Opposition Response to Term Limit Subversion and Democratic Backsliding - Evidence from Côte d'Ivoire

How does democratic backsliding shape opposition rhetoric? We leverage a common episode of democratic backsliding in Africa – incumbents running for an additional term despite a term limit – to examine its effects on opposition rhetoric on social media. Through computational text analysis, we analyze over 1 million public posts in groups supporting opposition actors in Côte d’Ivoire in the run-up to the 2020 elections. We find that opposition supporters were more likely to discuss the electoral process as they anticipated a competitive and viable election, but once the incumbent announced his third-term run, rhetoric shifted away from discussions of electoral processes. In contrast, opposition groups increased their discussions of political order in the aftermath of the third-term announcement. We show how examining social media can provide insight into the processes underpinning democratic disillusionment in the wake of backsliding.