Political Culture and Democracy: Analyzing Cross-Level Linkages

Author(s): Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel

Source: Comparative Politics, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Oct., 2003), pp. 61-79
Published by: Ph.D. Program in Political Science of the City University of New York
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4150160
Accessed: 19/01/2010 13:15

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=phd.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Ph.D. Program in Political Science of the City University of New York is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,
preserve and extend access to Comparative Politics.

http://www.jstor.org
 Political Culture and Democracy

AnalyzingCross-LevelLinkages

Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel

Mitchell Seligson raises a classic and still controversialissue in comparativepolitics:

what role does political cultureplay in sustaining stable democraticinstitutions?'He
examines this question in light of one of the central methodological problems in
cross-nationalresearch:the linkage between individual and aggregate relationships.
Seligson startswith the axiom that cross-nationalcorrelationsthat do not also appear
at the individual level within each nation are "spurious,"citing a passage to this
effect by Przeworskiand Teune.2Although this axiom has been widely accepted, it is
groundless, as this article will demonstrate. Basing his argument on it, Seligson
attemptsto invalidateInglehart'sfindings that there are strong aggregate level corre-
lations between political culture and stable democracy. Seligson argues that the
aggregatelevel findings are spuriousbecause he does not find individuallevel corre-
lations between these political cultureindicatorsand supportfor democracy.
Ironically,Seligson's conclusions exemplify precisely the sort of cross-level falla-
cy that Robinson warned against.3The central point of the ecological fallacy is that
strong aggregate level relationshipsare not necessarily reproducedat the individual
level. When Robinson was writing, districts with large percentages of African-
Americans (then located mainly in the South) generally elected segregationistcandi-
dates, but, as Robinson demonstrated,this relationship was not reproduced at the
individual level: Blacks did not vote for segregationist candidates. The aggregate
level relationshipwas not somehow spurious;no one questions the fact that districts
with large numbers of African-Americansreally did elect the worst sort of segrega-
tionists, in a patternof repressionthat endured for decades. Seligson turns the argu-
ment the wrong way around,claiming that an aggregate-level finding must be repro-
duced at the individual level. If it is not, it is somehow spurious. This claim is
groundless, as Robinson demonstratedmore than fifty years ago, and as more recent
evidence will confirm.
Misinterpretingthe ecological fallacy further, Seligson equates individual level
support for democracy with the presence of democratic institutions. Superficially,
this equation seems plausible. But in fact, at this point in history, individuallevel lip
service to democracy is only weakly linked with democracy on the level of society.

61
ComparativePolitics October 2003

Since the collapse of Communism,democracyhas attaineda positive image in virtu-

ally every country in the world. But these favorableopinions are often superficial,
and unless they are accompaniedby more deeply rooted tolerance, trust,and partici-
pation, the chances are poor that effective democracywill be present at the societal
level. In striking contrast to Seligson's unproven cross-level assumption, mere lip
service to democracyis not necessarily linked with actual democracyat the societal
level: at this point in history, it is almost as strong in authoritariansocieties or unsta-
ble democraciesas in stable democracies.
In contrast, the linkage between a more deeply rooted syndrome of self-expres-
sion and effective democracyis remarkablystrong.A controversialbody of literature
that goes back to Lipset and Almond and Verba is basically correct: a specific type
of political cultureseems to be an essential preconditionof effective democracy.4

Misconceptions of the Ecological Fallacy

Seligson's argumentis based on a misconception of the problem of cross-level infer-

ences. This misconception is its crucial flaw. It also involves a minor problem.First,
Seligson equates aggregating individual level responses with the individualisticfal-
lacy, as if aggregating such responses were inherentlywrong. Actually, aggregating
individuallevel attitudesto the national level is a perfectly legitimate procedureand
is essential in any attemptto depict the features of national mass cultures.The indi-
vidualistic fallacy consists in making the incorrect assumption that an individual
level relationshipalso has similar strengthand directionat the aggregatelevel.
Seligson's crucial misconception is that cross-nationalcorrelationsare spuriousif
they are not also presentat the individuallevel within each nation. Deciding whether
a relationshipis genuine or spurious,on the basis of whetherthis relationshipoccurs
at anotherlevel of analysis, is exactly what Robinson warnedagainst;it is an unwar-
rantedcross-level inference. Whetheror not a relationshipis spurious,can be deter-
mined only by evidence at the same level of analysis. Thus, in Robinson's classic
case, the question of whether or not individualAfrican-Americanswere voting for
segregationistcandidatescould only be decided by individual level evidence, not by
state level correlations. The methodological axiom on which Seligson bases his
analysis is a clear misinterpretationof the problem posed by the level of analysis.
Some examples will demonstratethis point.
In Robinson's case, the fact that electoral units with high percentagesof African-
Americans tended to elect segregationistrepresentativesdid not mean that African-
Americans were segregationists. The opposite was true. Conversely, the fact that
African-Americanswere not segregationistdid not mean that the districtlevel link-
age between racial composition and segregationistpolicies was spurious.The corre-
lation between race and electoral behavior reversed its sign when one moved from

