider trading during the COVID-19 pandemic. 20 All subjects in
these conditions read the following text:
While Congress members and top staffers are not supposed to buy, sell, or trade
stocks using information they glean from their jobs, there is technically no ban on
congressional lawmakers from owning shares of individual companies. It is a
situation that ethics experts say leaves the public in the dark, lets Congress off the
hook and renders the STOCK Act — intended to promote transparency, extinguish
conflicts of interest, and defend against insider trading — toothless.

Historically, there is an expectation that representatives will divest themselves

while in office – putting such assets in a blind trust that they do not directly
manage. Recently, however, [Democratic / Republican] Party Representative
Jared Tate made news for a large sale of stocks from Vibrant, a healthcare
company that has produced millions of personal protective equipment (PPE) items
for frontline workers.

This situation appears to be the sort of classic conflict of interest that worries
lawmakers about the ethical abuse of access to insider information that political
connections afford.

While subjects in the "no-sanction" arm were told that no charges were brought against the political
official, subjects in the "sanction" arm of the design were told that the particular official had been

19
Not using your access to profit is a political norm rather than a social one in the following sense:
the behavior involves politics or governing, not general social decorum. Despite the existence of the
STOCK Act, members of Congress have enormous latitude to play fast and loose with the stock
market because divestment from assets is not a formal precondition for public service. As a result,
despite the legal prohibition, it is enormously difficult to have elected officials (1) bring formal
charges of wrongdoing against their peers for such behavior, much less (2) actually see them
punished via the law. In fact, both Perdue and Loeffler had their charges dropped in their case. This
underscores how the expectation to not use insider access is far more normative than legal.
20
This sort of behavior, however, is a near perennial concern. In mid-March, 2022, ethics advocates
warned that several Senate staffers might also be implicated for owning stocks in industries that they
help regulate. See: Walsh, Deirdre. March 21, 2022. “Ethics advocates say Senate staffers could be
breaking rules on stock ownership. National Public Radio. Retrieved from:
https://www.npr.org/2022/03/21/1087234024/ethics-advocates-say-senate-staffers-could-be-
breaking-rules-on-stock-
ownership?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=politics&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_term=np
rnews.

16
Democratic norms and accountability

stripped of their committee position for breaking this norm – a relatively weak-sounding sanction,
but an important one rarely levied against sitting members of Congress. 21
Subjects who were assigned to the social norm arm of the design read a brief story about a
political official who tweeted an inappropriate attack toward an election opponent. The vignette was
loosely based upon a tweet made by Paul Gosar (R-AZ) about Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden during
the 2020 general election. In late October 2020, Gosar tweeted a photo that featured Hunter with
what appeared to be a crack pipe in his mouth, along with some disparaging comments that were
clearly intended to mock the younger Biden's struggles with drug addiction. 22 However, this case
was so bizarre that we modified the episode to incorporate alcoholism rather than illicit drugs (like
cocaine) because we were not convinced that subjects would treat the situation with seriousness. All
subjects in the social norm violation treatments read the following text:
Roughly 21 million Americans suffer from an addiction. That means tens of
millions of Americans have first-hand knowledge and many millions more know
what it's like to have a family member or loved one suffer with or die from this
disease. And addiction affects both Democrats and Republicans, rich and poor,
suburban and rural, men and women.

Still, this didn't stop [Democratic / Republican] Party Representative Jared Tate
from making some pretty harsh and inappropriate statements about his general
election opponent, Sam Johnson's, history with alcoholism. A tweet appeared on
Rep. Tate's Twitter account depicting a bottle of liquor saying, "Good night, Sam. I
love you." with an image of Mr. Johnson saying "I love you too" back to the bottle.

As in the political norm arm, subjects were then told that the official in question was either not
punished or lost his committee post.

Measures. We again collected subjects' norm support and outcome approval, both of which were
measured using the same instrumentation from Study 1.

21
This sanction is also less severe than the one levied in study 1, where the official lost his job. The
stripping of a committee assignment is serious, but the legislator has not been removed from
elected service itself.
22
For a rundown of this episode, see: Impelli, Matthew. October 19, 2020. “Arizona GOP Rep tweets
joke about Hunter Biden drug addiction; his siblings endorse his Democratic opponent.” Newsweek.
Retrieved from: https://www.newsweek.com/arizona-gop-rep-tweets-joke-about-hunter-biden-drug-
addiction-his-siblings-endorse-his-democratic-1540311.

