Bright Line Watch Report on American Democracy
May 1, 2018

In April 2018, Bright Line Watch conducted its fifth expert survey, and its third public survey, on democracy in the United States. Between April 9 and 22, we surveyed an expert sample of 935 political science faculty at American uni­ver­si­ties and a nation­al­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tive sample of 2,000 adults. Respondents in both surveys assessed the degree to which 27 demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples (listed in the Appendix to this report) are currently upheld in the United States.

We report two principal findings below. First, both public and expert respon­dents continue to rate U.S. demo­c­ra­t­ic per­for­mance lower than in our September 2017 surveys in a number of areas. However, results indicate little change in per­cep­tions of demo­c­ra­t­ic per­for­mance relative to our most recent prior public and expert surveys, which were conducted in January 2018. 

Our main metric of per­for­mance is the per­cent­age of respon­dents who rated the United States as “fully” or “mostly” meeting a given demo­c­ra­t­ic standard, as opposed to the per­cent­age saying the United States only “partially meets” or “does not meet” it. We begin by reviewing results from our full sample of the public. Then we split the public sample according to the main political divide in con­tem­po­rary American politics, dividing the public into those who approve of President Trump’s per­for­mance in office and those who dis­ap­prove. Finally, we compare results between our public respon­dents and our sample of experts.

Short-term stability, longer-term decline

Our April 2018 results show general stability in public per­cep­tions of American democracy.  The figure below shows the per­cent­age of respon­dents who rated the U.S. as mostly or fully meeting each of our prin­ci­ples listed below in surveys conducted in January (light markers) and April (dark markers).

Change in Performance, January 2018 – April 2018:  Public

None of the 27 demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples shows sta­tis­ti­cal­ly dis­cernible improve­ment, whereas we observe sig­nif­i­cant declines for three principles:

• • Political competition occurs without criticism of opponents’ loyalty or patriotism (21% in January, 14% in April).  Evaluations for this norm, already low, declined both among those who approve of President Trump (from 23% to 18%) and those who disapprove (19% to 11%).

  • Government agencies are not used to monitor, attack, or punish political opponents (33% in January, 29% in April).  Evaluations among Trump opponents changed little (34% to 32%), but we see a marked decline among Trump supporters (33% to 24%).  The low results for both Trump supporters and Trump opponents suggest that the two groups might have different views about which agencies are politicized and about who is being punished. 

  • The geographic boundaries of electoral districts do not systematically advantage any particular political party  (29% in January, 25% in April). Evaluations of this principle declined for both Trump approvers (45% to 39%) and disapprovers (19% to 14%). Court cases targeting gerrymandering by both parties were prominent in the news during the first quarter of 2018, likely raising the salience of this issue for citizens on both sides of the partisan divide.

Of course, mea­sur­able declines on three of our prin­ci­ples also means that we observed stability from January to April on 24 others. As the time series of Bright Line Watch surveys grows, however, we can provide a longer view of public attitudes, which in turn reveals a more pes­simistic picture. The figure below shows changes in public opinion stretch­ing back to our first public survey, in September 2017. This is still only a seven month period, but enough to reveal declines across a much broader range of principles. 

Change in Performance, September 2017 – April 2018:  Public

In half a year, we detect sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant declines in 23 of our 27 demo­c­ra­t­ic standards. The largest declines were for the following principles:

• • Government does not interfere with journalists or news organizations, where public belief that this standard is mostly or fully met dropped from 55% to 39%;

  • The elected branches respect judicial independence, which dropped from 56% to 42%; and

  • Agencies do not punish, mentioned above, which fell from 42% to 29%.

Importantly, dimin­ished public eval­u­a­tions of demo­c­ra­t­ic per­for­mance are shared by both those who approve and those who dis­ap­prove of President Trump. Among the president’s sup­port­ers, from September 2017 to April 2018 we observed an average drop of 9 per­cent­age points; among Trump opponents, we observed an average drop of 7 per­cent­age points. 