62
 Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel

the individuallevel to the aggregate level, and the findings at both levels of analysis
were genuine and important.
Similarly, in contemporary France the vote for the xenophobic National Front
tends to be highest in districts with high percentages of Islamic immigrants. This
correlation does not mean that the immigrants are supporting the National Front.
They are not. Conversely,the fact that the immigrantsare not voting for the National
Front does not mean that the linkage between ethnicity and politics is spurious. The
relatively high percentage of immigrants has a major impact on the vote for the
National Front, even though the correlation between vote and immigrant status
reversesits polarity from one level of analysis to another.
Likewise, the fact thatjobless Germansin the early 1930s did not show a stronger
tendency to vote for the Nazis than those Germanswho still were employed does not
mean that there was no causal linkage between unemployment and the Nazi vote
share. Sharply rising unemploymentrates created a climate of anxiety that affected
all social groups, whetheremployed or not, increasing their readiness to vote for the
Nazis. Thus, the rise in unemploymentlevels from the late 1920s to the early 1930s
was followed by a strong increase in the Nazi vote. The fact that the unemployed
were as likely to vote Communistas Nazi at the individual level does not mean that
unemploymentwas unimportant.
As these examples demonstrate,it is perfectly possible-and frequently true-
that an aggregate level linkage is not reflected at the individual level. Nevertheless,
this linkage is not somehow unreal or spurious. Quite the contrary,aggregate level
linkages often have more impact on society than those found at the individual level.
Assuming that rising unemploymenthas no impact on support for extremist parties
because there is no linkage between unemploymentand extremism at the individual
level would be committing the "individualistic fallacy."5 Seligson, nevertheless,
claims that the linkage that Inglehartfound between interpersonaltrust and democ-
ratic institutions at the aggregate level is spurious because he finds no linkage
between trust and supportfor democracyat the individuallevel. This conclusion is a
classic case of the individualisticfallacy.

Outdated Measures of Political Culture and Democratic Institutions

Seligson's article examines the individual level correlations among a set of indica-
tors that Inglehart used in analysis of the 1981 World Values Surveys. Readers of
Seligson's article would probably assume that it also refers to Inglehart's recent
work. However,Inglehart'sanalysis of the 1990-91 surveys and his subsequentwork
moves beyond the indicatorstested in Seligson's article (life satisfaction and inter-
personal trust), incorporatingthem into a broader set of indicators of political cul-
ture. This fact is of relatively minor importance.The critique in this article applies

63
ComparativePolitics October2003

equally to Inglehart'soriginal findings and to his more recent work: societies with
relatively high levels of interpersonal trust and life satisfaction are significantly
more likely to have democraticinstitutionsthan societies with lower levels, and this
linkage is by no means spurious.Nevertheless, it is worth noting that Inglehartand
othershave identified a broadersyndromeof self-expression values that includes not
only interpersonaltrust and life satisfactionbut also several other attitudesthat seem
to play even more importantroles in promoting democracy.6The respectivepublics'
locations on this self-expression values dimension, together with economic indica-
tors, explain roughly 80 percent of the variance in democratic institutions. The
dependentvariablein this analysis is an indicatorof democraticinstitutionsthat will
be referredto as effective democracy.

Improved Measures of Political Culture and Democratic Institutions

Self-Expression Values Self-expression values are a syndrome of mass attitudes

that tap a common underlyingdimension, reflecting emphasis on freedom,tolerance
of diversity,and participation,at both the individualand aggregatelevels, as the fac-
tor loadings in Table 1 indicate. Self-expression values are present in a political cul-
ture in so far as the public emphasizes liberty and participation,public self-expres-
sion, tolerance of diversity, interpersonaltrust, and life satisfaction.7All these atti-
tudes tap a common underlying dimension, showing positive loadings on a self-
expression values factor.This patternapplies at three differentlevels of analysis:the
individual level within nations, the pooled cross-nationalindividual level data, and
the aggregate national level. The strengthof the factor loadings rises systematically
from the individuallevel within nations to the aggregatecross-nationallevel.
The fact that self-expression values are more strongly structuredat the aggregate
level than at the individuallevel reflects a well-known phenomenon:individuallevel
survey data are affected by randommeasurementerrorthat is cancelled out through
aggregation. As Blalock observed some time ago, the variation in individuallevel
attitudes consists of a systematic component and a random component.8
Consequently,the correlationbetween two differentattitudesconsists of a systematic
term and a randomterm, in which the randomterm diminishes the correlation,what
Blalock called the attenuationeffect. This attenuationeffect is relativelylarge at the
individual level because, as Converse first observed, significant numbersof survey
respondentsgive random answers, producing a substantialamount of measurement
error.9In so far as the responses are random, the correlations between them are
weakened,making individuallevel correlationsrelativelyweak.10
However,when attitudesare averagedacross nations, the randomvariationsoffset
each other. Randomnegative and positive deviations from the nationalmean tend to

64
 Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel

Table 1 The Dimension of Self-ExpressionValues

Llsav Assyeleit
levelwithin adiv
ndividual e leve acre
eidul as Ag gat cron
(mn nton (pooled dat) usional level
Vanaions
ladindg)
Strongseltcaprcssionvalue
strongemphasisn the
dkreflect
followingattuzdes/behavior
-T 82
Meler'a tAdlvlSy .4"1 -6868
- Pub*lsc 187
S-elspreie••45' .65
- Lbertysad Putarelp"Atn' 354 19 12
Tra~t 34 47 64
Sflarpers•al
- Life Sthtctle .13 .44
'76
Weak selfvwmia valves
rolect weak emphasix aon the

