When elites defend democracy, do citizens listen? How elites alert citizens to democratic recession

In response to global trends of democratic recession, scholarship has increased its attention to defenders of democracy and actors who resist autocratization. In many cases, democratic defence is initiated by political elites. However, as of yet, it remains unclear whether all elites can effectively alert citizens that democracy is in danger, and whether some elites are better positioned than others. In this article, we argue that elite democratic defenders’ effectiveness in alerting citizens about democratic recession depends on their independence from the political process (political impartiality) and knowledge about the democratic system and what actions are likely to undermine it (embedded knowledge). Using a within-subject factorial survey-experiment, fielded in the United Kingdom (n = 3.986), we test the effectiveness of different elite actors in alerting citizens to democratic recession. We find strong support for our hypotheses, showing that elite democratic defenders are effective if they are perceived to be politically impartial and perceived to have embedded knowledge. These findings highlight the importance of elite credibility and also show important avenues for elites to bolster and strengthen their effectiveness in countering autocratization.