Cultural change in Asia and beyond
| Author | Christian Welzel,Russell Dalton |
| DOI | 10.1177/2057891116675978 |
| Published date | 01 June 2017 |
| Date | 01 June 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Research articles |
Research article
Cultural change in Asia
and beyond: From allegiant
to assertive citizens
Christian Welzel
Center for the Study of Democracy, Leuphana University, Germany
Russell Dalton
Center for the Study of Democracy, University of California, Irvine, USA
Abstract
In their classic, The Civic Culture, Almond and Verba (1963) define the ideal democratic citizen as an
allegiant, trustful, and modestly participatory person. This ideal has shaped how scholars think
about consolidated democracies as well the process of democratic development. In contrast, we
argue that a new model of assertive citizenship spreads as nations experience social modernization,
and that these new norms have potentially positive consequences for government performance.
We replicate earlier analyses by Welzel and Dalton (2014) using the new sixth wave of the World
Values Survey. Our results broadly confirm the earlier findings on the shift toward a more assertive
model of citizenship and the consequences of this shift in producing more effective and accountable
governments.
Keywords
democratization, government performance, political culture, value change, World Values Survey
Two historic processes are transforming large port ions of East Asia. The first pro cess is the
region’s economic rise: most societies in the region are rapidly closing the economic gap between
themselves and affluent Western societies. As recently as 1970, some of the now prospering East
Asian nations had income levels comparable to poor African nations. In the past two decades, the
region has experienced an average annual GDP growth rate of nearly 8 percent. In overall terms,
the economic transformation of East Asia has been nothing short of miraculous. Living conditions
Corresponding author:
Russell Dalton, Center for the Study of Democracy, University of California, Irvine, 3151 Social Science Plaza, Irvine,
CA92697-5100, USA.
Email: rdalton@uci.edu
Asian Journal of Comparative Politics
2017, Vol. 2(2) 112–132
ªThe Author(s) 2016
Reprints and permission:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/2057891116675978
journals.sagepub.com/home/acp
in many nations are now several times better than a generation ago. There are high literacy rates in
most nations of the region, as well as increased access to information, and a globalized economy is
increasing exposure to international norms. From Ho Chi Minh City to Seoul, people today enjoy a
lifestyle and life chances that are far removed from those of their grandparents. These economic
changes are the most visible signs of a general process of social modernization in the region.
The second transformation is Asia’s participation in the third wave of democratization. The
1986 ‘‘people power’’ revolution swept away the Marcos regime in the Philippines and recreated a
democratic system of government. Taiwan and South Korea soon after experienced democratic
transitions, and Mongolia made a rapid transition in the early 1990s. In 1998 public demonstrations
brought an end to Suharto’s rule, charting Indonesia on a new democ ratic course. Nepal and
Myanmar have progressed in recent years, as Thailand has regressed. This trend has produced a
major change in the political rights and life chances of the people in many Asian nations—but it,
too, is an incomplete process, since half the nations in the region remain non-democratic or only
partly free.
Many experts maintain that these two trends a re interrelated (Diamond, 2003; Murtin an d
Wacziarg, 2014). The social modernization literature has long argued that economic development
encourages democratic development (Lipset, 1981). Increased living standards, a more complex
economy, increased literacy, and integration into the global system should eventually promote
democratization across Asia if the modernization thesis is correct. One important element of this
process is cultural change—the transition in citizen values from those of a subject in an author-
itarian state to an assertive participant in the social and political decisions affecting their lives
(Inglehart, 1990; Welzel, 2013).
However, other analysts argue that Asian cultural traditions may lead to different trajectories.
Experts regularly offer Confucianism and ‘‘Asian values’’ as reasons for the region’s delayed
democratic development (Lee, 1994; cf. Chu et al., 2008). The adherence to traditional authority
structures, paternalistic norms, and the rejection of individualism are sometimes cited as factors
restricting the development of democracy. Lee Kuan Yew’s and Mahathir Mohamad’s polemic
statements on these points were widely cited in the popular and elite press, but academic scholars
have offered more nuanced versions of this same logic (Bell, 2006; Huntington, 1996; Pye, 1999;
Dalton and Shin, 2006; Shi, 2014; Shin, 2012).
This article builds on our recent cross-national study of changing political cultures (Dalton and
Welzel, 2014). We use the newest sixth wave of the World Values Survey (WVS) to replicate the
study’s two theorized patterns of political culture—an allegiant and an assertive orientation—and
describe how these orientations are distributed across nations. Then we link these cultural orienta-
tions to two distinct aspects of governmental performance: accountable and effective governance.
Finally, we consider what this evidence says abo ut the role of political culture in supporting
democratic development in Asian societies.
The political culture thesis
The classic political culture studies provided a normative model of the cultural foundations of a
stable democracy as presented in Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba’s The Civic Culture (1963)
and in Lucian Pye and Sidney Verba’s Political Culture and Political Development (1965). The
importance of these two classics cannot be overemphasized. They widened the political culture
approach into a framework for the comparative analysis of political change and regime legitimacy
in developed as well as developing countries. The guiding question of the Almond/Verba/Pye
Welzel and Dalton 113
To continue reading
Request your trial