What are citizens willing to trade for a sense of certainty and tranquility? In this paper I examine the conditions under which individuals tolerate or actively support violations of democratic norms, arguing that perceived tranquility is the key currency in this exchange. I propose a theory of uncertainty in which the subjective reduction of anxiety links specific policy domains and contextual scenarios to citizens' conditional acceptance of antidemocratic attitudes and behaviors.

To test this, I will conduct an online survey experiment with a representative sample of the Spanish population. I first identify which policy issues generate the greatest perceived uncertainty among citizens. I then apply a security-enhancement treatment consisting of information designed to reduce individual uncertainty about those issues, regardless of their ideological framing. Using this treatment, I measure citizens' subsequent willingness to accept democratic norm violations, including overriding parliament, restricting voting rights, banning political parties, or tolerating unjustified violence against protesters. Beyond policy domains, I also test whether contextual scenarios, such as wars, natural disasters, and large-scale catastrophes, similarly condition citizens' tolerance for antidemocratic behavior.

This paper makes two contributions: it adds to the limited experimental literature on conditionality in democratic norm violation, and it provides the first theoretically grounded selection of uncertainty inducing items, covering both policy issues and contextual scenarios, for use in survey experimental designs.