v-mance
Explained 23% 29% 54%
Numberof ease 137national
survey 15803 137
-------_vdPfaMo- a
wmrwavewaunits
Abts; Hnries ae (actor taig plrative prikcipal meszana nreascion
scmdmpyon of hctorewiha
'Eigenvalues'aboveI avienorotation. Source ea/W Vales Fly.S
Surveys-tV
mneranadftr"disiked niui bors"acded""
"Notr at d qu-iebue d AW AsOarsadded or
acorain
weighbors withAIDS(V59)sadbcan sswual dgm(VW)
Agmegaee l avragesondhi 0. sck
datsare eaioWs t
"Havedone"for"signaingptitions(VI 18)coded"I"anddicb aainst "0*.
d•gd
Agpegatfdataarenaidon palrcenapshavedone.
Respondent'irstandsecondpriorities for"vinS people in importantgoverntent
ra•P y
decsions" and"protectingfeedom of speech"(V 106-107) addedto a four-pointindex, asigning 3
points fr both items on fir and second rank,2 pos for one of these
aSems on firstrnk. I ppointfor
otwofthees
batno osiaondra and0 for nneof 'ie man fws orsecondrank.

Respondentsbelieving "mo people can be trutd"(V27) dichweonizedas "I" against

L,"
Aggregatedataare nationalpercentagesoipeople trustnalg.
10-pointragi scale for life satisficti (V65).
Agge e dataarenational averagesonuthis1-10acale.

cancel each other out.11 Following the law of large numbers,this reduction of error
becomes more pronounced as the number of individuals being aggregated rises.
Consequently, the random term becomes smaller, and the systematic correlation
larger, at higher levels of aggregation. Consequently, aggregation to the national
level does not produce spurious correlations. Quite the contrary,aggregation often
reveals systematic correlationsthat may be hidden by measurementerrorat the indi-
vidual level within nations. Hence the syndrome of self-expression values is much

65
ComparativePolitics October 2003

more pronounced at the aggregate national level than at the individual level within
nations (compare columns 1 and 3 in Table 1). As Erikson, MacKuen, and Stimson
argue, analysis at the aggregate level often provides a more accurate view of the
underlyingrelationshipsthan is availablefrom individuallevel analysis.12
The strengthof the correlationsat the pooled individuallevel falls between these
two extremes (compare column 2 with columns 1 and 3 in Table 1). At the pooled
individual level the variation in an attitude is composed of the deviations from the
mean within nations, which may be randomto a relativelylarge degree, and the devi-
ations from the mean between nations, which are largely systematic. Thus, at the
pooled individuallevel there is more systematic variationthan at the individuallevel
within nations, and, in turn, the pooled individual level entails more randomvaria-
tion than the aggregate level. The factor loadings of the self-expression values syn-
drome thereforeincrease from the individuallevel within nations to the pooled indi-
vidual level to the aggregate level.
In short, relatively weak correlations at the individual level do not indicate that
relatively strong aggregate level correlations are somehow false or spurious.Quite
the contrary,aggregate correlationsmay reveal linkages that are obscuredby random
measurementerrorsat the individuallevel. Moreover,the aggregate level is precisely
the level at which democracyexists: democracyis an attributeof nations,not of indi-
viduals. Hence, if one is interested in the impact of mass attitudes on democracy,
what matters is a society's mass tendency in these attitudes,not the individuallevel
attitudinalstructure,as Seligson assumes.

Effective Democracy Since democraticinstitutionswill be the dependentvariable,

it is importantto measure them with reliable indicators.In particular,it is crucial to
differentiatebetween merely formal democracy, or electoral democracy,and effec-
tive democracy.
Democracy is central to people's lives because it establishes civil and political
rights that enable them to make free choices. Providing legal guaranteesof these
rights creates formal democracy,which is a necessary component of democracy.But
formal rights alone are not sufficient. Formal rights are effective only in so far as
elites respect these rights in their actual behavior. Law-abiding elite behavior, or
"elite integrity,"is an expression of the rule of law that, as Rose and others have
pointed out, distinguishes effective democracy from formal democracy.13Hence the
measure of effective democracy combines formal democracy (freedom rights) and
elite integrity.The scope of freedom rights is weighted by the extent to which elite
integrityis present,in orderto measureeffective democracy.14
Freedom rights are measuredusing the combined Freedom House scores for civil
and political rights.15The scores from Freedom House range from 1 to 7 on each of
the two scales, with 1 indicating the highest and 7 the lowest level of freedom (that

66
 Ronald Inglehart and ChristianWelzel

is, civil rights and political rights).16This scale has been reversed so that higher fig-
ures indicate a broaderscope of freedomrights. The scores from FreedomHouse are
expert ratings of the extent to which certain individual rights are guaranteed.17The
most recent Freedom House scores from 1999-2000 have been used in order to
ensure that the measure of freedom rights is subsequent in time to the political cul-
ture indicatorsthat are used as predictorsof democracy.
The Freedom House scores are imperfect measures of freedom rights. They do
not take into account the extent to which given rights are respected in actual elite
behavior.To overcome this problem, the corruptionperception indices developed by
TransparencyInternational are used.18 These scores are also expert ratings; they
judge how corruptthe political, bureaucratic,and economic officeholders of a coun-
try are. One indication of the validity of these estimates is their strong correlation
with aggregatemeasures of the citizens' perception of elite corruptionin representa-
tive surveys.19
The TransparencyInternationalscores range from 1 to 100, with 100 indicating
the greatestamountof corruption.Reversingthese scores provides a measure of law-
abiding elite behavior or elite integrity.20Effective democracy is operationalized
throughweighting freedom rights by elite integrity. Since elite integrity will operate
as a weighting factor and not as a compensatingfactor, it is standardizedto 1.0 as its
maximum, obtaining fractions from 0 to 1. Hence, to obtain effective democracy,
freedom rights (standardizedto a maximum of 100) are multiplied by fractions from
0 to 1 for elite integrity.This produces an index of effective democracy that has 100
as its maximum. Since the most recent Transparency International scores from
1999-2000 are used, a measure of effective democracyin 1999-2000 is obtained.

