The Democratic Trolley Problem: How Citizens Evaluate moral dilemmas in resistance to autocratization

Liberal democracies worldwide are increasingly under threat as elected elites gradually erode core democratic institutions. Although the incremental nature of contemporary autocratization makes it difficult to detect, it also creates a critical window of opportunity for resistance. This study contends that such resistance efforts face a fundamental moral dilemma: May resisters themselves, in their attempts to prevent further democratic recession, transgress democratic principles? We conceptualize this “democratic dilemma of resistance” as a tension between deontological perspectives, which reject democratic violations under all circumstances, and utilitarian perspectives, which justify them when they serve to preserve democracy. To examine this dilemma, we investigate citizens’ willingness to support undemocratic measures in resistance efforts. This study contributes to understanding the public constraints of democratic defense, highlighting when citizens penalize norm violations and when they are willing to condone them in the name of preserving democracy.