Despite its global rise in popularity, a significant number of people still oppose democracy. The current study evaluates three competing theories of opposition to democracy–developmentalist, culturalist, and elitist – using a series of multi-level regression models that combine individualand country-level variables. Results of our statistical analyses suggest that: 1) country-level indicators of social, political, and economic development are not consistently related to individual support for democracy; 2) macro-cultural factors have mixed effects on individual support for democracy; and 3) individual income and education have strong effects on individual support for democracy, but this relationship is mediated by country-level economic development. Specifically, we find that high-income individuals in relatively underdeveloped countries are more likely to oppose democracy than high-income individuals in wealthier countries. These results suggest that economic, social, and political development do not necessarily go together.
AcemogluDaronJohnsonSimonRobinsonJames A.YaredPierre. 2005. “From Education to Democracy?” American Economic Review95(2):44–49.
2.
AcemogluDaronJohnsonSimonRobinsonJames A.YaredPierre. 2008. “Income and Democracy.” American Economic Review98(3):808–42.
3.
AcemogluDaronRobinsonJames A.2005. Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press.
4.
AlexanderGerard. 2002. The Sources of Democratic Consolidation. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
5.
AnsellBen W.SamuelsDavid J.2014. Inequality and Democratization: An Elite-competition Approach. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
6.
ArielyGalDavidovEldad. 2011. “Can We Rate Public Support for Democracy in a Comparable Way? Cross-national Equivalence of Democratic Attitudes in the World Value Survey.” Social Indicators Research104(2):271–86.
7.
Asia Foundation. 2013. Profile of the Protestors: A Survey of Pro and Anti-government Demonstrators in Bangkok on November 30, 2103. Bangkok, Thailand: The Asia Foundation. Retrieved November 9, 2015 (http://asiafoundation.org/publications/pdf/1301).
BarroRobert J.LeeJong Wha. 2013. “A New Data Set of Educational Attainment in the World, 1950–2010.” Journal of Development Economics104:184–98.
10.
BellinEva. 2000. “Contingent Democrats: Industrialists, Labor, and Democratization in Late-developing Countries.” World Politics52(2):175–205.
11.
CardosoFernando HenriqueFalettoEnzo. 1979. Dependency and Development in Latin America. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
12.
CiftciSabri. 2010. “Modernization, Islam, or Social Capital: What Explains Attitudes toward Democracy in the Muslim World?” Comparative Political Studies43(11):1442–70.
13.
CiftciSabri. 2013. “Secular-Islamist Cleavage, Values, and Support for Democracy and Shari’a in the Arab World.” Political Research Quarterly66(4):781–93.
14.
CollinsKathleenOwenErica. 2012. “Islamic Religiosity and Regime Preferences: Explaining Support for Democracy and Political Islam in Central Asia and the Caucasus.” Political Research Quarterly65(3):499–515.
CorderoGuillermoSimonPablo. 2016. “Economic Crisis and Support for Democracy in Europe.” West European Politics39(2):305–25.
17.
DaltonRussell J.2004. Democratic Challenges, Democratic Choices: The Erosion of Political Support in Advanced Industrial Democracies. New York: Oxford University Press.
18.
EastonDavid. 1965. A System Analysis of Political Life. New York: John Wiley.
19.
ElyacharJulia. 2014. “Upending Infrastructure: Tamarod, Resistance, and Agency after the January 25th Revolution in Egypt.” History and Anthropology25(4):452–71.
20.
EsmerYilmaz. 2002. “Is There an Islamic Civilization?” Comparative Sociology1(3/4):265–98.
21.
EspositoJohn L.MogahedDalia. 2007. Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think. New York: Gallup Press.
22.
EvansGeoffreyStephenWhitefield. 1995. “The Politics and Economics of Democratic Commitment: Support for Democracy in Transition Societies.” British Journal of Political Science25(4):485–514.
23.
