The Diffusion of Values among Democracies and Autocracies
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12388 |
| Author | Christian Welzel,Franziska Deutsch |
| Date | 01 November 2016 |
| Published date | 01 November 2016 |
The Diffusion of Values among Democracies
and Autocracies
Franziska Deutsch
Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS), and Jacobs
University Bremen
Christian Welzel
Leuphana University L€
uneburg, and Higher School of Economics, Moscow and St
Petersburg
Abstract
Over the past couple of years, our knowledge about diffusion processes has increased greatly. So far, the focus has been on
public policies, political institutions, and civil society repertories. Our paper breaks new ground by exploring value diffusion at
the societal level. Using the World Values Survey data, we are interested in the diffusion of emancipative values in different
regime types, building a bridge between research on the micro foundations and macro political expressions of democratiza-
tion and political regimes. In particular, we wish to understand whether the psychological bedrock of a pro-democratic mass
culture –emancipative values –is diffusing between countries and, if yes, to what extent this diffusion is limited to democra-
cies or also makes inroads into autocratically governed societies.
In the last few years, our knowledge of diffusion processes
has increased greatly. Originating in the literature on inno-
vations, diffusion research has informed us about how new
policies, institutions or regime dynamics spread across dif-
ferent levels and contexts (for early research, see Berry and
Berry, 1990; Gray, 1973; Walker, 1969; more recently: Della
Porta and Tarrow 2012; Simmons and Elkins, 2004; Sim-
mons et al., 2008a; Walsh-Russo, 2014).
While the political science literature has paid attention
to the question of how democracy diffuses geographically
and across time (Gleditsch and Ward, 2006, 2008; Goodliffe
and Hawkins, 2015; Huntington, 1991; O’Laughlin et al.,
1998; Wejnert, 2014), little is known about diffusion pro-
cesses with regard to the psychological foundations of
democracy: people’s democratic beliefs, attitudes and value
orientations.
1
Our paper aims at filling this gap by exploring the diffu-
sion of values at the societal level and their impact on the
establishment and practice of political institutions. Using
data from various waves of the World Values Survey, we are
interested in the diffusion of values in different regime
types, building a bridge between research on the micro
foundations and macro political expressions of democratiza-
tion and political regimes. Are emancipative values –the
psychological bedrock of a pro-democratic mass culture –
diffusing between countries? And if yes, to what extent is
this diffusion limited to democracies, or does it also make
inroads into autocratically governed societies? Before we
address these questions empirically, we will outline what
emancipative values are, how they are linked to political
regimes, and how they diffuse.
Emancipative values and value diffusion
In their most general definition, values are ‘conceptions of
the desirable’(Kluckhohn, 1951, p. 395) and can be held by
individuals and groups. According to Shalom Schwartz,
social psychologist and widely cited values researcher, val-
ues ‘transcend specific situations, ( ... ) guide selection or
evaluation of behavior and events, and ( ... ) are ordered
by relative importance’(Schwartz, 1992, p. 4). At the societal
level, the predominant values in a society are a key charac-
teristic of culture (Schwartz, 2008, p. 4) and influence what
kind of beliefs, goals and behaviors are considered accept-
able. If values are understood as widely accepted concep-
tions of what is good and desirable, then the prevailing
values in a society formulate, implicitly and explicitly, expec-
tations to all its members.
The political implications of cultural values shared in a
society (‘cultural identity’) are examined in the political cul-
ture framework. Already 50 years ago, the idea of cultural
congruence was introduced by Almond and Verba (1965)
and Eckstein (1966). Several studies have shown an empiri-
cal link between the prevalence of certain values in a soci-
ety (by the early authors referred to as ‘authority beliefs’)
and the quality and durability of political institutions (Ingle-
hart and Baker, 2000; Inglehart and Welzel, 2005; Welzel,
2013). This does not only apply to democracies, as Almond
Global Policy (2016) 7:4 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12388 ©2016 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Global Policy Volume 7 . Issue 4 . November 2016 563
Special Section Article
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