17
Democratic norms and accountability

Results. We begin by collapsing all partisan and sanction cues, looking only at mean values of norm
support across political and social norm violation treatment groups in Figure 3, Panel A. Here,
agreement with the punitiveness norm is higher in the political vs. social norm conditions (b = 0.27,
s.e. = 0.06). However, again, participants across the norm violation conditions were more likely to
say that bad behavior should be punished compared to persons in the control group. Does this pattern
extend to support for punishing the violators? Yes, it seems so. Per Panel B, subjects in the political
norm condition were more likely to agree that the norm violator should be punished than those
assigned to the social norm condition (b = 0.59, s.e. = 0.09).

Figure 3. Support for punishment norms and outcomes by norm type and presence of sanctions

Notes: Point estimates represent group means. Here, we have collapsed the Republican and
Democratic partisan cue groups. Solid bands represent 95% confidence intervals. Distribution of
responses are arrayed along y-axis and have been lightly jittered for legibility.

To evaluate how the presence of punishment shapes these views, Figure 4 parses the
estimates presented in Figure 3 by whether or not the norm violator was sanctioned. Panel A in Figure
3 illustrates that sanctions matter for norm support, but only modestly so. Subjects assigned to the
political norm violation with a sanction are more supportive of punitiveness norms than those
assigned to a social norm violation that was punished (b = 0.20, s.e. = 0.09). However, comparing
political norms with and without a punishment, we see little difference in subjects support for
punitiveness norms (b = 0.07, s.e. = 0.09) – subjects in both groups strongly agree that wrongdoing

18
Democratic norms and accountability

should be punished. Moving to support for punishing the official with the loss of his job in Panel B,
Figure 4, we again find no meaningful differences between political norm violations with and without
a sanction (b = 0.11, s.e. = 0.12). To the extent that the political norm was “severe,” subjects in these
conditions felt that some punishment was necessary regardless and certainly more so than persons in
the social norm violation conditions. However, there, we do observe that the presence of punishment
does yield more support for the consequence than persons in the social norm condition without a
sanction (b = .47, s.e. = 0.12).

Figure 4. Norm and outcome support by norm type and sanction presence in study 2

Notes: Point estimates represent group means; solid bands are 95% confidence intervals. Distribution
of responses are arrayed along y-axis and have been lightly jittered for legibility.

How do these patterns shift when we incorporate the pressures of the intergroup
framework? Figure 5 parses the estimates from Figure 4 into in- and out-groups. Beginning in
Panel A, we observe that norm support is high. But, it is lower in the in-group, social norm
condition without a sanction than other groups. In contrast, as we might expect, the highest levels

19
Democratic norms and accountability

of norm support are observed in the out-group, political norm violation condition where the official
lost his job. Both findings make intuitive sense, but we emphasize that these are substantively
modest differences.
This pattern is brought into sharper relief in Panel A, Figure 5, where we find that the
lowest levels of support for the firing of the official can be observed in the social norm violation
conditions involving an in-group politician who is not punished. Across the board, the highest
levels of punitiveness are observed in conditions involving political norm violations. However,
curiously, again it does not seem to matter whether the political norm violator was a member of the
in- or out-group or whether there was a sanction involved. Insider horse trading of this nature is
roundly repudiated by subjects. In contrast, we see significant differences with respect to social
norm violations and group context, where subjects assigned to an out-group norm violator are more
punitive than those assigned to an in-group – this is especially true when there is a sanction
23
involved (b = 0.62, s.e. = 0.18).

23
The appendix presents these contrasts broken down by subject partisanship. Irrespective of
partisanship, the lack of sanction in the social-norm condition produces very low levels of support
for kicking the official off of his committee assignment. Moreover, while there is a general
tendency for Democratic subjects to be more supportive of the loss of a committee assignment, that
pattern is mainly relegated to the "no sanction" groups. However, when it comes to social norm
violations among the in-group, Republicans, exhibit significantly less agreement than Democrats
that the norm-breaker should be punished (b = -1.08, s.e. = 0.26). Plainly, Republican subjects
simply don’t view the social norm violation as disqualifying, which, given recent political events,
may be an unsurprising result.

