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Democracy without Democratic Values: A Rejoinder to Welzel and Inglehart

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Author

Summary, in English

In reply to Welzel and Inglehart in this issue, we deploy three lines of criticism. First, we argue that their newly invented construct "effective democracy" is conceptually and empirically flawed. Second, we show that their results are highly sensitive to model specification. Regardless of the time period, their supportive evidence vanishes if a more pertinent measure of democracy is used instead of measures based on the absence of corruption, if a broader index of socioeconomic modernization is controlled for, and if their compound index of emancipative values is replaced by its core component: liberty aspirations. Third, we find that emancipative values are not a coherent syndrome at the individual level within countries, rendering the causal mechanism linking these values to democracy through collective action unintelligible. We conclude that democratic values are not a robust determinant of democratization.

Publishing year

2006

Language

English

Pages

95-111

Publication/Series

Studies in Comparative International Development

Volume

41

Document type

Journal article (letter)

Publisher

Transaction Publishers

Topic

  • Political Science

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0039-3606