Jurado began by arguing that recent debates on democratic backsliding have focused overwhelmingly on winners: leaders who gain office through elections before gradually weakening democratic constraints from within. While acknowledging the importance of this literature, he suggested that democracy also depends fundamentally on the behaviour of losers. Democratic systems, he argued, rest on a simple but fragile expectation: citizens participate in free and fair elections, some lose, others win, and those who lose nevertheless continue to recognise the authority of the resulting government. Democratic consent, in this sense, is not simply agreement with the rules of the game but an ongoing willingness to accept political outcomes one would have preferred to avoid.
This perspective led Jurado to distinguish his project from the classic winner-loser literature in political science. Previous research has consistently shown that electoral losers report lower satisfaction with democracy, weaker trust in political institutions and more negative political attitudes. Yet, he argued, these indicators do not necessarily measure democratic consent itself. Citizens may be disappointed by an electoral outcome while fully accepting its legitimacy. The more significant question is whether defeat in highly polarised political environments begins to undermine acceptance of the electoral process, confidence in the fairness of democratic institutions and recognition of the winning side's legitimate right to govern.Spain, Jurado argued, provides an especially revealing case through which to explore these questions. The 2023 general election took place against a backdrop of intense affective polarisation and considerable uncertainty over the likely outcome. The subsequent government formation process proved particularly contentious, as the governing coalition depended on the support of Catalan pro-independence parties in return for an amnesty agreement that generated strong opposition among parts of the electorate. This political context, he suggested, offered an unusually valuable opportunity to examine how democratic consent evolves following electoral defeat, particularly among right-leaning voters whose expectations had not been realised.
The empirical core of the presentation combined three complementary strands of evidence. First, Jurado traced patterns of democratic consent among Spanish voters throughout the 2023–24 electoral cycle, distinguishing between perceptions of procedural fairness and willingness to accept the authority of the resulting government. Second, he presented an experimental design in which respondents were exposed to different hypothetical electoral outcomes, allowing comparison between reactions when either the political left or the political right lost, and helping to distinguish whether attitudes were shaped primarily by vote shares, government formation or the combination of both. Finally, he examined whether electoral defeat in this highly polarised environment increased openness to more illiberal or anti-pluralist political positions.
Taken together, the findings suggested that electoral defeat under conditions of intense political polarisation can weaken confidence in democratic procedures, reduce acceptance of the electoral outcome and diminish support for the governing coalition's legitimacy. These effects appeared particularly pronounced among right-wing electoral losers in the Spanish case. At the same time, Jurado stressed an important qualification. Electoral defeat did not produce a uniform shift towards anti-democratic attitudes. Rather than generating widespread support for explicitly authoritarian alternatives, the evidence pointed more strongly towards growing anti-pluralist attitudes—for example, greater willingness to restrict the political influence or legitimacy of particular parties. The central concern, therefore, was not simply declining political satisfaction but a narrowing of the boundaries of legitimate democratic competition.
The discussion that followed explored both conceptual and methodological questions. Participants asked how political scientists should define an electoral "loser" in increasingly complex political systems where voters may lose locally while winning nationally, or cast tactical rather than sincerely preferred votes. Others questioned whether the Spanish case reflected straightforward rejection of a legitimate electoral result or, instead, dissatisfaction with the constitutional bargaining and coalition-building that followed the election. Jurado acknowledged these complexities, suggesting that one of the project's next steps would be to develop more precise concepts of electoral loss, democratic consent and the conditions under which ordinary political disappointment develops into more fundamental challenges to democratic legitimacy.
Further discussion also considered the broader applicability of the findings. Audience members asked whether similar patterns might emerge in other highly polarised democracies and whether reactions depended less on the electoral result itself than on the perceived fairness of the government formation process. The conversation highlighted the importance of distinguishing between dissatisfaction with political outcomes, disagreement over constitutional procedures and genuine rejection of democratic norms—distinctions that Jurado argued remain underdeveloped within the existing literature.
The seminar ultimately presented Spain not as an exceptional case but as a broader warning about the fragility of democratic consent in increasingly polarised societies. Jurado did not argue that Spanish democracy is in crisis or that electoral legitimacy has collapsed. Rather, his findings suggest that the willingness of citizens to accept defeat—a cornerstone of democratic competition—may be more contingent than political scientists have traditionally assumed. If democratic resilience depends not only on constraining illiberal winners but also on sustaining the consent of electoral losers, then understanding how, why and under what conditions that consent begins to erode becomes an increasingly urgent research agenda. The seminar therefore offered both a careful diagnosis of a contemporary Spanish political moment and a wider reflection on one of democracy's most fundamental yet often overlooked assumptions.
By Yangyang Zhao (Events Assistant)
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