Performance gaps among the public

Drops in eval­u­a­tions across numerous demo­c­ra­t­ic standards sound ominous, but are these prin­ci­ples all equally important? To explain how we might dis­tin­guish between demo­c­ra­t­ic norms, we provide an illus­tra­tion in the figure below, which plots hypo­thet­i­cal demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples in two dimen­sions. Importance is rep­re­sent­ed on the hor­i­zon­tal axis and per­for­mance is rep­re­sent­ed on the vertical axis. At the upper right, we have a principle — say, freedom to protest peace­ful­ly — that is important and is being upheld. At lower left, we have another principle — say, deference to authority — that is rated as less important but on which U.S. democracy is seen as per­form­ing poorly. Such a per­for­mance eval­u­a­tion might be unfor­tu­nate but not cat­a­stroph­ic if the principle is not regarded as important. By contrast, it would be highly prob­lem­at­ic if a principle were violated that is widely regarded as essential to democracy — our hypo­thet­i­cal case at the bottom right of the figure.

A central question for our orga­ni­za­tion is whether violating such a principle would trigger a con­sen­su­al defense of American democracy. Would leading political leaders act against their immediate partisan interests to protect a higher ideal? And if there are prin­ci­ples that approach this threshold, what are they?

The next figure shifts from the abstract back to the concrete, plotting the public’s assess­ments of how important each of our 27 prin­ci­ples is against current eval­u­a­tions of per­for­mance.  We measured public assess­ments of impor­tance in our September 2017 survey. Respondents were asked to assess whether each of our 27 prin­ci­ples were “essential,” “important,” “ben­e­fi­cial but not required,” or “not relevant” for whether a country is demo­c­ra­t­ic. A full report on that survey is here. Responses for the general impor­tance of prin­ci­ples are dra­mat­i­cal­ly more stable over time than assess­ments of impor­tance, so we rely on our measures of impor­tance across longer time periods and seek to measure per­for­mance quarterly.

Importance vs Performance:  Public

Juxtaposing impor­tance and per­for­mance, we can identify areas in which American democracy is meeting, and failing to meet, public expec­ta­tions. The rela­tion­ship between impor­tance and per­for­mance is generally positive — the public tends to rate American democracy higher on its most valued prin­ci­ples. The excep­tions, found in the lower-right quadrant where high impor­tance is asso­ci­at­ed with low ful­fill­ment, loom largest as potential “bright lines” for democracy.

We emphasize the impor­tance of caution in inter­pret­ing this figure. There is no settled method, much less a math­e­mat­i­cal formula, for defining what con­sti­tutes a dangerous gap between impor­tance and per­for­mance. There will always be some principle that is closest to the lower right corner of the graph. Still, three prin­ci­ples stand out for their com­bi­na­tion of high impor­tance and low per­for­mance. All are related to the account­abil­i­ty of public officials:

• Law enforcement investigations of public officials or their associates are free from political influence or interference (item #5 in the graph)

• Government officials are legally sanctioned for misconduct (item #6)

• Government officials do not use public office for private gain (item #13)

We think this point is worth under­scor­ing. Our 27 items span a range of demo­c­ra­t­ic values, including equality of citizens, the fairness and inclu­sive­ness of demo­c­ra­t­ic pro­ce­dures, the pro­tec­tion of indi­vid­ual rights and liberties, and the civility with which our politi­cians conduct them­selves. Citizens hold many ideals in high regard, but when asked to identify where our public aspi­ra­tions and demo­c­ra­t­ic per­for­mance are most out of sync, the consensus is strongest for the account­abil­i­ty of public officials.

Public polar­iza­tion

So far, we have mostly focused on aggregate public opinion, only occa­sion­al­ly noting the dif­fer­ences between President Trump’s sup­port­ers and his opponents. We turn our attention now to that divide, though we wish to begin by noting an important element of consensus. The following figure, drawn from our September 2017 survey, shows ratings of impor­tance by Trump sup­port­ers and Trump opponents across the 27 demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples. Ratings of impor­tance are highly cor­re­lat­ed (at .89), con­firm­ing that the two groups largely agree about the relative impor­tance of our demo­c­ra­t­ic principles. 