Effective Democracy = FreedomRights * Elite Integrity

(percentages) (fractions of 1.0)

Even if a country comes close to a maximum elite integrity of 1.0 (that is, almost no
elite corruption),the weighting procedurewould not compensate for a low level of
freedom rights. When a regime reaches only five percent of the possible maximum
in the freedom rights measure, a maximum elite integrity of 1.0 can not do more
than reproducethese five percent.21In contrast, a freedom rights level close to the
maximum of 100 percent can be severely devalued if elite integrity is so low that it
reaches only a small fraction of 1.0. Hence given freedom rights levels are devalued
to the degree that elite integrityis absent, reflecting that given constitutionalguaran-
tees are made ineffective in proportion to elite corruption. High levels of elite
integrity can not produce effective democracy, in the absence of freedom rights.
High levels of freedom rights, in contrast, produce formal democracy, but formal
democracy is effective only to the degree that elites base their activities on rights
instead of bribes.

67
ComparativePolitics October2003

As Figure 1 illustrates,it is much more difficult for nationsto obtainhigh scores on

effective democracy than on freedom rights. Freedom rights translateinto effective
democracyin a curvilinearway: a relativelylarge variationin the lower four-fifthsof
the freedomrights scale translatesinto a relativelysmall variationin effectivedemocra-
cy, while a small variationin the top fifth of the freedomrights scale translatesinto a
large variationin effective democracy.This difference reflects the fact that freedom
rights are a necessary condition to create effective democracy.Only nations scoring
high in freedom rights can attain high scores on effective democracy.But freedom
rightsarenot a sufficientconditionfor effectivedemocracy.Not all nationsscoringhigh
in freedomrights also score high in effective democracy.Whetheror not elite integrity
is includedin the operationalization of democracymakes a crucialdifference.Including
it clearlyprovidesa morerealisticmeasureof democracy.22
With these comprehensiveand meaningful measures-self-expression values and
effective democracy-it is now possible to examine the linkage between political
cultureand democraticinstitutionson a valid basis.

The Linkage between Political Culture and Democratic Institutions

Inglehartand his collaborators'analyses of the relationshipbetween political culture

and democracy do not imply that the linkage between effective democracyand self-

Figure 1 FreedomRights and Effective Democracy

110
100 .. . .................... ..
....

1g0
e

040

10
20
00 10 ** * *40 *0 9.

00 10 20 30 40 50
60 70 80 90 100 110
FreedomRights 1999-2000

68
 Ronald Inglehart and ChristianWelzel

expression values is presentbecause individualswho emphasize self-expression nec-

essarily endorse democracy more than individuals with little emphasis on self-
expression. Such a conclusion would suffer from the type of cross-level fallacy to
which Seligson inadvertentlyfalls victim when he argues that the societal level cor-
relation between democracy and political culture is spurious unless it is reflected in
individual level correlations between these political culture indicators and support
for democracy.Seligson assumes that individual level lip service to democracy can
be equatedwith the emergence and survival of democraticinstitutionsat the societal
level, precisely the sort of cross-level inference that Robinson warned against. The
assumption that individual level endorsement of democracy can be equated with
societal level democracy is fallacious. At this point in history, overt support for
democracy has become extremely widespread, and the citizens of Albania and
Azerbaijanare as likely to express a favorableopinion of democracy as the citizens
of Sweden and Switzerland. But these favorable opinions are often superficial.
Unless they are accompaniedby more deeply rooted orientationsof tolerance, trust,
and participation,the chances are poor that effective democracy will be present at
the societal level.
More deeply rooted orientations,such as those tapped by self-expression values,
have their impact at the societal level in promoting effective democracy.In order to
demonstratea linkage between political cultureand democraticinstitutions, individ-
ual level attitudes must be aggregated to the national level, since democracy is an
attributeof nations, not of individuals.Thus, one can test the hypothesis that a given
political cultureis conducive to democraticinstitutionsonly at the societal level, the
level at which Inglehartand his collaboratorshave investigated the relationship.No
cross-level assumptionis involved. The ecological fallacy (as well as the individual-
istic fallacy) is based on unwarrantedassumptionsthat a phenomenon that exists on
one level also exists on anotherlevel. Inglehartand his collaboratorshave made no
such assumption.Democracy is a societal level variable,not an attributeof individu-
als. Consequently, the hypothesis that self-expression values are conducive to
democracymust be tested at the societal level.
The aggregate level linkage between political culture and democratic institutions
is remarkablystrong, as Figure 2 demonstrates.A society's prevailing attitudes on
the self-expression values dimension in about 1990 (see the Appendix) explain fully
75 percent of the cross-national variation in effective democracy in 1999-2000.23
This effect does not simply reflect other influences, such as economic development.
The effect of self-expression values remains robust when one controls for economic
development, experience with democracy, and even support for democracy, as the
regression analyses in Table2 shows.
If Model 1 is comparedwith Model 5, economic development adds about 6 per-
cent to the effect of self-expression values on effective democracy.24Economic
development also capturespart of the impact of self-expression values, diminishing

