Civility norm violations and political accountability

This short paper investigates how violations of civility norms by politicians affect attitudes about the importance of norms and demand for political accountability after wrongdoing. Our main findings are twofold: (1) support for norms and (2) demand for punishing norm-breaking increases when parties hold political officials accountable for their actions – especially in the case of in-group norm-breaking. These findings contribute to a growing literature on Americans’ support for norms by implying that elites play an important role in sustaining the standards of democratic exchange. When elites impose punishment on copartisan elites, they signal to the public that accountability is acceptable.