FishM. Steven. 2011. Are Muslims Distinctive? A Look at the Evidence. New York: Oxford University Press.
24.
Fuchs-SchündelnNicolaSchündelnMatthias. 2015. “On the Endogeneity of Political Preferences: Evidence from Individual Experience with Democracy.” Science347(6226):1145–48.
25.
GormanBrandon. 2016. “Appropriating Democracy in North Africa.”International Journal of Comparative Sociology57(5):288–309.
26.
GormanBrandon. 2018. “The Myth of the Secular-Islamist Divide in Muslim Politics: Evidence from Tunisia.”Current Sociology66(1):145–164.
27.
GreenwoodScott. 2008. “Bad for Business? Entrepreneurs and Democracy in the Arab World.” Comparative Political Studies41(6):837–60.
28.
HaerpferChristian W.2008. “Support for Democracy and Autocracy in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, 1992-2002.” International Political Science Review29(4):411–31.
HardinJames W.SchmiedicheHenrikCarrollRaymond J.2003. “The Simulation Extrapolation Method for Fitting Generalized Linear Models with Additive Measurement Error.” The Stata Journal3(4):373–85.
31.
HigleyJohnBurtonMichael G.1989. “The Elite Variable in Democratic Transitions and Breakdowns.” American Sociological Review54(1):17–32.
32.
HigleyJohnBurtonMichael G.2006. Elite Foundations of Liberal Democracy. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
33.
HofmannSteven Ryan. 2004. “Islam and Democracy Micro-level Indications of Compatibility.” Comparative Political Studies37(6):652–76.
34.
HsiaoCheng. 2014. Analysis of Panel Data. New York: Cambridge University Press.
35.
HuntingtonSamuel P.1968. Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
36.
HuntingtonSamuel P.1991. The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.
37.
HuntingtonSamuel P.1993. “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs72(3):22–49.
38.
InglehartRonald. 2003. “How Solid Is Mass Support for Democracy—and How Can We Measure It?” Political Science & Politics36(1):51–57.
39.
InglehartRonaldWelzelChristian. 2005. Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence. New York: Cambridge University Press.
40.
InglehartRonaldWelzelChristian. 2010. “Changing Mass Priorities: The Link between Modernization and Democracy.” Perspectives on Politics8(2):551–67.
41.
KarlTerry Lynn. 1990. “Dilemmas of Democratization in Latin America.” Comparative Politics23(1):1–21.
42.
KotzianPeter. 2011. “Public Support for Liberal Democracy.” International Political Science Review/Revue internationale de science politique32(1):23–41.
43.
KurlantzickJoshua. 2013. Democracy in Retreat: The Revolt of the Middle Class and the Worldwide Decline of Representative Government. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
44.
KurzmanCharles. 1998. “Waves of Democratization.”Studies in Comparative International Development33(1):42–64.
45.
KurzmanCharles. 2011. The Missing Martyrs: Why There Are So Few Muslim Terrorists. New York: Oxford University Press.
46.
KurzmanCharlesLeaheyErin. 2004. “Intellectuals and Democratization” American Journal of Sociology109(4):937–986.
47.
KurzmanCharlesNaqviIjlal. 2010. “Do Muslims Vote Islamic?”Journal of Democracy21(2):50–63.
LewisBernard. 1996. “Islam and Liberal Democracy.” Journal of Democracy7(2):52–63.
50.
LewisBernard. 2010. Faith and Power: Religion and Politics in the Middle East. New York: Oxford University Press.
51.
LipsetSeymour Martin. 1959. “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy.” American Political Science Review53(1):69–105.
52.
LipsetSeymour Martin. 1994. “The Social Requisites of Democracy Revisited: 1993 Presidential Address.” American Sociological Review59(1):1–22.
53.
MarkoffJohn. 2015. Waves of Democracy: Social Movements and Political Change. Boulder, CO: Paradigm.
54.