69
ComparativePolitics October2003

Figure 2 Political Cultureand Democratic Institutions

105 C.'rrmarL
0
95 3894 29 40 x
90
5
oR R • *=0.75 e swifw,, C* • Sas,
.
....
. ka
.E .s.s.....
0) 5 d. 5
45 ?
? ?W CA
685 + VV )
i~~Gsranul
Spain Frew*

S55 o ''a 0 0
S.M h"a CM.
45
? ?dQf~

skmwa" 0
t 05
25 ElSay Ppwiposvowie o
Ro" ?nik
& w m
,o,, ? oS-K•t?&w
aO ced 0 h
? 15M s•O 0 a Peudh
~l~GCA*
0 •'eu
wln.
10 Tw! 0 0 C'.IRw~,
(

05
E4F""e
0I Cal
0luub~U~~I
oW
c0
-05
-15-1 3 -1 -09-07-050- 3-0.1 0.1 0,3 0.5 09 1t1 13 15 1.7 19 2.1
0,7
Strengthof Self-ExpressionValues (1990)
their effect from beta=.86 in Model 1 to beta=.51 in Model 5. Consideredconverse-
ly, however,the inclusion of self-expression values diminishes the effect of econom-
ic developmentfrom beta=.84 in Model 2 to beta=.43 in Model 5, adding 10 percent
of explained varianceto what economic developmentalone explains. Thus, although
self-expression values and economic development are strongly correlatedwith each
other, they are not completely exchangeable, since both add a significant amountof
explained varianceto the effect of the other.
By contrast,the length of time a society has experiencedunder democraticinsti-
tutions adds very little to the effect of self-expression values on effective democracy
(2 percent, see Models 1 and 6).25Moreover,a society's experience with democracy
only slightly diminishes the effect of self-expression values on effective democracy
(the beta-coefficient shrinks from .86 in Model 1 to .73 in Model 6). Conversely,
however, experience with democracy'simpact on effective democracy shrinksfrom
beta=.75 in Model 3 to beta=.18 in Model 6, controlling for self-expression values,
implying that self-expression values do not result from the presence of preexisting
democratic institutions. If they did, the length of the society's experience with
democracy would capture significant parts of the effect of self-expression values,
but it does not.

70
 Table 2 The Effect of Self-ExpressionValueson Effective Democracy,Controllingfor Rival Pre

ofi 1
ModSel 2MlE O MI4 MOd Mo

8 (SE) Baa (SE) 8 (SE)

aPreictorr 8 (SE) 9eam (SE) ea sBe Bmma 8(S)
.r5 15s 4"Sr S
Exprdon
s•0.- (1.4) ((11) (3.01)

GOPper O0"** .4 001"* .43

cap= (.00) (.000)
1996

Ezpvriens $r' 75 .t2"

wit (.oA) (O)
-mww

auppwfar s .AD
-arac (4)

cGnstat 43.61'" 1;2" 2&or

W2a 43,"' 8'."
(1.80) (213) (322) (95 3178) :(3.09)

W 74 .70 .5 .34 80 .7

".,4
ComparativePolitics October2003

In sharpcontradictionto Seligson's unprovencross-level inferences is the finding

that overt supportfor democracyadds nothing to the effect of self-expressionvalues
on effective democracy (compare explained variances in Models 1 and 7).26
Accordingly, support for democracy capturesonly a negligible part of the effect of
self-expression values on effective democracy (beta shrinks from .86 in Model 1 to
.83 in Model 7). Conversely,the effect of supportfor democracyon effective democ-
racy literally vanishes (shrinking from beta=.60 in Model 4 to an insignificant
beta=.07 in Model 7) once self-expression values are controlled. It may seem sur-
prising that overt supportfor democracyhas so little impact on the presenceof effec-
tive democracy at the institutional level, but it is importantto bear in mind that,
since the collapse of Communism,lip service to democracy has become almost uni-
versal, with over 90 percent of the publics of most countriesgiving favorableratings.
It does not tap the qualities of tolerance, self-expression, trust, well-being, and par-
ticipation that are crucial to the functioningof democracy.
To illustratethe findings from Table 2 more clearly, Figure 3 displays the partial
plots. It shows the effects of self-expression values on effective democracyand the
effects of overt support for democracy on effective democracy, controlling for the
effects of the other independent variable in both cases. These partial plots make
strikingly clear that the impact of self-expression values on effective democracy is
unaffected by the fact that overt supportfor democracy is controlled. It continuesto
show a strong relationshipwith effective democracy.By contrast,the effect of overt
support for democracy on effective democracy disappears when levels of self-
expression values are controlled.
These findings indicate that the impact of a prodemocraticpolitical culture on
effective democracy does not operate through its impact on public support for
democracy.Figure 4 suggests why. Public supportfor democracycan be very strong
among publics that show low levels of tolerance, trust, participation,and the other
components of self-expression values. Strong self-expression values seem to be a
sufficient condition to create a minimum amount of support for democracy.Above
the level of self-expression values found in Japan, about fifty or more percent of
each populationare solid democrats.In contrast,strong self-expressionvalues are by
no means a necessary condition to create a certain proportionof solid democrats.
Among nations with weak emphasis on self-expression there can be very low as well
as very high proportionsof solid democrats (for instance, Albania and Hungaryin
Figure4). These observationsindicate that overt supportfor democracyis sometimes
inflated by superficial lip service that is not necessarily linked to more deeply rooted
democraticvalues.
Such cross-level inferences should not be made without testing them. At the indi-
vidual level, what motivatespeople to express overt supportfor democracy?Bratton
and Mattes conducted such an analysis using data from the Afrobarometer.27 They

