Inglehart Political Culture and Democracy

8/12/2019 Inglehart Political Culture and Democracy

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Political Culture and Democracy: Analyzing Cross-Level Linkages

Author(s): Ronald Inglehart and Christian WelzelSource: Comparative Politics, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Oct., 2003), pp. 61-79Published by: Ph.D. Program in Political Science of the City University of New YorkStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4150160

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Political Culture and DemocracyAnalyzingCross-LevelLinkagesRonaldInglehartand ChristianWelzel

Mitchell Seligson raisesa classic and still controversial ssue in comparativepolitics:what role does political cultureplay in sustainingstable democratic nstitutions?'Heexamines this question in light of one of the central methodological problems incross-nationalresearch: he linkagebetween individual and aggregaterelationships.Seligson startswith the axiom thatcross-nationalcorrelations hat do not also appearat the individual level within each nation are "spurious,"citing a passage to thiseffect by Przeworskiand Teune.2Althoughthis axiom has been widely accepted,it isgroundless, as this article will demonstrate. Basing his argumenton it, Seligsonattempts o invalidateInglehart's indings that thereare strongaggregatelevel corre-lations between political culture and stable democracy. Seligson argues that theaggregate evel findingsarespuriousbecause he does not find individual evel corre-lations betweenthese politicalculture ndicators andsupport or democracy.Ironically,Seligson'sconclusionsexemplify precisely the sort of cross-level falla-cy that Robinsonwarnedagainst.3The centralpoint of the ecological fallacy is thatstrong aggregatelevel relationshipsare not necessarilyreproducedat the individuallevel. When Robinson was writing, districts with large percentages of African-Americans(thenlocatedmainlyin the South)generallyelected segregationistcandi-dates, but, as Robinson demonstrated, his relationshipwas not reproducedat theindividual level: Blacks did not vote for segregationistcandidates. The aggregatelevel relationshipwas not somehow spurious;no one questionsthe fact that districtswith largenumbers of African-Americansreally did elect the worst sort of segrega-tionists, in a patternof repressionthat enduredfor decades. Seligson turns the argu-ment the wrong way around,claimingthat an aggregate-level finding must be repro-duced at the individual level. If it is not, it is somehow spurious. This claim isgroundless,as Robinsondemonstratedmore thanfifty years ago, and as more recentevidence will confirm.

Misinterpreting he ecological fallacy further,Seligson equates individual levelsupportfor democracy with the presence of democratic institutions.Superficially,this equationseems plausible. But in fact, at this point in history,individual evel lipservice to democracyis only weakly linked with democracyon the level of society.61


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ComparativePolitics October 2003Since the collapse of Communism,democracyhas attaineda positive imagein virtu-ally every countryin the world. But these favorableopinions are often superficial,and unless they areaccompaniedby moredeeplyrootedtolerance, trust,andpartici-pation,the chances arepoor that effective democracywill be presentat the societallevel. In striking contrast to Seligson's unprovencross-level assumption,mere lipservice to democracyis not necessarilylinkedwith actualdemocracyat the societallevel: at this point in history,it is almost as strongin authoritarianocietiesorunsta-ble democraciesas in stable democracies.In contrast,the linkage between a more deeply rooted syndromeof self-expres-sion and effective democracy s remarkably trong.A controversialbody of literaturethat goes back to Lipset and Almond andVerbais basically correct: a specific typeof politicalcultureseems to be an essentialpreconditionof effective democracy.4

Misconceptions of the Ecological FallacySeligson's argument s based on a misconceptionof the problemof cross-levelinfer-ences. This misconceptionis its crucialflaw.It also involves a minorproblem.First,Seligson equates aggregatingindividual level responseswith the individualistic al-lacy, as if aggregatingsuch responseswere inherentlywrong. Actually,aggregatingindividual evel attitudes o the nationallevel is a perfectly legitimateprocedureandis essential in any attemptto depictthe featuresof nationalmass cultures.The indi-vidualistic fallacy consists in making the incorrect assumptionthat an individuallevel relationshipalso has similarstrengthand directionat the aggregate evel.Seligson'scrucialmisconceptionis thatcross-nationalcorrelationsarespurious fthey arenot also presentat the individual evel withineachnation.Decidingwhethera relationship s genuineor spurious,on the basis of whetherthis relationshipoccursat another evel of analysis,is exactlywhatRobinson warnedagainst; t is an unwar-rantedcross-level inference. Whetheror not a relationship s spurious,canbe deter-mined only by evidence at the same level of analysis.Thus, in Robinson's classiccase, the question of whether or not individual African-Americanswere voting forsegregationistcandidatescould only be decided by individual level evidence,not bystate level correlations. The methodological axiom on which Seligson bases hisanalysis is a clear misinterpretation f the problemposed by the level of analysis.Some exampleswill demonstrate hispoint.In Robinson'scase, the fact that electoral units with high percentagesof African-Americanstended to elect segregationistrepresentativesdid not mean that African-Americans were segregationists. The opposite was true. Conversely,the fact thatAfrican-Americanswere not segregationistdid not mean that the district evel link-age betweenracialcompositionand segregationistpolicies was spurious.The corre-lation between race and electoral behavior reversedits sign when one moved from62


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RonaldInglehartand ChristianWelzelthe individual evel to the aggregatelevel, and the findings at both levels of analysiswere genuineandimportant.

