Democratic Solidarity: Does the Democratic Public Support Fellow Democracies in Conflicts?

Abstract

How do democratic publics choose sides in foreign conflicts? We argue that they rely on identity heuristics, assess each side’s relative in-groupness, and support the side they perceive as closer. Regime type is an especially salient cue, producing what we call democratic solidarity: citizens prefer to support fellow democracies over nondemocracies. Three side-selection conjoint experiments in the U.S. and the U.K. provide support for such solidarity even when costless neutrality is an option. Two additional vignette experiments suggest that democratic solidarity extends to substantive policy preferences. However, respondents evaluate in-groupness across multiple identity dimensions: democratic solidarity can be reinforced or attenuated by religious and, to a lesser extent, racial identities. Support for democracies disappears in conflicts between Christian nondemocracies and non-Christian democracies, and co-racial affinities polarize support. Overall, democratic solidarity is powerful but conditional, underscoring how identities can reinforce or cross-cut foreign policy preferences.