MarshallMonty G.2014. Polity IV Project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800-2013. Vienna, VA: Center for Systemic Peace.
55.
Martinez KuhontaErikSinpengAim. 2014. “Democratic Regression in Thailand: The Ambivalent Role of Civil Society and Political Institutions.” Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs36(3):333–55.
56.
MarxKarl. [1852] 1978. “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.” Pp. 594–438 in The Marx-Engels Reader, edited by R. C. Tucker. New York, NY: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc.
57.
MaselandRobbertvan HoornAndré. 2011. “Why Muslims like Democracy yet Have so Little of It.” Public Choice147(3–4):481–96.
58.
MeyerJohn W.2010. “World Society, Institutional Theories, and the Actor.” Annual Review of Sociology36(1):1–20.
59.
MeyerJohn W.BoliJohnThomasGeorge M.RamirezFrancisco O.1997. “World Society and the Nation-State.” American Journal of Sociology103(1):144–81.
60.
MounkJascha. 2018. The People vs. Democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
61.
NorrisPippaInglehartRonald. 2002. “Islamic Culture and Democracy: Testing the ‘Clash of Civilizations’ Thesis.” Comparative Sociology1(3/4):235–63.
62.
O’DonnellGuillermo A.1973. Modernization and Bureaucratic-authoritarianism: Studies in South American Politics. Berkeley, CA: Institute of International Studies, University of California.
63.
PaxtonPamela. 2002. “Social Capital and Democracy: An Interdependent Relationship.” American Sociological Review67(2):254–77.
64.
PrzeworskiAdamAlvarezMichael E.CheibubJose AntonioLimongiFernando. 2000. Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-being in the World, 1950-1990. New York: Cambridge University Press.
65.
RefaieMostafa Magdy. 2015. Political Participation in Egypt: Perceptions and Practice. Cairo, Egypt: Egyptian Center for Public Opinion Research (Baseera).
66.
RiedlMaximilianGeisheckerIngo. 2014. “Keep It Simple: Estimation Strategies for Ordered Response Models with Fixed Effects.” Journal of Applied Statistics41(11):2358–74.
67.
RobbinsMichael D. H.TesslerMark. 2012. “The Effect of Elections on Public Opinion toward Democracy: Evidence from Longitudinal Survey Research in Algeria.” Comparative Political Studies45(10):1255–76.
68.
RueschemeyerDietrichHuberEvelyneStephensJohn D.1992. Capitalist Development and Democracy. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
SchumpeterJoseph A. [1942] 1994. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. New York: Routledge.
71.
SteinAndrew J.1998. “The Consequences of the Nicaraguan Revolution for Political Tolerance: Explaining Differences among the Mass Public, Catholic Priests, and Secular Elites.” Comparative Politics30(3):335–53.
72.
StevensDanielBishinBenjamin G.BarrRobert R.2006. “Authoritarian Attitudes, Democracy, and Policy Preferences among Latin American Elites.” American Journal of Political Science50(3):606–20.
73.
SullivanJohn L.WalshPatShamirMichalBarnumDavid G.GibsonJames L.1993. “Why Politicians Are More Tolerant: Selective Recruitment and Socialization among Political Elites in Britain, Israel, New Zealand and the United States.” British Journal of Political Science23(1):51–76.
74.
TabachnickBarbara G.FidellLinda S.2013. Using Multivariate Statistics. New York: Pearson.
75.
TezcürGüneş MuratAzadarmakiTaghiBaharMehriNayebiHooshang. 2012. “Support for Democracy in Iran.” Political Research Quarterly65(2):235–47.
von HippelPaul T.2009. “How to Impute Interactions, Squares, and Other Transformed Variables.” Sociological Methodology39:265–91.
78.
WelzelChristian. 2007. “Are Levels of Democracy Affected by Mass Attitudes? Testing Attainment and Sustainment Effects on Democracy.” International Political Science Review/Revue internationale de science politique28(4):397–424.
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
