Measuring a Pro-Democratic political culture

Measuring a Pro-Democratic political culture

Ronald Inglehart

Democracy Audits & Governmental Indicators

University of California October 30-31, 2009

• Mass attitudes play an important role in the emergence and flourishing of democracy-- but not some attitudes are far more important than others:

• Favorable attitudes toward democracy itself are much less important than having orientations that enable democracy to function-- tolerance, trust, political activism and Postmaterialist values

• The latter are far more crucial than saying good things about the D-word

Do individual-level characteristics shape societal-level democratization?• The political culture literature is based on the

implicit assumption that they do– but this assumption is based on faith in face-validity alone-- it is rarely tested empirically.

• High levels of support for democracy at the individual level are assumed to be conducive to democratic institutions—

which exists only at the societal level and can only be tested at that level. Nevertheless, pro-democratic attitudes are generally tested at the individual level, on the basis of face validity.

The World Values Survey now provides data from more than 90 countries.

we can analyze the linkages between individual-level beliefs,

and societal-level institutions.This makes it possible to test directly such

questions as:

Are certain beliefs or values conducive to democracy?

Countries surveyed at least once in the World Values Surveys98 countries, containing almost 90 % of the world’s population (2007)

Development and cultural change move in two major phases

Industrialization brings a shift from Traditional values to Secular-rational values.

Postindustrial society/Service Society brings a shift from Survival values to Self-expression values

SELF-EXPRESSION VALUES Emphasize:

• High priority for freedom and self-expression (Postmaterialist over Materialist values)

• Tolerance of outgroups (foreigners, gays, women)

• Interpersonal trust• Political activism• Subjective well-being

SURVIVAL VALUES emphasize the opposite

• The emergence of Self-expression values at the individual level is closely linked the flourishing of democratic institutions at the societal level

• In order to demonstrate this, we must first answer the question:

How do we measure democracy?

(1)Polity IV-index of “constitutional democracy” -- measures constitutional provisions for inclusive participation and provisions against concentration of power

(2) Vanhanen’s index of “electoral democracy,” -- measures “inclusiveness” and “competitiveness” of national elections

(3) Freedom House index of “liberal democracy” expert ratings “civil liberties” and “political rights”

(4) World Bank index of “democratic governance” -- combines data from numerous sources measuring the “openness and accountability” of governance structures

Widely-used measures of democracy

The next question:

• How do we measure mass support for democracy

Which mass attitudes are most strongly linked with democratic institutions?

• The most obvious way to measure mass support for democracy, is to ask people whether democracy is the best form of government for their country: this measures overt support for democracy

• Surprisingly, overt support is NOT the strongest predictor of actual democracy at the societal level

• The reason: today, overt support for democracy has become almost universal—

and it’s even stronger in Albania and Azerbaijan than in Sweden or Switzerland

% “Democracy is a good way of governing this country”

Albania 99 Egypt 99 Denmark 98 Iceland 98 Greece 98 Bangladesh 98 Croatia 98 Italy 97 Netherlands 97 Sweden 97 Azerbaijan 97 Norway 96 China 96 Austria 96 Uruguay 96 Tanzania 96 Indonesia 96 Morocco 96 Germany (W.) 95 Spain 95 Nigeria 95 Vietnam 95 Jordan 95 Uganda 94 Serbia 94 India 93 Czech 93 Taiwan 93 Venezuela 93 Bosnia 93 Ireland 99 92 Japan 92 Germany (E.) 99 92 Turkey 01 92 Luxemburg 99 92 Belgium 99 91 Peru 96 91

Dominican Rep 91 New Zealand 91 Argentina 90 Georgia 90 France 89 U.S. 89 South Africa 89 Slovenia 89 Romania 89 Zimbabwe 89 Finland 88 Belarus 88 Latvia 88 Britain 87 Canada 87 Mexico 87 Hungary 87 Australia 87 Bulgaria 87 Estonia 87 Lithuania 86 Iran 86 S. Korea 85 Brazil 85 Chile 85 Ukraine 85 El Salvador 85 Moldova 85 Armenia 85 Colombia 85 Poland 84 Macedonia 84 Slovakia 84 Philippines 82 Pakistan 68 Russia 62

How do we validate attitudinal measures of pro-democratic attitudes?

