Political Culture Congruence and Political Stability

Tamir Sheafer () and Shaul Shenhav
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Tamir Sheafer: The Department of Political Science, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel
Shaul Shenhav: The Department of Political Science, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2013, vol. 57, issue 2, 232-257

Abstract: The premise of the cultural congruence hypothesis is that the level of congruence between democratic values among the public and in political institutions of a country is an important indication of political stability: the greater the congruence, the greater the stability. Though this hypothesis was proposed almost fifty years ago, it has never been fully examined. A crucial weakness of the hypothesis is that it is blind to the direction of incongruence: instability increases if the public has either more or less freedom relative to their expectations. But based on what we learn from Prospect Theory, one may expect to find different behaviors in these two situations. The empirical analyses that follow confirm this expectation. The article also evaluates the congruence hypothesis in light of the institutional hypothesis. Rather than seeing these hypotheses as competing, the authors claim that it is more productive to focus on the interaction between them, thus improving their understanding of political stability.

Keywords: political stability; Congruence Hypothesis; Prospect Theory; Political Values (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jocore:v:57:y:2013:i:2:p:232-257

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