72
 Ronald Inglehart and ChristianWelzel

Figure 3 Partial Effects on Self-Expression and Democratic Support on Effective

Democracy

3 5 .---------

15
MCI"#

a 5wene
*4
bod
0 *USA.
e.
oapny%; -al t
N-

01

-30 -.5 -20 -15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30

50
so ramteo A

20 UA
0s**AN N0 *
Aa
Sm, oo

010

-•. -15 - -0o 08 -45 45. 0 03 5 0-8 1o 13 IS 1.8a

.
t1MSnS.
ef-Expresson V IsValues
* ue A
hABtannw.asetn bs

73
ComparativePolitics October2003

Figure 4 Supportfor Democracy and Self-ExpressionValues

90
WiGe (W)
0 rmany
~80 0

S S
awo Cromia
w0f SwedenA
o y
9ur V 0 c "Ww kn
u 60 ,e
EO * A, SpmwS *
E Fw*4AcA uguay S F Fapd~
* 5o
SouthAfs

40 tydbac? tu ?
•O

30 B
y10
Moo~~*9TU* gpj4o y49*4+ 1.09
- sq,
020 ?R
u- =-35
-15 -1,3 1,5 2,3
-1,0 -0,8 -0,5-0,3 0,0 0,3 0,5 0,8 1,0 1,3 1,8 2,0
waMass-Emphasis on Self-Expression 1990 35
on S~f-IExprosslon I 90O
Malr~ssEmnphaslsa
found that individual supportfor democracy is determinedfar more by instrumental
motives than by normativecommitmentsto the values that are inherentto democra-
cy. This finding is perfectly replicatedin the analysis of the WorldValues Surveys, as
Table 3 shows. Although there is a linkage between supportfor democracyand self-
expression values at the individuallevel (see Model 2), what people think about the
performanceof democracyin runningthe economy and maintaininglaw and orderis
a much better predictorof their overt supportfor democracy (comparethe explained
variances of Models 1 and 2). To be sure, people with strong emphasis on self-
expression almost always preferdemocracy to autocracy,but there is a large number
of people who supportdemocracyfor reasons of expected performance,even if their
emphasis on self-expression is weak. Hence overt support for democracyis a poor
indicator of intrinsic support,since overt supportis inflated by instrumentallymoti-
vated lip service.

Conclusion

In analyzing data from the 1981 WorldValues Surveys, Inglehartfound that societies
with relativelyhigh levels of interpersonaltrustand life satisfactionwere much more

74
 Table 3 PredictingSupportfor Democracyat the IndividualLevel

a
1pde Sup Demo 19954
I Model
Predlctors4
.B SE)
-M (.02)
Support
~ PitaN- . .1A."

..
... . Ow
lsoSupd
Ol SE
. . -.... J .R.R
PartiMl

-.
Oatwsaewsar am e dedalew w. -?2 -6*1
(.02w)
Dem0oo amrebadin malntefrlng
order" -45OM(2) -.18' -.
AV":(0) .1t" A
Constant -.58 LOS) 4455(06) -t
R
Adjusted .24 .11
N AM46050

y'Me
bVmtow" mrs ded(4-atoglysagrnS. rore, 1
b) VlSI*Dam.craclesareIndeaIsieandhove
s tooouch qutbl*ng Forcoding,see a).
-i"..
0d1)Po dIod fetrano$0Morvwi i tdn Tat 1(center
000nnM).
e-tas
ugnlcant
atthe.001-level.
Eletsobtained
a In g o lforuural
zones,
usIngm ntI0
forea
zones sawby 8). Efectsofcultural
andSaker(see obln0te zoned notdocumented
Orremoof s
Source:EuropeafoMd Valuaesm
Surveys11(1995-48).
.......
.

-4
th
ComparativePolitics October2003

likely to have democraticinstitutionsthan societies with relatively low levels of trust

and well-being. This funding is reliable and has been replicated in subsequentsur-
veys covering many more countries. It is by no means spurious, as Seligson claims.
Seligson attemptsto refute this societal evel correlationby demonstratingthat there
are only weak correlationsbetween trust and life satisfaction, on one hand,and sup-
port for democracy at the individual level, on the other. This attemptedrefutation
depends on the implicit assumptionthat individuallevel endorsementof democracy
can be equated with democratic institutions at the societal level. This cross-level
assumption is unwarrantedand proves to be false. Initially,it may seem plausibleto
assume that countries with widespread individual support for democracy are more
democratic than those where it is less widespread, but it is empirically untrue,
because at this point in history democracyhas a favorableimage almost everywhere.
Seligson's assumptionthat overt supportfor democracyat the individuallevel is a
reliable measure of democraticinstitutionsat the societal level is mistaken.It repre-
sents an example of the individualistic fallacy. Today, lip service to democracy is
widespread,but it does not necessarily reflect a deep commitmentto crucial democ-
ratic norms. In contrast, the evidence indicates that a political culturethat empha-
sizes self-expression, tolerance, trust, life satisfaction, and participationplays a cru-
cial role in effective democracy.This linkage is remarkablystrong, and it persists
when levels of economic development and length of experience with democratic
institutionsare controlled.A political culture of tolerance, trust, and the other com-
ponents of self-expression values seems to be essential to the flourishingof democ-
ratic institutions.
As shown in recent analyses, effective democracy is an evolutionaryphenome-
non.28It emerges from a broaderprocess of humandevelopment, in which economic
developmenttends to promote rising self-expression values that in turn tend to fuel
effective democracy. In conclusion, effective democratic institutions are a conse-
quence ratherthan a preconditionof a democraticmass culture.