• Face validity: people say favorable things about democracy (which are consistent with other attitudes that have face validity)

• Cross-level validation: Measuring the extent to which individual-level attitudes actually predict system-level democracy

HOW WELL DO MASS ATTITUDES PREDICT A SOCIETY’S ACTUAL LEVEL OF DEMOCRACY? Correlations with cumulative 1981-2000 Freedom House ratings:

A. Having a democratic political system is a good way of governing this country .224

B. Democracy may have problems but it's better than any other form of government .315

C. Having experts, not the government, make decisions according to what they think is best for the country -.322

D. Having a strong leader who does not have to bother with parliament and elections -.360

Democracy/Autocracy Index (A+B)-(C+D) .506

26 %

Survival/Self-expression values:

.830

69 %

Additional control variables:

• 1. independent variables must be measured at a time prior to the dependent variable (democracy)

• 2. we must control for democracy at prior times (autocorrelation)

• 3. we control for other possible determinants of democracy such as level of economic development, ethnic fractionalization, world market position, etc.

Constitutional Democracy

Electoral Democracy

Liberal Democracy

Democratic Governance Predictors:

Confidence in Institutions

0.03 -0.02 0.02 0.04

Overt Support for Democracy

0.02 0.12 .21 0.14

Membership in Voluntary Associations

-0.04 -0.13 -0.09 -0.11

Trust 0.08 -0.07 0.02 0.01

Self-Expression Values

.47 .64 .58 .71

Regression Analysis (controlling for other key factors):

Predictors of 4 measures of democracy

• Regardless of which measure of democracy one uses,

self-expression values are a much stronger predictor than any other mass orientation--

• including overt support for democracy, despite its obvious face validity

Mass attitudes are linked with effective democracy mainly in so far as they are

linked with Self-expression values (tolerance, trust, Postmaterialist values

and participatory orientations).

• The literature on social capital emphasizes the importance of membership in associations—but empirically, it has a surprisingly weak impact on democracy

• And, surprising though it initially seems, self-expression values are a much stronger predictor of democracy than is overt support for democracy.

Zimbabw e

Yugoslavia

Vietnam

Venezuela

Uruguay

U.S.A.G.B.

Uganda

Turkey

Tanzania

Taiwan

Sw itzerld.

Sw eden

Spain

South Africa

Slovenia

Slovakia

Russia

Romania

Portugal

Poland

Philippines

Peru

Pakistan

Norw ay

Nigeria

New Zeald.

Netherld.

Moldova

Mexico

Lithuania

Latvia

South Korea

Jordan

Japan

Italy

Israel

Ireland

IranIndonesia

India

Iceland

Hungary

Germany (W.)

Georgia

Germany (E.)

France

Finland

Estonia

El Salvad.

Egypt

Dominican R.

Denmark

Czech R.

Croatia

China

Chile

Canada

Bulgaria

Brazil

Belgium

Belarus

Bangladesh

Azerbaij.

AustriaAustralia

Argentina

Algeria

Albania

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

55

60

65

70

75

80

85

90

95

100

105

5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70

r = .90***

Leve

l of E

ffect

ive D

emoc

racy

(2

000-

2002

)

HIGH

LOW

Percent Emphasizing Self-expression Values (mid 1990s) +% emphasizing self-expression values

• The strong correlation between self-expression values and effective democracy seems to reflect a causal linkage

• A country’s level of self-expression values around 1990, controlling for prior level of democracy, explains most of the subsequent CHANGE toward democracy from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s

Zimbabwe

Venez.

U.S.A.

G.B.

Uganda

TurkeyTanzania

Taiwan

Switzld.

Sweden

S. Africa

SloveniaSlovakia

Russia

Romania

Portugal

Poland

Philipp.

Peru

Pakistan

Norway

Nigeria

NZNL

Mexico

Latvia

S. Korea

Jordan

Japan

Italy

Israel

Ireland

Indonesia

India

Iceland

Hungary

GhanaGermany

Georgia

Estonia

El Salv.

Dom. R.

Denmark

Czech R.

Croatia

China

Chile

Canada

Bulgaria

Brazil

Belgium

Belarus

Bangladesh

Azerb.

Armenia

Argentina

Algeria

y = 203.88x + 0.5558

R2 = 0.5174

-55

-50

-45

-40

-35

-30

-25

-20

-15

-10

-5

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

55

-0.20 -0.16 -0.12 -0.08 -0.04 0.00 0.04 0.08 0.12 0.16 0.20

Self-Expression Values in about 1990(residuals unexplained by democracy in 1984-88)

Ch

an

ge i

n D

em

oc

rac

y f

rom

19

84

-88

to

20

00

-04

(re

sid

ua

ls u

ne

xp

lain

ed

by

de

mo

cra

cy

in

19

84

-88

)

Supplementary material now on this project’s web site:

• A selection from Inglehart and Welzel (2005) on how to measure a pro-democratic political culture;

• Another selection from the same source on measuring effective democracy;

A forthcoming article showing that the attitudinal variables used to measure a pro-democratic culture are being measured reliably cross-

nationally (they are relatively stable attributes of given countries– about as stable as GNP/capita or

Freedom House scores); and that they played an important role in the most

recent major wave of democratization

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