Similarly, in contemporaryFrance the vote for the xenophobic National Fronttends to be highest in districts with high percentages of Islamic immigrants.Thiscorrelation does not mean that the immigrantsare supportingthe National Front.They are not. Conversely, he fact thatthe immigrantsare not voting for the NationalFront does not mean that the linkagebetween ethnicityand politics is spurious.Therelatively high percentage of immigrantshas a major impact on the vote for theNational Front, even though the correlation between vote and immigrant statusreverses ts polarityfromone level of analysis to another.Likewise,the fact thatjobless Germans n the early 1930s did not show a strongertendencyto vote for the Nazis thanthose Germanswho still were employeddoes notmean that there was no causal linkage between unemploymentand the Nazi voteshare.Sharply rising unemploymentrates createda climate of anxiety that affectedall social groups, whetheremployedor not, increasingtheir readinessto vote for theNazis. Thus,the rise in unemployment evels from the late 1920s to the early 1930swas followed by a strong increase in the Nazi vote. The fact that the unemployedwere as likely to vote Communistas Nazi at the individuallevel does not mean thatunemploymentwas unimportant.As these examples demonstrate, t is perfectly possible-and frequentlytrue-that an aggregatelevel linkage is not reflected at the individual level. Nevertheless,this linkage is not somehow unrealor spurious.Quite the contrary,aggregate levellinkagesoften have more impacton society thanthose found at the individual level.Assuming thatrising unemploymenthas no impact on supportfor extremistpartiesbecause there is no linkagebetweenunemploymentand extremismat the individuallevel would be committing the "individualistic fallacy."5Seligson, nevertheless,claims thatthe linkage thatInglehartfound between interpersonal rust and democ-ratic institutions at the aggregate level is spurious because he finds no linkagebetween trustandsupportfor democracyat the individual evel. This conclusion is aclassic case of the individualistic allacy.

Outdated Measures of Political Culture and Democratic InstitutionsSeligson's article examines the individual level correlationsamong a set of indica-tors that Inglehartused in analysis of the 1981 World Values Surveys. Readers ofSeligson's article would probably assume that it also refers to Inglehart'srecentwork.However,Inglehart'sanalysisof the 1990-91 surveysand his subsequentworkmoves beyond the indicators tested in Seligson's article (life satisfactionand inter-personaltrust), incorporating hem into a broaderset of indicatorsof political cul-ture. This fact is of relativelyminor importance.The critiquein this article applies

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ComparativePolitics October2003equally to Inglehart'soriginal findings and to his more recent work: societies withrelatively high levels of interpersonaltrust and life satisfaction are significantlymore likely to have democratic nstitutionsthan societies with lowerlevels, and thislinkage is by no means spurious.Nevertheless, it is worthnoting thatInglehartandothers have identified a broadersyndromeof self-expressionvalues that includesnotonly interpersonal rust and life satisfactionbut also several other attitudes hatseemto play even more importantroles in promotingdemocracy.6The respectivepublics'locations on this self-expressionvalues dimension, togetherwith economic indica-tors, explain roughly 80 percent of the variance in democratic institutions. Thedependentvariable n this analysisis an indicatorof democratic nstitutions hat willbe referred o as effective democracy.

Improved Measures of Political Culture and Democratic InstitutionsSelf-Expression Values Self-expressionvalues are a syndromeof mass attitudesthattap a commonunderlyingdimension,reflecting emphasison freedom,toleranceof diversity,andparticipation,at both the individualandaggregatelevels, as the fac-tor loadings in Table1 indicate.Self-expressionvalues arepresentin a politicalcul-ture in so far as the public emphasizes liberty and participation,public self-expres-sion, toleranceof diversity, interpersonal rust,and life satisfaction.7All these atti-tudes tap a common underlying dimension, showing positive loadings on a self-expressionvalues factor.This patternapplies at three different evels of analysis:theindividuallevel within nations, the pooled cross-national ndividual level data,andthe aggregatenational level. The strengthof the factorloadingsrises systematicallyfromthe individual evel within nationsto the aggregatecross-nationalevel.The fact thatself-expressionvalues are more stronglystructuredat the aggregatelevel than at the individual evel reflects a well-knownphenomenon: ndividualevelsurveydataare affectedby randommeasurementerrorthat is cancelledout throughaggregation.As Blalock observed some time ago, the variation in individual evelattitudes consists of a systematic component and a random component.8Consequently, he correlationbetweentwo different attitudesconsists of a systematicterm and a randomterm, in which the randomterm diminishes the correlation,whatBlalock called the attenuationeffect. This attenuationeffect is relatively argeat theindividual level because, as Conversefirst observed,significant numbersof surveyrespondents give randomanswers,producinga substantialamountof measurementerror.9In so far as the responses are random, the correlations between them areweakened,makingindividual evel correlationsrelativelyweak.10However,when attitudesareaveragedacross nations,the randomvariationsoffseteach other. Randomnegativeandpositive deviations from the nationalmean tendto

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RonaldInglehartand ChristianWelzelTable 1 The Dimensionof Self-ExpressionValues