Appendix

National aggregates of self-expression values have been calculated runningthe fac-

tor analysis shown in Table 1 across the time-pooled aggregateddata set of the World
Values Surveys, including 137 nation per wave units. The time-pooled data matrix
provides aggregates of self-expression values from the Second WorldValues Survey
(about 1990) for thirty-four countries, including Argentina, Austria, Belarus,
Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Germany (East),
Germany (West), Finland, France, Great Britain, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland,
Italy, Japan, Latvia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Portugal, Russia,
South Korea, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey,and the U.S.A.

76
 Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel

For another twenty-nine countries, missing self-expression values in the Second

WorldValues Survey have been estimated from existing self-expression values in the
Third WorldValues Survey (about 1995). For estimation, the following regression
equation (which explains 91 percent of the variance across twenty-one countries)
was used: SELFEXVAL1990=.124+ .841 * SELFEXVAL1995. Estimates based on this
equationhave been assigned to the following countries:Albania, Armenia,Australia,
Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia, Croatia, the Czech
Republic, the Dominican Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Ghana, Lithuania,Macedonia,
Moldova, New Zealand, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Romania, South Africa,
Slovakia,Switzerland,Taiwan,Ukraine,Uruguay,Venezuela,and Yugoslavia.
For still anotherten countries,missing self-expression values in the Second World
Values Survey have been estimated from existing self-expression values in the
FourthWorldValues Survey (about 2000). For estimation, the following regression
equation (which explains 92 percent of the variance across twenty-eight countries)
was used: SELFEXVAL1990=.047 + .858 * SELFEXVAL2000. Estimates based on this
equation have been assigned to the following countries:Egypt, El Salvador,Greece,
Iran, Jordan,Luxembourg,Malta, Poland, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. In the cases of
Jordan,New Zealand, and Pakistan,aggregates for self-expression values have been
calculated excluding tolerance of diversity (see Table 1, note 1, for operationaliza-
tion), since the relevantquestions were not asked there.

NOTES

1. MitchellSeligson,"TheRenaissanceof PoliticalCultureor the Renaissanceof the Ecological

Fallacy,"ComparativePolitics,34 (April2002),273-92.
2. AdamPrzeworski andHenryTeune,TheLogicof Comparative SocialInquiry(NewYork:Wiley,
1970),ch. 3.
3. WilliamS. Robinson,"EcologicalCorrelationsand the Behaviorof Individuals,"American
SociologicalReview,15 (1950),351-57.
4. SeymourMartinLipset,"SomeSocial Requisitesof Democracy:EconomicDevelopmentand
PoliticalLegitimacy,"
American PoliticalScienceReview,53 (1959),69-105;GabrielAlmondandSidney
Verba,The Civic Culture:Political Attitudesin Five WesternDemocracies(Princeton:Princeton
UniversityPress,1963).
5. HaywardR. Alker,Jr.,"ATypologyof EcologicalFallacies," in MatteiDoganandSteinRokkan,
eds., QuantitativeEcologicalAnalysisin the Social Sciences(Cambridge,Mass.:MIT Press, 1969),
69-86.
6. RonaldInglehart,Modernizationand Postmodernization: Cultural,Economicand Political
Changein 43 Societies(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1997);RonaldInglehartandWayneE.
Baker, "Modernization,CulturalChange and the Persistence of TraditionalValues,"American
SociologicalReview,65 (February 2000), 19-51;ChristianWelzel,Fluchtpunkt Humanentwicklung:Die
Grundlagen derDemokratie unddie UrsachenihrerAusbreitung (Opladen: Westdeutscher
Verlag,2002);
Christian Welzel,RonaldInglehart, andHans-Dieter Klingemann, "TheTheoryof HumanDevelopment:
A Cross-CulturalAnalysis,"
European JournalofPoliticalResearch,42 (April2003).