Importance by Trump Approval

Consensus drops sub­stan­tial­ly, however, on whether these prin­ci­ples are being fulfilled. Although the assess­ments are still cor­re­lat­ed (at .71), we see gaps of more than 15 per­cent­age points between Trump sup­port­ers and Trump opponents on 8 of our 27 statements.

Performance by Trump Approval

As a measure of polar­iza­tion, we rely on the dif­fer­ence between the per­cent­age of Trump sup­port­ers and opponents who rate the United States as fully or mostly meeting each of our 27 standards. By this metric, polar­iza­tion in perceived demo­c­ra­t­ic per­for­mance is most pro­nounced around two main themes. The first is basic fairness and equality, par­tic­u­lar­ly as related to elections:

 

• All adult citizens have equal opportunity to vote (Trump supporter/opponent difference is 37%)

• Elections are free from foreign influence (difference=33%)

• The geographic boundaries of electoral districts do not systematically advantage any particular political party (difference=25%)

• All adult citizens enjoy the same legal and political rights (difference=24%)

• All votes have equal impact on election outcomes (difference=21%)

The next set of prin­ci­ples for which the gap in perceived demo­c­ra­t­ic per­for­mance is high between Trump sup­port­ers and opponents concern insti­tu­tion­al checks and balances:

• The legislature is able to effectively limit executive power (difference=24%)

• Executive authority cannot be expanded beyond constitutional limits (difference=20%)

• The judiciary is able to effectively limit executive power (difference=16%)

These are the areas where Americans on either side of the partisan divide observe the same con­di­tions and events and arrive at starkly different assess­ments of demo­c­ra­t­ic performance. 

Comparing expert and public evaluations

As with the public, we observe only limited changes in per­for­mance eval­u­a­tions among our experts between our two most recent surveys, but dimin­ished assess­ments across a wider range of prin­ci­ples over the longer period back to September 2017 (details are in the Appendix). From January to April of this year, the experts we surveyed report declines of eight per­cent­age points on whether the leg­is­la­ture can effec­tive­ly limit executive authority and seven per­cent­age points on whether gov­ern­ment officials are legally sanc­tioned for mis­con­duct. Over that same period, by contrast, expert eval­u­a­tions improved on whether citizens have equal voting rights (+9%), whether the right to peaceful protest is guar­an­teed (+6%), and on whether gov­ern­ment agencies are used to punish political opponents (+5%). On the rest of our 27 items, there was no sta­tis­ti­cal­ly dis­cernible movement in expert eval­u­a­tions. On the whole, then, expert assess­ments did not rise or fall sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly in the early months of 2018. Reaching back to September 2017, however, we see declines in expert eval­u­a­tions on the following items (no cor­re­spond­ing improve­ments are observed):

• The legislature is able to effectively limit executive power (58% to 40%

• The elected branches respect judicial independence (76% to 61%)

• Government officials are legally sanctioned for misconduct (51% to 37%)

• All adult citizens enjoy the same legal and political rights (51% to 38%)

• Executive authority cannot be expanded beyond constitutional limits (55% to 44%)

• The judiciary is able to effectively limit executive power (82% to 72%)

• Government agencies are not used to monitor, attack, or punish political opponents (67% to 60%)

As with the public, then, expert eval­u­a­tions of per­for­mance show a general decline across the period since Bright Line Watch began con­duct­ing its surveys. 

There is an important dif­fer­ence, however, between expert opinion and broader public opinion that warrants attention. The figure below plots the impor­tance assess­ments versus per­for­mance assess­ments for each of our 27 items.