Llsav Assyeleitndividualevelwithin adiv eeidul leve acres Ag gat cron

Vanaions (mn nton (pooleddat) usional levelladindg)Strongeltcaprcssionaluedkreflecttrongmphasisnthefollowingttuzdes/behavior- TMeler'a tAdlvlSy .4"1 -6868 82- Pub*lscS-elspreie45' .65 187- Lbertysad Putarelp"Atn' 354 19 12Sflarpersal

Tra~t 34 47 64- Life Sthtctle .13 .44 '76Weakselfvwmia valvesr o l e c t w e a k e m p h s i x a o n t h e

Explained-mance 23% 29% 54%Numberfease 137nationalurvey 15803 137

-------_vdPfaMo- a wmrwaveaunitsAbts; Hnriesae (actor taig plrative prikcipalcmdmpyoneszana nreascionf hctorewiha'Eigenvalues'bove avienorotation. Source ea/W Vales Surveysly.S -tV

"Notr neranad tr"disiked niui bors"cded""t dqu-iebue d acorainW AsOarsadded orweighborsithAIDS V59)sadbcansswual dgm(VW)Agmegaeeatsare eaioWsavragesondhi0. sck"Have one"or"signaingtitions VI18) oded"I"anddicb dgdainst "0*.Agpegatfdata renaidonpalrcenaps avedone.Respondent' rstand econd rioritiesor"vinS peopleraP y in importantgoverntentdecsions" and"protectingeedom of speech" V 106-107)added o a four-point ndex,asigning 3points fr both items on fir and secondrank,2 pos forone of theseSems on first rnk. I ppointorotwofthees atno osiaondra and or nneof 'ie m n fws orsecondrank.Respondentsbelieving"mo peoplecan be trutd"(V27) dichweonizedas "I" againstL,"Aggregatedataarenationalpercentagesoipeople trustnalg.10-pointragi scale for life satisficti (V65).Agge e data renationalveragesnuthis -10acale.

cancel each other out.11 Followingthe law of large numbers,this reductionof errorbecomes more pronounced as the number of individuals being aggregated rises.Consequently,the random term becomes smaller, and the systematic correlationlarger,at higher levels of aggregation. Consequently, aggregation to the nationallevel does not produce spuriouscorrelations.Quite the contrary,aggregation oftenrevealssystematiccorrelations hatmaybe hiddenby measurementerrorat the indi-vidual level within nations. Hence the syndromeof self-expressionvalues is much

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ComparativePolitics October 2003more pronouncedat the aggregatenational level than at the individual level withinnations (comparecolumns 1 and 3 in Table 1). As Erikson, MacKuen,and Stimsonargue, analysis at the aggregate level often provides a more accurate view of theunderlyingrelationships hanis availablefromindividual evel analysis.12The strengthof the correlationsat the pooled individual evel falls betweenthesetwo extremes (comparecolumn 2 with columns 1 and 3 in Table 1). At the pooledindividual level the variationin an attitude is composed of the deviationsfromthemeanwithinnations,which may be random o a relatively arge degree,and the devi-ations from the mean between nations, which are largely systematic. Thus, at thepooled individual evel there is more systematicvariation han at the individual evelwithin nations, and, in turn,the pooled individual level entails more randomvaria-tion than the aggregate level. The factor loadings of the self-expressionvalues syn-drometherefore ncrease from the individual evel within nationsto the pooled indi-vidual level to the aggregatelevel.In short, relativelyweak correlations at the individuallevel do not indicate thatrelatively strong aggregatelevel correlations are somehow false or spurious.Quitethe contrary,aggregatecorrelationsmay reveallinkagesthatareobscuredby randommeasurementerrorsat the individual evel. Moreover, he aggregatelevel is preciselythe level at whichdemocracyexists:democracy s an attributeof nations,not of indi-viduals. Hence, if one is interestedin the impact of mass attitudes on democracy,what matters is a society's mass tendencyin these attitudes,not the individual evelattitudinal tructure,as Seligson assumes.Effective Democracy Since democratic nstitutionswill be the dependentvariable,it is important o measure them with reliableindicators.In particular,t is crucialtodifferentiatebetween merely formal democracy,or electoral democracy,and effec-tive democracy.Democracy is central to people's lives because it establishes civil and politicalrights that enable them to make free choices. Providing legal guaranteesof theserightscreates formaldemocracy,which is a necessary componentof democracy.Butformal rights alone are not sufficient. Formalrights are effective only in so far aselites respect these rights in their actual behavior.Law-abidingelite behavior,or"elite integrity," s an expression of the rule of law that, as Rose and others havepointed out, distinguisheseffective democracyfrom formaldemocracy.3Hence themeasure of effective democracycombines formal democracy (freedomrights) andelite integrity.The scope of freedomrights is weightedby the extentto which eliteintegrity s present,in orderto measureeffective democracy.14Freedomrightsaremeasuredusing the combined Freedom House scores for civilandpolitical rights.15The scores from Freedom House range from 1 to 7 on each ofthe two scales, with 1 indicatingthe highest and 7 the lowest level of freedom(that66