20
Democratic norms and accountability

Figure 5. Norm and outcome support by norm type, sanction, and group in study 2

Notes: Point estimates represent group means; solid bands are 95% confidence intervals.
Distribution of responses are arrayed along y-axis and have been lightly jittered for legibility.

21
Democratic norms and accountability

Study 3: Different sanctions, different opinions?

Taking stock of the evidence presented so far, two findings are notable: (1) people view norm-
breaking as worthy of punishment, and (2) sanctions matter when it comes to approval of punishment
for norm-breaking and, to a lesser degree, norm support. However, what is less clear is whether the
type of punishment matters, and, in contrast, what happens if such behavior is excused. In other
words, to this point, the “sanction” involved in punishing a public official’s wrongdoing has mostly
involved whether the norm-breaker lost their job. Nevertheless, this is not the only consequence of
misbehavior, and punishments can vary in their severity. A final experiment tests whether there are
differences in norm and outcome support on the basis of different types of elite reactions to norm-
breaking. Again, we do not have a firm set of hypotheses; we expect that a material punishment (e.g.,
loss of job) may be viewed more severely than a symbolic consequence (e.g., shaming), but it is also
possible that more punitive outcomes may be viewed as going too far. In addition, we also test
whether approval of a norm violation works against norm support.

RQ2 Punishment type: Does a material punishment generate more or less support for a norm-
breaker than a symbolic punishment?
RQ3 Excusing norm-breaking: Does excusing norm-breaking lower norm support?

Sample. To test the possibility that people respond to different consequences following norm
violations in particular ways, we collected data using CloudResearch to screen MTurk participants
(full details regarding that sampling protocol are available in the Study 1 write-up). Again, subjects
from studies 1 and 2 were ineligible to participate. 604 subjects participated in the study, which
included 388 (64.2%) Democrats and 216 Republicans (35.8%). The demographic composition was
similar to earlier studies. Full descriptive details about the sample are available in the appendix.

Design. Study 3 is a simple one-arm, between-subjects design, where subjects were randomly
assigned to one of three treatment conditions involving a political norm violation or a placebo
control. Each of the treatments involved a fictitious Republican state legislative official's
involvement in the January 6th, 2021 insurrection in Washington, D.C. The story was loosely based
on the case of former Wester Virginia state lawmaker, Derrick Evans, who live-streamed his

22
Democratic norms and accountability

participation at the U.S. Capitol. 24 We chose this episode and setting because protesting the results
of a free and fair election stands as probably the worst political norm violation in democracy. Unlike
earlier experimental designs, however, the official was described as a Republican-only – here, there
is no plausible equivalence frame to incorporate a Democratic official participating in such a norm
violation. All subjects in the treatment conditions read a common introduction describing both the
event and the official's involvement.
On January 6th, 2021, an armed mob invaded the U.S. Capitol in a violent attack
that left five people, including one Capitol Police officer, dead. The riot happened
after thousands of people had been riled up at a "Stop the Steal" rally, in which
Donald Trump and other politicians express doubts about the fairness and
integrity of the results of the 2020 election.

In the aftermath of that event, Michigan lawmakers called for the expulsion of
State Rep. Matt Maddock (R-MI), who helped spread false claims about election
fraud in the run-up to January 6th and addressed crowds in D.C. the day before.
Maddock had been vocal in his attempts to thwart his state's certification of
election results from his own state and was involved in the organization of busing
people to the rally.

Here, the vignettes branch into one of three outcomes: (1) a material sanction, (2) a symbolic or
existential sanction, or (3) no sanction at all and, instead, approval of the norm violation. For persons
randomly assigned to a "material" punishment, they read about the following sanction, which
included the official losing their job:
Today, a majority of his peers voted to remove him from office. A spokesperson for
the House majority leader said, "Mr. Maddock was aware that his actions could
cause serious harm. His lack of judgment resulted in him losing his job. No single
person is above the standards we have set for this community."

For persons in the symbolic punishment condition, the sanction was considerably milder. Here, the
consequence for norm-breaking simply involved a light scolding by political leadership.
Today, a spokesperson for the House majority leader said, "Mr. Maddock was
aware that his actions could cause serious harm. Although he remains a member
of this legislature, his lack of judgment is extremely serious and has brough shame
upon both him and this body. No single person is above the standards we've set for
this community, and he must commit to upholding these values moving forward."

