In recent years, the former presidents of Brazil and the United States and the current leader of Israel have all been the targets of criminal prosecution—to name just a few of the dozens of political leaders who have faced prosecution globally. Supporters of the trials say they are necessary to preserve democracy and the rule of law. Opponents call the litigation election interference. But what effect do prosecutions against political figures have on support for them—or for democratic norms?

In a new study, Harvard Griffin GSAS PhD candidate Andrew O’Donohue and Columbia University political scientist Daniel Markovits explore how the prosecution of President Donald Trump shaped public opinion before the 2024 election. In a recent conversation with Harvard Griffin GSAS Communications, O’Donohue talks about the study’s findings, why they should give pause to those on the left and right looking to prosecute political opponents, and the growing global problem of how to deal with leaders who violate democratic norms.

In your study, you note that since 2000, more than 75 former presidents and prime ministers in global democracies have faced criminal prosecution. Is this a growing problem around the world?

A big trend affecting democracies globally is that courts and the legal system have become increasingly important actors in conflicts over democracy. During the Cold War, when democracies predominantly died through military coups, courts were rarely power brokers. But today—in the United States, Israel, Brazil, and many other countries—courts are powerful and play a critical role in shaping democratic trajectories.

One way this plays out is in the increasing number of cases where courts adjudicate the fate of political leaders: Donald Trump in the United States, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Bibi Netanyahu in Israel. A key goal of our paper was to put US democracy in this broader global context. In political science, American politics is often studied separately from politics in the rest of the world. But it’s increasingly important for scholars of American and comparative politics to collaborate as the US democracy grapples with challenges that other democracies are facing too. That’s something my coauthor and I tried to do in this paper—to bridge that divide.

And in order to do that, you focused on the 2024 US presidential election. How was your research designed?

One of our key motivations was the realization that although Americans broadly knew that former President Donald Trump was being prosecuted, there were starkly different narratives about the prosecution’s legitimacy. One narrative viewed the prosecution as democratic accountability; another saw it as election interference. We wanted to investigate which of those narratives was persuasive, particularly to independents and Republicans, in the context of the 2024 Republican primary.

We chose the primary because in our current polarized political environment, it’s rare for voters to cross party lines. But in a primary, there’s more room to observe whether the prosecution might reduce support for Trump—or instead rally voters around him. So, we surveyed 3,000 Republicans and independents to understand how different messages for or against the prosecution affected their views of Trump, the prosecution, and democratic norms.