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RonaldInglehartand ChristianWelzelis, civil rightsandpolitical rights).16This scale has been reversedso thathigherfig-ures indicatea broaderscope of freedomrights.The scores from FreedomHouse areexpertratingsof the extent to which certainindividualrights are guaranteed.17 hemost recent Freedom House scores from 1999-2000 have been used in order toensurethat the measure of freedomrights is subsequentin time to the political cul-ture indicators hatareused as predictorsof democracy.The Freedom House scores are imperfectmeasures of freedom rights. They donot take into account the extent to which given rights are respected in actual elitebehavior.To overcomethis problem,the corruptionperceptionindices developedbyTransparencyInternational are used.18These scores are also expert ratings; theyjudge how corrupt he political,bureaucratic, nd economic officeholdersof a coun-try are. One indicationof the validity of these estimates is their strongcorrelationwith aggregatemeasuresof the citizens'perceptionof elite corruption n representa-tive surveys.19The Transparencynternational cores range from 1 to 100, with 100 indicatingthe greatestamountof corruption.Reversingthese scores providesa measure of law-abiding elite behavior or elite integrity.20Effective democracy is operationalizedthroughweightingfreedomrightsby elite integrity.Since elite integritywill operateas a weightingfactorand not as a compensatingfactor,it is standardizedo 1.0 as itsmaximum, obtaining fractions from 0 to 1. Hence, to obtain effective democracy,freedomrights (standardized o a maximum of 100) aremultiplied by fractions from0 to 1 for elite integrity.This producesan index of effective democracythat has 100as its maximum. Since the most recent TransparencyInternational scores from1999-2000 areused,a measureof effective democracyin 1999-2000 is obtained.

EffectiveDemocracy= FreedomRights* Elite Integrity(percentages) (fractionsof 1.0)Even if a countrycomes close to a maximumelite integrityof 1.0 (thatis, almostnoelite corruption), he weightingprocedurewould not compensatefor a low level offreedomrights.When a regime reaches only five percent of the possible maximumin the freedomrights measure, a maximum elite integrity of 1.0 can not do morethan reproduce hese five percent.21 n contrast,a freedom rights level close to themaximumof 100 percentcan be severely devaluedif elite integrityis so low that itreachesonly a small fraction of 1.0. Hence given freedomrights levels are devaluedto the degreethatelite integrityis absent,reflectingthatgiven constitutionalguaran-tees are made ineffective in proportion to elite corruption. High levels of eliteintegrity can not produce effective democracy, in the absence of freedom rights.High levels of freedom rights, in contrast,produce formal democracy,but formaldemocracyis effective only to the degree that elites base their activities on rightsinsteadof bribes.

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ComparativePolitics October2003As Figure1 illustrates,t is much moredifficultfor nations o obtainhighscoresoneffective democracythan on freedomrights. Freedomrightstranslate nto effectivedemocracy n a curvilinearway:a relatively argevariation n the lower four-fifthsofthe freedomrightsscale translatesnto a relatively mall variationn effectivedemocra-cy, while a small variation n the top fifth of the freedomrightsscale translatesnto alargevariation n effective democracy.This differencereflects the fact that freedomrightsare a necessary conditionto createeffective democracy.Only nationsscoringhigh in freedomrights can attainhigh scores on effective democracy.But freedomrightsarenot a sufficientcondition or effectivedemocracy.Not allnationsscoringhighin freedomrightsalso scorehigh in effectivedemocracy.Whetheror not elite integrityis included n the operationalizationf democracymakesa crucialdifference. ncludingit clearlyprovidesa morerealisticmeasureof democracy.22Withthese comprehensiveandmeaningfulmeasures-self-expression valuesandeffective democracy-it is now possible to examine the linkage between politicalcultureanddemocratic nstitutionson a validbasis.

The Linkage between Political Culture and Democratic InstitutionsInglehartandhis collaborators'analysesof the relationshipbetweenpoliticalcultureand democracydo not imply thatthe linkagebetween effective democracyandself-

Figure 1 FreedomRightsandEffectiveDemocracy110100 .. . .......... ......... .... ..

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0402010 10 * *40 *0 9.0 **

00 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110FreedomRights1999-2000

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RonaldInglehartand ChristianWelzelexpressionvalues is presentbecause individualswho emphasize self-expressionnec-essarily endorse democracy more than individuals with little emphasis on self-expression. Such a conclusion would suffer from the type of cross-level fallacy towhich Seligson inadvertently alls victim when he arguesthatthe societal level cor-relationbetween democracyand political culture is spuriousunless it is reflected inindividual level correlations between these political culture indicators and supportfor democracy. Seligson assumes that individual level lip service to democracy canbe equatedwith the emergenceand survival of democratic nstitutions at the societallevel, precisely the sort of cross-level inference that Robinson warnedagainst.Theassumption that individual level endorsementof democracy can be equated withsocietal level democracy is fallacious. At this point in history, overt support fordemocracy has become extremely widespread, and the citizens of Albania andAzerbaijanare as likely to express a favorableopinion of democracyas the citizensof Sweden and Switzerland. But these favorable opinions are often superficial.Unless they are accompanied by more deeply rooted orientationsof tolerance, trust,and participation, he chances are poor that effective democracy will be presentatthe societal level.More deeply rooted orientations,such as those tapped by self-expressionvalues,have their impactat the societal level in promotingeffective democracy.In order todemonstratea linkagebetweenpolitical culture and democraticinstitutions,individ-ual level attitudes must be aggregatedto the national level, since democracy is anattributeof nations,not of individuals.Thus,one can test the hypothesisthata givenpolitical culture s conduciveto democratic nstitutionsonly at the societal level, thelevel at which Inglehartandhis collaboratorshave investigatedthe relationship.Nocross-level assumption s involved. The ecological fallacy (as well as the individual-istic fallacy) is based on unwarranted ssumptionsthat a phenomenonthat exists onone level also exists on anotherlevel. Inglehartand his collaboratorshave made nosuch assumption.Democracyis a societal level variable,not an attributeof individu-als. Consequently, the hypothesis that self-expression values are conducive todemocracymustbe tested at the societal level.The aggregatelevel linkagebetween political culture and democratic institutionsis remarkably trong, as Figure 2 demonstrates.A society's prevailingattitudesonthe self-expressionvalues dimensionin about 1990 (see the Appendix) explain fully75 percent of the cross-national variationin effective democracy in 1999-2000.23This effect does not simplyreflect otherinfluences, such as economic development.The effect of self-expressionvalues remains robustwhen one controls for economicdevelopment,experience with democracy,and even supportfor democracy,as theregressionanalyses in Table2 shows.If Model 1 is comparedwith Model 5, economic developmentadds about 6 per-cent to the effect of self-expression values on effective democracy.24Economicdevelopmentalso capturespartof the impactof self-expressionvalues, diminishing

