Culture, institutions and democratization*

Yuriy Gorodnichenko and Gérard Roland

Public Choice, 2021, vol. 187, issue 1, No 12, 165-195

Abstract: Abstract We construct a model of revolution and transition to democracy under individualistic and collectivist cultures. The main result is that, despite facing potentially more challenging collective action problems, countries with individualistic cultures are more likely to end up adopting democracy earlier than countries with collectivist cultures. Our empirical analysis suggests a strong and robust association between individualistic cultures and average polity scores and durations of democracy, even after controlling for other determinants of democracy emphasized in the literature. We provide evidence that countries with collectivist cultures also are more likely to experience autocratic breakdowns and transitions from autocracy to autocracy.

Keywords: Culture; Individualism; Collectivism; Democratization; Collective action (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H1 P48 Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11127-020-00811-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Culture, Institutions and Democratization (2015)
Working Paper: Culture, Institutions and Democratization (2015)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:187:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s11127-020-00811-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/11127/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11127-020-00811-8

Access Statistics for this article

Public Choice is currently edited by WIlliam F. Shughart II

More articles in Public Choice from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().