24
See: Associated Press. January 8, 2021. “`In the Thick of it’: Several GOP state lawmakers
observed or joined assault on Capitol. One has been arrested.” Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from:
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-01-08/gop-state-lawmakers-joined-observed-dc-
riot.

23
Democratic norms and accountability

Finally, unlike the first two treatment conditions, which included a punishment, a third group of
people then read the following text, which actually excused the wrongdoing. To this point, we have
been able to say little about the dynamics of anti-sanctions or positive justifications for wrongdoing.
This final treatment group allows us to see how not only a lack of punishment, but active
encouragement of the wrongdoing, shapes citizens' views about the norm violation. 25
Today, a spokesperson for the House majority leader said, "Mr. Maddock did
nothing wrong. He used his constitutional right to protest and did not directly
encourage people to rush Capitol grounds. Vocal opposition is allowed in the
United States."

Measures. We collected responses to three outcomes: norm support and outcome support were
measured via the same instrumentation in studies 1 and 2. A third item measured treatment-specific
support for the particular elite response depicted in the respective treatment using the same
agree/disagree response set.

Results. Panel A, Figure 6 illustrates the distribution of support for the punitiveness norm across the
different treatment and control groups. Similar to studies 1 and 2, priming wrongdoing generates
more support for the idea that bad behavior should be punished. Among the varying treatment groups,
however, the difference in norm support are minimal; subjects in the material punishment condition
are negligibly more supportive of punitiveness norms than those persons assigned to the existential
punishment condition (b = 0.26, s.e. = 0.09). In Panel B, Figure 6, however, we see that support for
the idea that the official deserved to be expelled varies in more meaningful ways. As expected,
subjects in condition where the official was booted from the legislature were more supportive of that
consequence than were persons in the condition where his conduct was approved (b = 0.70, s.e. =
0.12). To a lesser degree, subjects in the existential punishment condition were also more supportive
of punishment than those in the approval condition (b = 0.49, s.e. = 0.13), as well.

25
This response was loosely based upon the GOP’s declaration that the January 6th riots represented
“legitimate political discourse.” In fact, the Republican National Committee went as far as to censure
both Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for not toeing the party line on the matter.
See: Weisman, Johnathan and Reid J. Epstein. February 4, 2022. “G.O.P. Declares Jan. 6 Attack
‘Legitimate Political Discourse’.” The New York Times. Retrieved from:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/us/politics/republicans-jan-6-cheney-censure.html

24
Democratic norms and accountability

Figure 6. Norm and outcome support in study 3

Notes: Point estimates represent group means; solid bands are 95% confidence intervals. Distribution
of responses are arrayed along y-axis and have been lightly jittered for legibility.

Figure 7 Panel A parses commitments to the norm “bad behavior should be punished” by subject
partisanship. Differences in norm support are modest, with Republican subjects in the symbolic
punishment condition exhibiting the lowest levels of norm support. Given the GOP’s public position
on the January 6th riots as legitimate discourse, it would seem that Republican subjects do not respond
negatively to the treatments because they simply do not view the insurrection as a norm violation. 26
Panel B permits a bit more exploration on this point and illustrates reactions to the respective
outcomes in each of the treatment groups. Democrats are most likely than Republicans to support the
political official losing his job in the material (b = 2.19, s.e. = 0.17) sanction condition where the
official reportedly did lose his job; in the symbolic condition, Democrats are again more supportive
of the public rebuke than Republicans (b = -1.48, s.e. = 0.17). In contrast, Democrats are much less
supportive of the idea that the political official had a right to engage in the insurrection as a form of
protest (b = -2.16, s.e. = 0.20) in the final panel. While this is not necessarily a surprise, given the
severity of the norm violation in question, it is normatively troubling, nevertheless. Even in the

26
This highlights one drawback to these studies, which include examples of norm violations that
are motivated by actual events. However, reactions to truly contrived norm violations in a vacuum
are difficult to interpret, and, so, balancing internal and external validity concerns, we anonymized
the vignettes while still using examples motivated by actual events.