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ComparativePolitics October2003Figure 2 Political Cultureand DemocraticInstitutions

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-15-1 3 -1 -09-07-050- 3-0.1 0.1 0,3 0.5 0,7 09 1t1 13 15 1.7 19 2.1Strengthof Self-ExpressionValues(1990)their effect frombeta=.86 in Model 1 to beta=.51 in Model 5. Consideredconverse-

ly, however,the inclusion of self-expressionvalues diminishesthe effect of econom-ic developmentfrombeta=.84in Model 2 to beta=.43 in Model 5, adding10percentof explainedvarianceto what economic developmentalone explains.Thus,althoughself-expressionvalues and economic developmentare stronglycorrelatedwith eachother,they arenot completelyexchangeable,since both add a significantamount ofexplainedvarianceto the effect of the other.By contrast,the length of time a society has experiencedunder democratic nsti-tutions adds very little to the effect of self-expressionvalues on effective democracy(2 percent,see Models 1 and 6).25Moreover,a society's experiencewith democracyonly slightly diminishesthe effect of self-expressionvalues on effective democracy(the beta-coefficient shrinksfrom .86 in Model 1 to .73 in Model 6). Conversely,however,experiencewith democracy's mpacton effective democracyshrinks frombeta=.75 in Model 3 to beta=.18 in Model 6, controllingfor self-expressionvalues,implying that self-expressionvalues do not result from the presenceof preexistingdemocratic institutions. If they did, the length of the society's experience withdemocracy would capture significant parts of the effect of self-expressionvalues,but it does not.70


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Table 2 The Effect of Self-ExpressionValues on EffectiveDemocracy,Controlling orRivalPr

ModSelfi1 2MlE O MI4 MOd MaPreictorr 8 (SE) 9eam (SE) ea 8 (SE) Baa (SE) sBe 8 (SE) Bmma 8 S)s0.- .r5 15s 4"Sr SExprdon (1.4) ((11) (3.01)

GOP er O0"** .4 001"* .43cap= (.00) (.000)1996Ezpvriens $r' 75 .t2"wit (.oA) (O)-mwwauppwar s .AD-arac (4)cGnstat 43.61'" 1;2" or&W2a 8'."3,"'(1.80) (213) (322) (95 3178) :(3.09)

W 74 .70 .5 .34 80 .

".,4


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ComparativePolitics October2003In sharpcontradiction o Seligson'sunprovencross-level inferencesis the findingthat overtsupportfor democracyaddsnothingto the effect of self-expressionvalueson effective democracy (compare explained variances in Models 1 and 7).26Accordingly, supportfor democracy capturesonly a negligible partof the effect ofself-expressionvalues on effective democracy(beta shrinks from .86 in Model 1 to.83 in Model 7). Conversely, he effect of supportfor democracyon effectivedemoc-racy literally vanishes (shrinking from beta=.60 in Model 4 to an insignificantbeta=.07 in Model 7) once self-expressionvalues are controlled. It may seem sur-prisingthatovertsupport ordemocracyhas so little impacton the presenceof effec-tive democracy at the institutional level, but it is importantto bear in mind that,since the collapse of Communism, ip service to democracyhas become almost uni-versal,with over 90 percentof the publicsof most countriesgiving favorable atings.

It does not tap the qualitiesof tolerance,self-expression,trust,well-being,andpar-ticipationthat are crucial to the functioningof democracy.To illustrate the findings from Table2 more clearly, Figure3 displaysthe partialplots. It shows the effects of self-expressionvalues on effective democracyandtheeffects of overt supportfor democracyon effective democracy, controllingfor theeffects of the other independentvariable in both cases. These partial plots makestrikinglyclear that the impactof self-expressionvalues on effective democracyisunaffectedby the fact that overtsupportfor democracyis controlled.It continuestoshow a strong relationshipwith effective democracy.By contrast, he effect of overtsupport for democracy on effective democracy disappears when levels of self-expressionvalues are controlled.These findings indicate that the impact of a prodemocraticpolitical cultureoneffective democracy does not operate through its impact on public support fordemocracy.Figure4 suggests why. Publicsupportfor democracycan be very strongamong publics that show low levels of tolerance,trust,participation,and the othercomponents of self-expression values. Strong self-expression values seem to be asufficient condition to create a minimum amount of supportfor democracy.Abovethe level of self-expression values found in Japan,about fifty or more percentofeach populationare solid democrats.In contrast,strongself-expressionvaluesarebyno means a necessary conditionto create a certainproportionof solid democrats.Among nationswith weakemphasison self-expressionthere canbe very low as wellas very high proportionsof solid democrats(for instance,Albania and Hungary nFigure4). These observations ndicate that overtsupportfordemocracy s sometimesinflatedby superficiallip service thatis not necessarilylinked to moredeeplyrooteddemocraticvalues.Such cross-level inferences shouldnot be madewithouttestingthem.At the indi-vidual level, what motivatespeople to expressovertsupportfor democracy?Brattonand Mattes conducted such an analysis using data from the Afrobarometer.27hey72