Importance vs Performance:  Experts

As with the public, experts rated per­for­mance higher on the prin­ci­ples they value the most overall. Yet among the experts, the set of prin­ci­ples for which per­for­mance most lags impor­tance differs from those iden­ti­fied by the public. For the public, the biggest “demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­ap­point­ments” concern the account­abil­i­ty of gov­ern­ment officials. The experts share dis­ap­point­ment on account­abil­i­ty (see item #12 in the graph, which concerns sanctions for mis­con­duct), but are more deeply troubled about issues of fairness and equality:

• All adult citizens enjoy the same legal and political rights (item #3)

• All votes have equal impact on election outcomes (item #18)

• The geographic boundaries of electoral districts do not systematically advantage any particular political party (item #20)

American democracy in the spring of 2018

The latest Bright Line Watch surveys show sub­stan­tial stability from January to April of this year in eval­u­a­tions of demo­c­ra­t­ic per­for­mance. Among both our the public and expert samples, we see declines on a handful of the 27 demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples on which we measure the per­for­mance of U.S. democracy, scarce evidence of improve­ment, and no sub­stan­tial movement on most items. However, we still find per­cep­tions of degrading per­for­mance since September 2017 across a range of prin­ci­ples. The value of our instru­ment, we believe, increases with our ability to map perceived demo­c­ra­t­ic per­for­mance across longer periods, allowing us to identify long-term trends. So far, the pattern is not encouraging.

We can also validate our results by comparing them to work by other scholars and orga­ni­za­tions. A recent report from the Pew Research Center surveyed over 6,000 American adults between January and March 2018, using an instru­ment that mirrored our own in comparing assess­ments of impor­tance and per­for­mance on numerous demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples. Pew’s results are con­sis­tent with ours, showing that some essential prin­ci­ples (for example, pro­tec­tion of the right to peaceful protest) are widely regarded as well protected whereas others reveal wide gaps between public eval­u­a­tions of impor­tance and per­for­mance (for example, equal rights and the fairness of con­gres­sion­al districts). Pew also confirms the wide partisan gulf in per­for­mance assess­ments on items related to equality and fairness, par­tic­u­lar­ly with regard to elections.

Finally, we conclude with an obser­va­tion about the prospects for a bright line that citizens will defend. The gap between ideals and practice among the public is greatest on basic account­abil­i­ty and pun­ish­ment for malfea­sance by gov­ern­ment officials. Elites share these concerns to a sig­nif­i­cant extent, sug­gest­ing a possible area of con­ver­gence, but the public consensus that exists on the principle of account­abil­i­ty for gov­ern­ment officials could fracture in practice. What kind of inves­ti­ga­tion counts as impartial? Which officials should rightly be sanc­tioned? Our surveys ask about general prin­ci­ples, but it remains to be seen if the public’s com­mit­ments to those prin­ci­ples will crumble if they are con­front­ed with specific trans­gres­sions of demo­c­ra­t­ic ideals. 

Invitation for sub­mis­sion of questions for future BLW surveys

Bright Line Watch welcomes proposals for questions to be included in our surveys from students, other scholars, civil society orga­ni­za­tions, or inter­est­ed citizens. Guidelines on designing questions and proposing them for con­sid­er­a­tion are here.

 

Appendix: Survey method and data

Bright Line Watch surveys on the state of America’s democracy, April 2018

From April 9–22, 2018, Bright Line Watch conducted its fifth survey on the state of democracy in the United States. We conducted previous surveys in February (Wave 1), May (Wave 2), and September (Wave 3) of 2017, and in January of 2018 (Wave 4). Wave 1 and Wave 2 targeted expert respon­dents only. Waves 3–5 have paired the expert survey with one drawing on a rep­re­sen­ta­tive public sample. 

• Expert: On April 9, we sent email invitations to 9,326 political science faculty at universities in the United States. By April 22, after two reminder emails, we had complete responses from 935 (a response rate of 10%).

• Public: YouGov fielded the public survey from April 9–16, producing 2,000 complete responses.

Participants in each Wave 5 survey responded to a battery of questions about demo­c­ra­t­ic per­for­mance in the United States. The data from both the expert and public surveys are available here. All analyses of the public data from YouGov incor­po­rate survey weights.