25
Democratic norms and accountability

milder existential punishment condition, the modal Republican does not really support the reproach
for insurrection participation. In Panel C, we put the question of whether the official should lose his
job to all subjects in the treatment conditions and find the predicted pattern of results – Democrats
are always more willing to sustain the punishment. However, contrasting outcome support in Panel
C for Republicans in the material punishment and approval conditions, we find that Republican
subjects are significantly less likely to disapprove of the sacking when a material sanction is applied
(b = 0.67, s.e. = 0.21). Despite the mean response being somewhere between mild disagreement and
neutrality, it seems to be the case that elite sanctions do affect how people think about material
outcomes, even when their group's well-being is at stake.

Figure 7. Norm, outcome, and firing support by subject partisanship in study 3

Notes: Point estimates represent group means; solid bands are 95% confidence intervals.

26
Democratic norms and accountability

Discussion and conclusion

Norms guide interpersonal behavior and institutional conduct. In politics, democratic norms play
essential roles in both tempering how people respond to opponents and encouraging conformity with
institutional priorities and traditions. However, norms are neither permanently fixed nor guaranteed
to ensure compliance. Instead, norms persist because there is sufficient consensus – either among
elites, the public, or both – that they supply important or useful guardrails to prevent against
undesirable behaviors and, critically, that someone is willing to punish deviance when norm-
breaking happens.
This second feature of norm compliance – punishment – is under-examined in political
science research, which has primarily focused upon whether partisans willingly accept representation
by misbehaving elites. In this paper, we take a different approach, instead investigating meta-norms
regarding the appropriateness punishment. Our stakes are not electoral choice but whether norm-
breaking should result in normative and material consequences. Across three experiments, we find
that subjects who read about a norm violation remained committed to the idea that wrongdoing
deserves punishment. There were few instances where a norm violation resulted in systematically
lower ratings of norm support. That support generalizes irrespective of norm violation type, sanction
presence, and type of punishment.
There is, of course, a normative question regarding whether generalized punishment norms
are socially desirable to sustain. Although punishment norms exhibit a degree of universality
(Strimling and Eriksson 2014), their institutionalization in the United States takes on a particularly
punitive quality. Public support for de-carceration or defunding the prison industrial complex, for
example, remains modest – the idea that people should be punished for wrongdoing is deeply
ingrained in the American psyche, and its nearness to the spirit of personal responsibility gives it an
almost biblical quality in its political application in the United States. Yet, even a superficial look at
this country's criminal justice system conveys that this norm is sustained without any appreciation
for the irony that Black and white citizens are often punished differently (e.g. Yates and Fording,
2005). While punishment norms help impose order onto society (Eriksson et al. 2021), they are not
an unimpeachable social constraint and must, instead, be viewed both with caution and care.
Study 1 revealed that the lack of sanction following a social norm violation by an in-group
member could drastically reduce the approval of subsequent punishment – particularly among
conservatives. Study 2 expanded on this finding by analyzing whether social and political norm-
breaking is viewed similarly by the public. Not only did we replicate the relationship between

27
Democratic norms and accountability

sanctions and support for punishment, but we found that punishment for political norm violations is
viewed with much more consistency than social norm violations. Subjects faced with unpunished,
in-group norm violations were loath to approve of punishment in the social compared to the political
norm violation condition. Study 3, in turn, tested whether the type of punishment mattered. Here we
investigated a serious political norm violation – participation in the January 6th, 2021 insurrection.
Predictable partisan differences manifest, where Democrats were more punitive than Republicans
when it came to punishing an elected Republican official. Yet, despite right-leaning persons'
hesitancy to punish participation in the riots, we observed that the sacking of the official did
meaningfully increase support for the official deserving to lose their job over a scenario where the
official was, instead, praised.
The asymmetry in the willingness to punish wrongdoing, however, is concerning. Like
electoral work that finds that voters are unwilling to punish norm-violators (Graham and Svolik 2020;
Frederiksen 2022), we find that right-leaning Americans resist holding norm-breakers accountable.
While sanctions do help some partisans come round to the idea that punishment is appropriate, the
lack of in-group policing by GOP elites represents a missed opportunity to uphold the force of these
norms. In the case of election-rigging norm violations, that lack of accountability can have disastrous
effects (Clayton et al. 2021). In the end, support for democratic norms becomes disconnected from
specific cases of norm violations, allowing some partisans the bandwidth to give lip-service to
democratic values while permitting dangerous democratic backsliding to go more or less unchecked.

28
Democratic norms and accountability

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