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RonaldInglehartand ChristianWelzelFigure 3 PartialEffects on Self-Expressionand Democratic Supporton EffectiveDemocracy

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ComparativePolitics October2003Figure 4 Support or Democracyand Self-ExpressionValues

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foundthat individualsupportfor democracyis determinedfar moreby instrumentalmotives thanby normative commitments to the values that are inherent o democra-cy. This finding is perfectlyreplicated n the analysisof the WorldValuesSurveys,asTable 3 shows. Althoughthere is a linkagebetweensupportfor democracyand self-expressionvalues at the individual level (see Model 2), whatpeople thinkabouttheperformanceof democracy n runningthe economy andmaintainingawand order sa muchbetterpredictorof their overtsupportfor democracy (compare he explainedvariances of Models 1 and 2). To be sure, people with strong emphasis on self-expressionalmostalwaysprefer democracyto autocracy,but there is a largenumberof people who supportdemocracyfor reasons of expected performance, ven if theiremphasis on self-expressionis weak. Hence overt supportfor democracy s a poorindicator of intrinsicsupport,since overt support s inflatedby instrumentallymoti-vatedlip service.

ConclusionIn analyzingdata fromthe 1981WorldValuesSurveys, Inglehart oundthatsocietieswith relatively high levels of interpersonalrustand life satisfactionweremuch more74


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Table3 PredictingSupport orDemocracyat the IndividualLevel

1pde Sup Demo 1995I Supportodel lsoSupdPredlctors4O w . R .B SE) ~ Pita OSE PartiMl

-M (.02) .. -.O a t w s a e w s a r d e d l e w ? 2 -6 1.02w)Dem0oo amrebad nmalntefrlngrder" -45OM(2) -.18' -.

AV":(0) .1t"Constant -.58 LOS) 4455 06) -Adjusted .24 .11N AM46050

bVmtow"'Me mrs ded4-atoglysagrnS. rore, 1b) VlSI*Dam.craclesrendeaIsieandhove ooouch qutbl*ngFor oding,ee a).0d1)Po dIodi".. fetrano$0Morvwi tdn Tat 1 center00nnM).e-tasgnlcantt he001-level.lets btained In g o lfor uralones,sIngm fortI0zones sawby andSaker see obln0te).Efectsofculturaloned notdocumentedrremoof

Source:EuropeafoMdValuaesmurveys1 1995-48).. . ...

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ComparativePolitics October2003likely to have democratic nstitutions hansocieties with relativelylow levels of trustand well-being. This funding is reliable and has been replicatedin subsequentsur-veys covering manymore countries. It is by no means spurious,as Seligsonclaims.Seligson attemptsto refute this societal evel correlationby demonstratinghatthereare only weak correlationsbetween trust and life satisfaction,on one hand,and sup-port for democracy at the individuallevel, on the other. This attemptedrefutationdependson the implicit assumptionthat individual evel endorsementof democracycan be equated with democratic institutions at the societal level. This cross-levelassumptionis unwarranted ndprovesto be false. Initially, t may seem plausibletoassume that countrieswith widespreadindividualsupportfor democracyare moredemocratic than those where it is less widespread, but it is empirically untrue,because at this point in historydemocracyhas a favorable mage almosteverywhere.

Seligson'sassumption hat overtsupportfor democracyat the individual evel is areliable measure of democratic institutionsat the societal level is mistaken.It repre-sents an example of the individualisticfallacy. Today,lip service to democracyiswidespread,but it does not necessarilyreflect a deep commitmentto crucial democ-ratic norms. In contrast,the evidence indicates that a political culture that empha-sizes self-expression,tolerance, trust, life satisfaction,and participationplays a cru-cial role in effective democracy.This linkage is remarkablystrong, and it persistswhen levels of economic development and length of experience with democraticinstitutions are controlled.A political cultureof tolerance,trust,and the other com-ponentsof self-expressionvalues seems to be essentialto the flourishingof democ-ratic institutions.As shown in recent analyses, effective democracyis an evolutionaryphenome-non.28It emergesfrom a broaderprocessof humandevelopment,in which economicdevelopmenttends to promote rising self-expressionvalues that in turntendto fueleffective democracy.In conclusion, effective democratic institutions are a conse-quencerather han a preconditionof a democraticmass culture.