The foun­da­tion of Bright Line Watch’s surveys is a list of 27 state­ments express­ing a range of demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples. Democracy is a mul­ti­di­men­sion­al concept. Our goal is to provide a detailed set of measures of demo­c­ra­t­ic values and of the quality of American democracy. We are also inter­est­ed in the resilience of democracy and the nature of potential threats it faces. Based on the expe­ri­ences of other countries that have expe­ri­enced demo­c­ra­t­ic setbacks, we recognize that demo­c­ra­t­ic erosion is not nec­es­sar­i­ly an across-the-board phe­nom­e­non. Some facets of democracy may be under­mined first while others remain intact, at least initially. The range of prin­ci­ples that we measure allows us to focus attention on variation in specific insti­tu­tions and practices that, in com­bi­na­tion, shape the overall per­for­mance of our democracy.

Bright Line Watch’s Wave 1 survey included 19 state­ments of demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples. Based on feedback from respon­dents and con­sul­ta­tion with col­leagues, we expanded that list to 29 state­ments in Wave 2. We then reduced that set to what we intend to be a stable set of 27 state­ments for the Wave 3 through Wave 5 surveys. 17 of those 27 state­ments were included in Wave 1, and all 27 were included in Wave 2.

The full set of state­ments is presented below and grouped the­mat­i­cal­ly for clarity. In the surveys, the prin­ci­ples were not cat­e­go­rized or labeled. Each respon­dent was shown a randomly selected subset of nine state­ments and asked to first rate the impor­tance of those state­ments and then rate the per­for­mance of the United States on those dimensions.

27 state­ments of demo­c­ra­t­ic principles

Elections

• Elections are conducted, ballots counted, and winners determined without pervasive fraud or manipulation

• Citizens have access to information about candidates that is relevant to how they would govern

• The geographic boundaries of electoral districts do not systematically advantage any particular political party

• Information about the sources of campaign funding is available to the public

• Public policy is not determined by large campaign contributions

• Elections are free from foreign influence

Voting

• All adult citizens have equal opportunity to vote

• All votes have equal impact on election outcomes

• Voter participation in elections is generally high

Rights

• All adult citizens enjoy the same legal and political rights

• Parties and candidates are not barred due to their political beliefs and ideologies

• Government protects individuals’ right to engage in unpopular speech or expression

• Government protects individuals’ right to engage in peaceful protest

• Citizens can make their opinions heard in open debate about policies that are under consideration

Protections

• Government does not interfere with journalists or news organizations

• Government effectively prevents private actors from engaging in politically-motivated violence or intimidation

• Government agencies are not used to monitor, attack, or punish political opponents

Accountability

• Government officials are legally sanctioned for misconduct

• Government officials do not use public office for private gain

• Law enforcement investigations of public officials or their associates are free from political influence or interference

Institutions

• Executive authority cannot be expanded beyond constitutional limits

• The legislature is able to effectively limit executive power

• The judiciary is able to effectively limit executive power

• The elected branches respect judicial independence

Discourse

• Even when there are disagreements about ideology or policy, political leaders generally share a common understanding of relevant facts

• Elected officials seek compromise with political opponents

• Political competition occurs without criticism of opponents’ loyalty or patriotism

The Wave 5 survey consisted of two main parts. In the first, each respon­dent was asked, “How well do the following state­ments describe the United States as of today?” Each respon­dent was then presented with 14 state­ments of principle, randomly drawn from the set above, and offered the following response options:

• The U.S. does not meet this standard.

• The U.S. partly meets this standard.

• The U.S. mostly meets this standard.

• The U.S. fully meets this standard.

• Not sure.

The order in which state­ments were presented in each battery was ran­dom­ized for each respon­dent so there should be no priming or ordering effects in how they were assessed.

After com­plet­ing the battery on U.S. per­for­mance, we asked respon­dents to rate the overall quality of democracy in the United States today on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 is least demo­c­ra­t­ic and 100 is most democratic. 

 

Additional figures

Change in per­for­mance, January — April 2018:  Trump disapprovers

 

Change in per­for­mance, January — April 2018:  Trump approvers

 

 

 

Change in per­for­mance, January — April 2018:  Expert sample

 

Change in per­for­mance, September 2017 – April 2018:  Expert sample