Losers' consent
Subtitle: elections and democratic legitimacy
By: Christopher J. Anderson ... [et al.].
Contributors: Anderson, Christopher, 1966-
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2005
Place of publication: Oxford; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 222
Subjects: Legitimacy of governments; Losers -- Attitudes; Political candidates -- Attitudes; Political psychology; Democracy; Elections; Consensus (Social sciences); Comparative government
Other titles: Western Collection.
Description: "Democratic elections are designed to create unequal outcomes: for some to win others have to lose. This book examines the consequences of this inequality for the legitimacy of democratic political institutions and systems. Using survey data collected in democracies around the globe, the authors argue that losing generates ambivalent attitudes towards political authorities. Because the efficacy and ultimately the survival of democratic regimes can be seriously threatened if the losers do not consent to their loss, the central themes of this book focus on losing: how losers respond to their loss and how institutions shape losing. While there tends to be a gap in support for the political system between winners and losers, it is not ubiquitous. The book paints a picture of losers' consent that portrays losers as political actors whose experience and whose incentives to accept defeat are shaped both by who they are as individuals as well as the political environment in which loss is given meaning." "Given that the winner-loser gap in legitimacy is a persistent feature of democratic politics, the findings presented in this book contain crucial implications for our understanding of the functioning and stability of democracies."--BOOK JACKET
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [200]-212) and index.

Gift; Todd Donovan; April 2005.

Todd Donovan, WWU faculty member, 1991-; BA California State University, Sacramento, MA, PhD University of California, Riverside.

Gift of Todd Donovan. 
Table of contents: title: Winning isn't everything : losers' consent and democratic legitimacy --; title: Political legitimacy and the winner-loser gap -- -- The; title: winner-loser gap : contours and boundaries -- -- The; title: dynamics of losers' consent : persistence and change in the winner-loser gap --; title: Individual differences in losers' consent --; title: Winning and losing in old and new democracies --; title: How political institutions shape losers' consent --; title: Comparing losers' assessments of electoral democracy --; title: Losing and support for institutional change --; title: Conclusion: graceful losers and the democratic bargain.