Fear of Losing Votes Pushes Democracy to Losing Itself
What happens when an issue dominates political debate, monopolizing election campaigns, newspaper headlines, and collective fears? Instinctively, we would think that this increases democratic control: the more “salient” an issue is, the more citizens should be able to influence government decisions. But this is not the case. According to research by Livio Di Lonardo, professor in the Department of Social and Political Sciences at Bocconi University, and Tiberiu Dragu, of New York University, the opposite is true.
In the paper When salience undermines representation: democratic dilemmas in security and counterterrorism policy, published in Political Science Research and Methods (Cambridge University Press), the two scholars use a theoretical model to demonstrate that when a ‘value-based’ issue such as security or economic growth becomes more electorally relevant, the gap between what voters want and what representatives do tends to widen.
“The more salient an issue is,” Di Lonardo explains, “the more politicians have an incentive to appear competent, even by adopting policies that are tougher or more invasive than voters would prefer. It’s a democratic paradox: the visibility of the problem reduces, rather than strengthens, representation.”
The illusion of consensus on “valence issues”
The research focuses on what political science refers to as valence issues, i.e., issues on which there is a basic consensus—such as security, economic prosperity, or administrative efficiency—and which do not split voters along ideological lines. In these cases, political competition is not about “what to do” but “who is best able to do it.”
This is where the short circuit arises: when terrorism prevention, for example, becomes an important yardstick for evaluating governments, electoral calculations push leaders to adopt increasingly aggressive measures, even beyond the point that citizens themselves would consider acceptable if they could evaluate the costs in terms of civil liberties.
“After attacks such as 9/11,” Di Lonardo observes, “the pressure to appear competent in dealing with the threat of new attacks has led many governments to enact exceptional laws, such as the Patriot Act in the United States, which have expanded surveillance powers and reduced civil liberties. But our analysis shows that it is not only fear that explains these choices: it is also the democratic logic of consensus, which rewards those who appear most competent. At that point, adopting strong measures that lead to increased security, and therefore to the perception of competence in the eyes of voters, becomes optimal for the executive, even at the expense of consistency with voters’ preferences.”
When voting becomes a blank check
In the model the two scholars developed, voters and representatives share the same costs and benefits in defining security policy: there are no ideological differences or different degrees of information, but only one additional incentive for politicians—re-election.
In a high-salience context, the goal of avoiding even the perception of ineffectiveness becomes dominant. Thus, in order to reduce the political risk of a new attack, governments choose higher levels of restriction and surveillance than would be optimal for citizens themselves. The result, Di Lonardo and Dragu write, is a paradox of representation: “the increase in the salience of an issue leads to a reduction in the congruence between voters’ preferences and the policies implemented.” “Democracy works poorly precisely where we think it works best,” Di Lonardo comments. “On the most visible issues, the election mechanism pushes for symbolic, often hyper-reactive decisions that do not reflect a true popular mandate.”
From the “War on Terror” to security populism
The case of terrorism is significant, but not unique. The analysis can be extended to many other areas where voters judge governments on perceived outcomes rather than policy details: the fight against crime, migration management, health or economic emergencies. When the debate focuses on a single goal—more security, less crime, growth at all costs—complexity disappears. Voters, the authors observe, tend to rely on simplified indicators of “success” and, in an attempt to elect competent politicians, may overlook the costs of their choices in government.
The risk is that politics, in order to appear effective, sacrifices the very alignment between politicians’ choices and voters’ preferences that is the foundation of legitimacy in liberal democracies.
“Just think,” Di Lonardo adds, “of how Edward Snowden’s leaks showed the extent of surveillance programs created in the name of security but conducted in secret, or the case of Barack Obama, who, despite criticizing the excesses of ‘counterterrorism’ as a candidate, then confirmed most of those measures as president. This is the perverse effect of salience: the more citizens demand visible results, the further governments stray from their true preferences.”
A warning for 21st-century democracies
The conclusion of the study is far from academic. The idea that ‘more public attention means more democracy’ does not stand up to scrutiny. On high-salience issues, the authors write, ‘increased electoral attention does not improve the alignment between voters and rulers, but distorts it’. This does not mean that citizens should lose interest in security policy, but that institutions must be able to filter the emotional pressure of public opinion and ensure democratic controls even when fear dominates the scene.
As Di Lonardo concludes: “Our work shows that representation is most fragile precisely when emotional participation is strongest. To defend democracy, it is not enough to vote: we must accept that good politics does not always coincide with the most vocal politics.”
Livio Di Lonardo, Tiberiu Dragu, “When salience undermines representation: democratic dilemmas in security and counterterrorism policy”, Political Science Research and Methods (2025), 1–9, DOI https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2025.10049
