TY - JOUR

T1 - Political culture and democracy

T2 - analyzing crosslevel linkages

AU - Inglehart, Ronald

AU - Welzel, Christian Peter

PY - 2003/10/1

Y1 - 2003/10/1

N2 - Do individual-level attitudes play a significant role in sustaining democratic institutions at the societal level? In a recent article in Comparative Politics, Seligson argued that the strong aggregate-level correlations Inglehart found between political culture and stable democracy were spurious because there are no individual-level correlations between political culture and overt support for democracy. Seligson's analysis exemplifies the sort of cross-level fallacy he attributes to Inglehart: he equates individual-level support for democracy with the presence of democratic institutions. However, individual-level support of democracy is only weakly linked with societal-level democracy. Democracy currently has a positive image almost everywhere, but favorable opinions are often superficial. Unless they are accompanied by more deeply rooted orientations of tolerance, trust, and participation, chances for effective democracy are poor.

AB - Do individual-level attitudes play a significant role in sustaining democratic institutions at the societal level? In a recent article in Comparative Politics, Seligson argued that the strong aggregate-level correlations Inglehart found between political culture and stable democracy were spurious because there are no individual-level correlations between political culture and overt support for democracy. Seligson's analysis exemplifies the sort of cross-level fallacy he attributes to Inglehart: he equates individual-level support for democracy with the presence of democratic institutions. However, individual-level support of democracy is only weakly linked with societal-level democracy. Democracy currently has a positive image almost everywhere, but favorable opinions are often superficial. Unless they are accompanied by more deeply rooted orientations of tolerance, trust, and participation, chances for effective democracy are poor.

KW - Politics

KW - democracy

KW - Freedom

KW - Voting

KW - Economic development

KW - Elites

KW - Political attitudes

KW - unemployment

KW - Nazism

KW - Economics analysis

KW - Political corruption

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0242307170&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/2bbd09ab-8ea4-3ebe-b673-a2ce03d012c3/

U2 - 10.2307/4150160

DO - 10.2307/4150160

M3 - Scientific review articles

VL - 36

SP - 61

EP - 79

JO - Comparative Politics

JF - Comparative Politics

SN - 0010-4159

IS - 1

ER -