Are Levels of Democracy Affected by Mass Attitudes? Testing Attainment and Sustainment Effects on Democracy
| DOI | 10.1177/0192512107079640 |
| Author | Christian Welzel |
| Date | 01 September 2007 |
| Published date | 01 September 2007 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Welzel: Are Levels of Democracy Affected by Mass Attitudes? 397
International Political Science Review (2007), Vol. 28, No. 4, 397–424
DOI: 10.1177/0192512107079640 © 2007 International Political Science Association
Sage Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, and Singapore)
Are Levels of Democracy Affected by
Mass Attitudes? Testing Attainment and
Sustainment Effects on Democracy
Christian Welzel
Abstract. Recent findings by Inglehart and Welzel indicate that
emancipative mass attitudes show a signifi cantly positive effect on
subsequent democracy, controlling for previous democracy and a
number of socio-structural and socioeconomic factors. However, on an
important theoretical point these prior fi ndings remain inconclusive:
the causal mechanism of why and how emancipative mass attitudes
favor democracy. This article specifi es such a mechanism, arguing that
emancipative attitudes motivate mass actions that demonstrate people’s
willingness to struggle for democratic achievements, be it to establish
democracy when it is denied or to defend it when it is challenged. Based
on World Values Surveys rounds two to four, the empirical analyses
strongly confi rm these hypotheses, supporting what has recently been
introduced as an “emancipative theory of democracy.”
Keywords: • Democratization • Mass attitudes • Mass action
• Political culture
Introduction
The idea that mass attitudes affect a society’s chances to attain and sustain democracy
is the central premise of an entire school of thought in political culture (Almond
and Verba, 1963; Eckstein, 1966). Despite the centrality of this premise, studies
testing directly whether variation in mass attitudes affects variation in democracy
across nations are surprisingly rare (Inglehart, 1997: Ch. 6; Muller and Seligson,
1994; Seligson, 2002; Welzel et al., 2003). The most comprehensive study on
this topic has been presented by Inglehart and Welzel (2005: 254–71). Their
major fi nding is that, among a number of supposedly pro-democratic attitudes,
a syndrome of “self-expression values” is most conducive to democracy. This
syndrome combines attitudes that share an emancipative thrust in pursuing the
398 International Political Science Review 28(4)
freedom of ordinary people, involving an emphasis on people power, tolerance
of nonconforming people, and trust in people.
The fi nding that a combination of emancipative attitudes affects democracy
more than other factors could be seen as a central insight in democratization
research. But in light of recent criticism by Teorell and Hadenius (2006), there is
suffi cient doubt to justify a further investigation of this claim. I see four starting
points for such an investigation.
First, the evidence is based on only one out of several available indicators of
democracy. It is thus possible that emancipative mass attitudes do not show a sig-
nifi cant impact on democracy when a broader measure of democracy is used.
Second, when testing the effect of emancipative mass attitudes against the infl uence
of socioeconomic factors, Inglehart and Welzel do not use a broad modernization
indicator such as the 10-item index introduced by Teorell and Hadenius (2006).
Hence, emancipative mass attitudes might not show a signifi cant effect on dem-
ocracy when an encompassing measure of modernization is included. Testing
these two possibilities touches upon the validity of an important claim.
The third point is of a theoretical nature. Inglehart and Welzel do not differ-
entiate between the attainment and the sustainment of democracy as two distinct
ways through which mass attitudes can be conducive to democracy. Thus, even
if the pro-democratic effect of emancipative mass attitudes turns out to be
valid, the nature of this effect remains dubious. Is it an attainment effect in that
emancipative mass attitudes help to achieve democracy or is it a sustainment
effect such that these attitudes help to preserve democracy? Is it both? Since the
distinction between the attainment and the sustainment of democracy is central in
democratization research (Doorenspleet, 2004; Shin, 1994), the existing evidence
is inconclusive on a crucial point: the type of causality involved. Fourth, little
has been done to specify the mechanism by which mass attitudes help to attain
or sustain democracy. This is another relevant point relating to the theoretical
plausibility of the empirical fi ndings.
This article addresses these four problems. In particular, I test the validity of
Inglehart and Welzel’s analyses using broader measures of both democracy (the
dependent variable) and modernization (a control variable). More importantly,
I examine the theoretical nature of the pro-democratic effect of emancipative
mass attitudes, examining whether these attitudes help to attain democracy or to
sustain democracy, or both. Addressing the plausibility question, I outline at the
beginning why and how mass attitudes might affect democracy, elaborating on
the role of attitude-driven mass actions. This mechanism is tested in Section 4.
Theory
Why and How Mass Attitudes Should Affect Democracy
Implicitly, most scholars interested in the relation between mass attitudes and
democracy assume that when pro-democratic attitudes are more widespread in a
society, this society is more likely to attain and to sustain high levels of democracy.
I can think of two scenarios in which this assumption is plausible.
First, consider two populations that both have little or no democracy, but differ
greatly in the proportion of people who hold pro-democratic attitudes. Logically,
the population with more widespread pro-democratic attitudes will lend broader
support to activists and reformers who struggle to achieve more democracy. Activists
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