Losers’ consent: Evidence from a large-scale online experiment

Lily Savey (), André Blais, Damien Bol (), Vincent de Gardelle () and Jean-François Laslier ()
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Lily Savey: GATE Lyon Saint-Étienne - Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon - Saint-Etienne - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - UJM - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Étienne - UJM EPE - Université Jean Monnet (EPSCPE) - EM - EMLyon Business School - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
André Blais: UdeM - Université de Montréal
Damien Bol: Sciences Po - Sciences Po, CEVIPOF - Centre de recherches politiques de Sciences Po (Sciences Po, CNRS) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Vincent de Gardelle: CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement
Jean-François Laslier: PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement

Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) from HAL

Abstract: Intrinsic support for democratic principles is difficult to capture given heterogeneity in how people interpret these principles and social desirability bias in survey responses. We introduce a novel behavioral measure based on the concept of losers' consent, a core idea in democratic theory capturing citizens' acceptance of election outcomes even when they lose. We implement our approach in a large-scale online experiment with over 2,000 participants forming a representative sample of the French population, where we elicit partisan preferences using monetary donations to real parties. After voting, we reveal the winning party and give participants the opportunity to accept or contest the election outcome. Results show that a majority accepts the outcome, even among losers, and those for whom accepting is not utility-maximizing, suggesting that citizens show strong adherence to the core democratic principle of losers' consent.

Keywords: Voting behavior; Losers’ consent; Democratic support (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-05-11
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:cesptp:hal-05781894

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