77
ComparativePolitics October2003

7. See the notes to Table 1 for the constructionof these variables.

8. HubertM. Blalock Jr., Causal Inferencesin NonexperimentalResearch (New York:SeminarPress,
1964).
9. Philip E. Converse, "The Nature of Belief Systems among Mass Publics,"in David E. Apter, ed.,
Ideology and Discontent (New York:Free Press, 1964), pp. 206-61.
10. The individuallevel data are measuredin ordinal or dichotomous scales (that transforminto con-
tinuous scales at the aggregate level). The Pearsonproduct-momentcorrelationstend to underestimatethe
real correlations.Tetrachoriccorrelationsalternativelyprovide somewhat strongercorrelationsat the indi-
vidual level (not documented here). Still, these correlations are considerably weaker than those at the
aggregate level. See Karl G. Jdreskog, "New Developments in LISREL: Analysis of OrdinalVariables
Using PolychoricCorrelationsand WeightedLeast Squares,"Quality & Quantity,24 (1990), 387-404.
11. BenjaminPage and RobertY. Shapiro,"The RationalPublic and Democracy,"in G. E. Marcusand
R. L. Hanson, eds., Reconsidering the Democratic Public (Pennsylvania:PennsylvaniaState University
Press, 1993), p. 43.
12. Robert S. Erikson, Michael B. MacKuen, and James A. Stimson, The Macro Polity (New York:
CambridgeUniversity Press, 2002).
13. RichardRose, "A DivergentEurope,"Journal of Democracy, 12 (January2001), 93-106.
14. This conception of 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 description of the estimation process and scale construction, see FreedomHouse,
ed., Freedomin the World(Lanham:University Press of America, 1996), pp. 530-35.
16. Zachary Elkins, "Gradiationsof Democracy? EmpiricalTests of AlternativeConceptualizations,"
AmericanJournal of Political Science, 44 (April 2000), 293-300, provides convincing theoreticalreasons,
plus empirical evidence, that continuous measures of democracy are superiorto dichotomousclassifica-
tions of democraciesversus nondemocracies.
17. Ted R. Gurr and Keith Jaggers, "Tracking Democracy's Third Wave with the Polity III Data,"
Journal of Peace Research, 32 (1995), 469-82, demonstratethat the Freedom House scores correlate
strongly with alternativemeasures of democracy.For a cross-validationof the Freedom House scores in
relation to alternativeindicators,see KennethBollen and Pamela Paxton, "SubjectiveMeasuresof Liberal
Democracy,"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. Seymour Martin Lipset and Gabriel S. Lenz, "Corruption,Culture and Markets,"in LawrenceE.
Harrison and Samuel P. Huntington, eds., Culture Matters: How ValuesShape Human Progress (New
York:Basic Books, 2000), 112-24.
21. Thus, uncorruptauthoritarianregimes do not receive the same effective democracyscore as slight-
ly corruptdemocraticregimes. Democraticregimes must be extremely corruptin orderto slump down to
the same effective democracy score as an uncorruptauthoritarianregime.
22. The curvilinearrelationshipis not simply predefined by the way effective democracyis construct-
ed. If, for instance, high levels of freedom rights tended to produce high rates of elite integrity,there
would be a linearratherthan a curvilinearrelationship.
23. This relationshipis not tautological.Conceptually,self-expression values and effective democracy
measure clearly distinguished phenomena; empirically, the data are taken from completely different
sources.
24. Measuredin 1995 per capita GDP in purchasingpower parities. Data are taken from WorldBank,
ed., WorldDevelopmentIndicators (Washington,D. C.: WorldBank,1998).
25. This variablemeasures the numberof years that a country has spent under a democraticconstitu-
tion. These years have been counted from the beginning of a nation's independence(or from 1850 onward

78
 Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel

in case of countries that were not independentbefore 1850) until 1995. Countriesthat emerged from the
dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslaviahave been coded like their formermother country as long
as they belonged to it. A year has been counted as one under a democratic constitution if a country
obtained at least +7 points on the Autocracy-Democracy index from Gurr and Jaggers, note 201. This
index is based on an analysis of constitutions and considers the extent of restrictionson executive power
and the voters' opportunities to influence politics. Gurr and Jaggers classify countries as "coherent
democracies"if they reach +7 or more points on their -10 to +10 index. Data and methodological descrip-
tion can be obtained from the homepage of the "Polity 98" project, http://www.bsos.umd.edu/cidcm/poli-
ty. These data are used here because they reach fartherback in time than the scores from Freedom House
and are thereforemore adequatein measuringthe enduranceof the democratictradition.
26. Democracy scale accordingto Hans-DieterKlingemann,"MappingPolitical Supportin the 1990s:
A Global Analysis," in Pippa Norris, ed., Critical Citizens: Global Supportfor Democratic Governance
(New York:OxfordUniversity Press, 1999), pp. 31-56. In the first step, we added up respondent'ssupport
of the statements"Havinga democraticpolitical system" (V157) and "Democracymay have problemsbut
it's better than any other form of government"(V163). Supportfor these statementscould be expressed in
four categories: very good (code 3), fairly good (code 2), fairly bad (code 1), and very bad (code 0) in
case ofV157 and agree strongly(code 3), agree (code 2), disagree (code 1) and disagree strongly (code 0)
in case of V163. People's supportfor these statementshas been added up to a 0 to 6 scale, with 6 repre-
senting the highest supportfor democracy.In the second step, we added up people's support of the state-
ments "Having a strong leader who does not have to bother with parliamentand elections" (V154) and
"Having the army rule" (V156). Analogous to the first step, a 0 to 6 scale of supportfor autocracy was
created. In the third step, we subtractedthe support for autocracy scale from the support for democracy
scale to create an overall index of autocraticversus democraticsupport,ranging from -6 (maximum auto-
cratic support)to +6 (maximum democratic support). In the fourth step, we calculated for each country
the percentage of people scoring at least +4 on this index (since from +4 onward they are closer to the
maximum democraticsupport,+6, than to the neutralpoint, 0). The percentageof solid democratsis thus
obtained for each country.
27. Michael Bratton and Robert Mattes, "Support for Democracy in Africa: Intrinsic or
Instrumental?,"British Journal ofPolitical Science, 31 (2001), 447-74.
28. Welzel;Welzel, Inglehart,and Klingemann.

79