Why the future is democratic

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

Recent accounts of democratic backsliding neglect the cultural foundations of autocracy-versus-democracy. To bring culture back in, this article demonstrates that 1) countries' membership in culture zones explains some 70 percent of the total cross-national variation in autocracy-versus-democracy; and 2) this culture-bound variation has remained astoundingly constant over time—in spite of all the trending patterns in the global distribution of regime types over the last 120 years. Furthermore, the explanatory power of culture zones over autocracy-versus-democracy is rooted in the cultures' differentiation on "authoritarian-versus-emancipative values." Therefore, both the direction and the extent of regime change are a function of glacially accruing regime-culture misfits—driven by generational value shifts in a predominantly emancipatory direction. Consequently, the backsliding of democracies into authoritarianism is limited to societies in which emancipative values remain underdeveloped. Contrary to the widely cited deconsolidation thesis, the ascendant generational profile of emancipative values means that the momentary challenges to democracy are unlikely to stifle democracy's long-term rise.
Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of Democracy
Volume32
Issue number2
Pages (from-to)132-144
Number of pages13
ISSN1045-5736
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 04.2021

DOI

Recently viewed

Researchers

  1. Mathis Brinkmann

Publications

  1. Integrated driver rostering problem in public bus transit
  2. Effects of oral corrective feedback on the development of complex morphosyntax
  3. The promise and challenges of computer mouse trajectories in DMHIs – A feasibility study on pre-treatment dropout predictions
  4. Der "fachdidaktische Code" der Lebenswelt- und/oder (?) Situationsorientierung
  5. Klimapaket
  6. Motivation and emotion as mediators in multimedia learning
  7. Jointly experimenting for transformation?
  8. The most frequent phrasal verbs in English language EU documents - A corpus-based analysis and its implications
  9. Managing information in the case of opinion spamming
  10. What do employers pay for employees’ complex problem solving skills?
  11. Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA)-main concerns and regulatory developments in Europe from an environmental point of view
  12. Construct Clean-Up in Proactivity Research
  13. Development and testing of the insulin treatment experience questionnaire (ITEQ)
  14. INVENTORY REDUCTION BY MODERN TECHNIQUES OF DYNAMIC REPLENISHMENT OF MATERIALS AVAILABILITY IN MANUFACTURING - PRACTICAL EXAMPLE FROM THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY
  15. Contributions of Net-Map to sustainability action research
  16. Citizen relationship management
  17. Calculation of Physicochemical Properties for Short- and Medium-Chain Chlorinated Paraffins
  18. Proprioceptive and sensorimotor performance in Parkinson's disease
  19. Calculating the True Profitability of Pollution Prevention
  20. Botar fé no axé
  21. Internet Bondholder Relations
  22. Creating curricula for competence: Findings from a comparison of three sustainability graduate programs