AppendixNational aggregatesof self-expressionvalues havebeen calculatedrunning he fac-toranalysisshownin Table 1 acrossthe time-pooledaggregateddataset of the WorldValues Surveys, including 137 nationper wave units. The time-pooleddata matrixprovidesaggregatesof self-expressionvalues from the Second WorldValuesSurvey(about 1990) for thirty-four countries, including Argentina, Austria, Belarus,Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Germany (East),Germany (West), Finland,France,GreatBritain, Hungary,Iceland, India,Ireland,Italy, Japan,Latvia, Mexico, the Netherlands,Nigeria, Norway, Portugal,Russia,SouthKorea,Slovenia,Spain,Sweden,Turkey,and the U.S.A.76


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RonaldInglehartand ChristianWelzelFor anothertwenty-ninecountries,missing self-expression values in the SecondWorldValuesSurveyhave been estimatedfromexisting self-expressionvalues in theThird WorldValues Survey (about 1995). For estimation,the following regressionequation (which explains 91 percent of the variance across twenty-one countries)was used: SELFEXVAL1990=.124+ .841 * SELFEXVAL1995. Estimates based on this

equationhave been assignedto the following countries:Albania, Armenia, Australia,Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia, Croatia, the CzechRepublic,the DominicanRepublic,Estonia,Georgia,Ghana,Lithuania,Macedonia,Moldova, New Zealand, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Romania, South Africa,Slovakia, Switzerland,Taiwan,Ukraine,Uruguay,Venezuela,andYugoslavia.For still another en countries,missing self-expressionvalues in the Second WorldValues Survey have been estimated from existing self-expression values in theFourthWorld Values Survey (about2000). For estimation,the following regressionequation(which explains 92 percent of the variance across twenty-eight countries)was used: SELFEXVAL1990=.047.858 * SELFEXVAL2000.stimatesbased on thisequationhave been assignedto the following countries:Egypt, El Salvador,Greece,Iran, Jordan,Luxembourg,Malta, Poland,Uganda, and Zimbabwe. In the cases ofJordan,New Zealand,andPakistan,aggregatesfor self-expressionvalues have beencalculatedexcluding tolerance of diversity(see Table 1, note 1, for operationaliza-tion), since the relevantquestionswere not askedthere.

NOTES1. MitchellSeligson,"TheRenaissance f PoliticalCulture r the Renaissance f the EcologicalFallacy," omparativeolitics, 4 (April 002),273-92.2. AdamPrzeworskindHenryTeune,TheLogicof ComparativeocialInquiryNewYork:Wiley,1970),ch.3.3. WilliamS. Robinson,"EcologicalCorrelations ndthe Behaviorof Individuals," mericanSociologicalReview, 5(1950),351-57.4. SeymourMartinLipset,"SomeSocialRequisitesof Democracy: conomicDevelopment ndPoliticalLegitimacy,"merican oliticalScienceReview, 3 (1959),69-105;GabrielAlmond ndSidneyVerba,TheCivic Culture:Political Attitudes n Five WesternDemocracies(Princeton:PrincetonUniversity ress,1963).5. Hayward .Alker,Jr.,"ATypology f EcologicalFallacies,"n MatteiDoganandSteinRokkan,eds., Quantitative cologicalAnalysis n the Social Sciences(Cambridge,Mass.:MITPress,1969),69-86.6. RonaldInglehart,Modernization nd Postmodernization: ultural,EconomicandPoliticalChange n 43 Societies Princeton:rincetonUniversity ress,1997);Ronald nglehart ndWayneE.Baker,"Modernization,CulturalChangeand the Persistence of TraditionalValues,"AmericanSociologicalReview, 5 (February000), 19-51;ChristianWelzel,Fluchtpunkt umanentwicklung:ieGrundlagenerDemokratie nddie UrsachenhrerAusbreitungOpladen:Westdeutschererlag, 002);ChristianWelzel,Ronald nglehart,ndHans-Dieter lingemann,TheTheory f HumanDevelopment:A Cross-Culturalnalysis," uropeanournal fPoliticalResearch,2 (April2003).

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ComparativePolitics October20037. See the notes to Table 1 for the constructionof these variables.8. HubertM. Blalock Jr.,CausalInferences n NonexperimentalResearch(NewYork:SeminarPress,1964).9. Philip E. Converse,"The Nature of Belief Systems among Mass Publics," n David E. Apter,ed.,Ideology and Discontent(New York:FreePress, 1964), pp. 206-61.10. The individual evel data are measured n ordinalor dichotomous scales (thattransformnto con-tinuous scales at the aggregatelevel). The Pearsonproduct-moment orrelations end to underestimatehereal correlations.Tetrachoric orrelationsalternativelyprovidesomewhatstrongercorrelationsat the indi-vidual level (not documented here). Still, these correlations are considerablyweaker than those at theaggregate level. See Karl G. Jdreskog,"New Developments in LISREL:Analysis of OrdinalVariablesUsing PolychoricCorrelationsandWeightedLeastSquares,"Quality& Quantity,24 (1990), 387-404.11. Benjamin Page and RobertY. Shapiro,"TheRationalPublicandDemocracy,"n G. E. MarcusandR. L. Hanson, eds., Reconsidering the Democratic Public (Pennsylvania:PennsylvaniaStateUniversityPress, 1993), p. 43.12. Robert S. Erikson, Michael B. MacKuen,and James A. Stimson, The Macro Polity (New York:

