Democracy, Dictatorship and People’s Beliefs: Evidence from the World Value Longitudinal Survey

Vivek Jadhav ()
Additional contact information
Vivek Jadhav: Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad, India, Postal: Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad, India

Journal of Economic Integration, 2024, vol. 39, issue 4, 831-848

Abstract: The relationship between economic outcomes and political institutions is a topic of extensive debate. Political institutions influence not only economic results but also societal norms and beliefs. This study utilizes two global datasets, the World Values Longitudinal Survey and the Global State of Democracy Index from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, alongside economic data to examine how beliefs and values vary across different political regimes. This study has three main findings. First, political regimes significantly alter individuals' perspectives on the trade-off between equality and freedom. Specifically, under authoritarian regimes, individuals with higher incomes tend to prioritize freedom over equality more than those with lower incomes do. Second, across various regime types, individuals in higher-income categories consistently exhibit less concern for income equality than those in lower-income categories do. Third, within democratic regimes, individuals with lower incomes consistently prioritize income equality over their higher-income counterparts, regardless of regime type. These findings underscore the dynamic interplay between political institutions and societal values, highlighting how political regimes shape individual beliefs about equality, freedom, and economic fairness.

Keywords: Democracy; Dictatorship; Belief; Values (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D71 D72 D83 J17 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.e-jei.org Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:ris:integr:0924

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Integration is currently edited by Seongeun Kim

More articles in Journal of Economic Integration from Center for Economic Integration, Sejong University Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Yunhoe Kim ().