CambridgeUniversityPress, 2002).13. RichardRose, "ADivergentEurope," ournalof Democracy, 12 (January 001), 93-106.14. This conceptionof effective democracywas introducedby Welzel, p. 155-60.15. The FreedomHouse scores can be obtained from the Freedom House homepage, http://www.free-domhouse.org.For a descriptionof the estimationprocess and scale construction,see FreedomHouse,ed., Freedom n the WorldLanham:UniversityPressof America, 1996), pp. 530-35.16. ZacharyElkins, "Gradiationsof Democracy?EmpiricalTests of AlternativeConceptualizations,"AmericanJournalof Political Science, 44 (April2000), 293-300, providesconvincingtheoretical easons,plus empiricalevidence, that continuous measures of democracyare superiorto dichotomous classifica-tions of democraciesversus nondemocracies.17. Ted R. Gurr and Keith Jaggers, "Tracking Democracy'sThird Wave with the Polity III Data,"Journal of Peace Research, 32 (1995), 469-82, demonstrate that the Freedom House scores correlatestronglywith alternativemeasuresof democracy.For a cross-validationof the FreedomHouse scores inrelation to alternative ndicators,see KennethBollen and PamelaPaxton,"SubjectiveMeasuresof LiberalDemocracy,"ComparativePolitical Studies,33 (2000), 58-86.18. Data and methodological report can be obtained from TransparencyInternational'shomepage,http://www.transparency.org.19. Rose, pp. 93-106.20. SeymourMartinLipset and Gabriel S. Lenz, "Corruption,Cultureand Markets,"n LawrenceE.Harrison and Samuel P. Huntington,eds., CultureMatters: How ValuesShape Human Progress(NewYork:Basic Books, 2000), 112-24.21. Thus,uncorruptauthoritarianegimes do not receive the same effective democracyscore as slight-ly corruptdemocraticregimes. Democraticregimes must be extremelycorrupt n orderto slumpdowntothe same effective democracyscore as an uncorruptauthoritarianegime.22. The curvilinearrelationship s not simply predefined by the way effective democracy s construct-ed. If, for instance, high levels of freedom rights tended to produce high rates of elite integrity, herewould be a linearrather han a curvilinearrelationship.23. This relationship s not tautological.Conceptually,self-expressionvalues and effective democracymeasure clearly distinguished phenomena; empirically, the data are taken from completely differentsources.24. Measured n 1995 per capitaGDP in purchasingpower parities.Data are taken from WorldBank,ed., WorldDevelopment ndicators(Washington,D. C.: WorldBank,1998).25. This variablemeasuresthe numberof years that a countryhas spent undera democraticconstitu-tion. These yearshave been counted from the beginningof a nation's ndependence or from 1850 onward

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RonaldInglehartand ChristianWelzelin case of countries that were not independentbefore 1850) until 1995. Countriesthat emerged from thedissolution of the Soviet Union andYugoslaviahave been coded like their formermothercountryas longas they belonged to it. A year has been counted as one under a democratic constitution if a countryobtained at least +7 points on the Autocracy-Democracyindex from Gurr and Jaggers, note 201. Thisindex is based on an analysis of constitutions and considers the extent of restrictions on executive powerand the voters' opportunities to influence politics. Gurrand Jaggers classify countries as "coherentdemocracies" f they reach+7 or morepoints on their -10 to +10 index. Data andmethodologicaldescrip-tion can be obtainedfrom the homepageof the "Polity98" project, http://www.bsos.umd.edu/cidcm/poli-ty. These data are used here because they reach fartherback in time thanthe scores from Freedom Houseand are thereforemoreadequate n measuring he enduranceof the democratic radition.26. Democracyscale accordingto Hans-DieterKlingemann,"MappingPolitical Support n the 1990s:A Global Analysis,"in PippaNorris, ed., Critical Citizens: Global Support or Democratic Governance(New York:OxfordUniversityPress, 1999), pp. 31-56. In the first step, we addedup respondent's upportof the statements"Havinga democraticpolitical system" (V157) and"Democracymay haveproblemsbutit's better thanany otherformof government" V163). Support or these statementscould be expressedinfour categories: very good (code 3), fairly good (code 2), fairly bad (code 1), and very bad (code 0) incase ofV157 andagree strongly(code 3), agree (code 2), disagree(code 1) anddisagree strongly(code 0)in case of V163. People's supportfor these statementshas been addedup to a 0 to 6 scale, with 6 repre-senting the highest supportfor democracy.In the second step, we addedup people's supportof the state-ments "Havinga strong leader who does not have to botherwith parliamentand elections" (V154) and"Havingthe armyrule" (V156). Analogous to the first step, a 0 to 6 scale of supportfor autocracywascreated.In the thirdstep, we subtracted he supportfor autocracyscale from the supportfor democracyscale to createan overallindex of autocraticversus democraticsupport,rangingfrom -6 (maximumauto-cratic support)to +6 (maximumdemocraticsupport).In the fourthstep, we calculatedfor each countrythe percentageof people scoring at least +4 on this index (since from +4 onwardthey are closer to themaximum democraticsupport,+6, thanto the neutralpoint, 0). Thepercentageof solid democrats s thusobtainedfor each country.27. Michael Bratton and Robert Mattes, "Support for Democracy in Africa: Intrinsic orInstrumental?," ritishJournalofPolitical Science, 31 (2001), 447-74.28. Welzel;Welzel, Inglehart,andKlingemann.

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