The Effects of Cultural “isms” on the Fate of Democratic Institutions
By Lainie Frost, Political Theory & Philosophy Editor

By identifying and acknowledging the relationship between culture and social institutions, one can see that cultural factors have a great impact on a country’s ability to have a functioning, thriving democratic institution.

When deconstructing a given culture to see its implications on social institutions, perhaps the most important aspect of the culture to deconstruct is its beliefs or “isms.” By noting a society’s isms (“isms” signifying essential beliefs in a given society), one can undoubtedly account for a society’s democratic political success. While Capitalism and democracy are usually closely aligned in a society giving modernization theorists the ability to argue that a culture’s chances of having a thriving democracy are mostly dependent upon economic development. However there are theorists who argue against this argument due to the effects culture can have on democracy. Personally, I align myself with those theorists who believe that culture (societal characteristics) contributes to more than just economic development when it comes to creating successful social institutions, more specifically a democracy. According to social scientist and Professor at the University of Michigan Ronald Inglehart, proving this theory is simple when used in context.

Inglehart argues that culture and cultural values are the factors which most impact the fate of a democracy in any given society. He states that “culture is path dependent” and suggests that the existence of democratic institutions in a particular country is dependent upon the country’s emphasis on “survival values” versus "self-expression values” (Inglehart 81). For those countries that highly stress self-expression values instead of survival values, they “are far likelier to be democracies than societies that emphasize survival values” [1] .

Cultures that emphasize self-expression values are those countries that have the luxury of concerning themselves with gender equality, women’s rights, environmental policies, and other quality of life issues. Self-expression countries are mostly concerned with such topics because, according to Inglehart, they are the ones who “have grown up under conditions in which survival is taken for granted.” [2] Typically, traditional societies are those which emphasize survival values, while secular societies are more likely to maintain self-expression values.

Because survival is not taken for granted in economically, politically, and culturally undeveloped societies, these societies by default must stress survival values as a means to protect the fate of their peoples. Survival-values-countries are those that have “low levels of subjective well being, report relatively poor health, are low in interpersonal trust, are relatively intolerant toward outgroups, are low on support for gender equality […] are relatively low on environmental activism, and are relatively favorable to authoritarian government.” [3] Inglehart also points out that without the characteristic of interpersonal trust, a social institution such as a democracy will not thrive. According to Political Scientist Samuel P. Huntington’s World Values Survey (which gauges countries’ cultural and societal differences and changes), those countries which are Protestant (excluding Protestant countries which were previously under Communist rule) have the best ranking of interpersonal trust and are therefore the best environments for a democracy.

However elitist these findings may seem, they do apply to the vast variety of countries and cultures. For those who question “With all the heterogeneity in our world, how is it possible that so many countries can be placed in either category in Inglehart’s cultural binary?” It is simple. Countries which were victim to imperialism and colonization maintained the parent country’s cultural isms and assimilated those beliefs into their own. This action has caused similar cultural clusters. This inheritance of isms, especially those of religion, has caused similar stances on living or, for some countries surviving, which explains Inglehart’s self-expression versus survival belief binary. [4]

For some theorists, this argument is still negated by their belief that economic development is the derivative of a democracy; however, Inglehart points out (using Huntington’s World Values Survey) that economic development is in itself only functional in countries that possess qualities which categorize them into the self-expression class. Believing that economic growth is the primary factor for an immortal democracy, one must realize that merely placing a few McDonalds or CEOs in a given country to further its economic development will not reap the benefits that having cultural conducive to democracy would.

Ultimately, because societies have not cultivated interpersonal trust characteristics, survival-belief countries are unable to participate in large social institutions like democracy. Because survival-value countries have negative sentiments towards exterior groups entering the status quo culture, modern countries attempting to plant mock-democracies are often unsuccessful. Survival-value societies also believe in “social conformity rather than individualistic achievement, favor consensus rather than open political conflict, [and] support deference to authority.” [5] If democracy is basically defined by opposing political discourse, the ability and desire for the dissent of the government by the people then obviously survival belief-based countries could not provide circumstances in which a democracy would thrive, much less survive.

Some hypothesize that if a country alters its political culture by adopting a democratic form of government, the problem of both an ill-fated democracy and economic development would be solved. However, this is unrealistic. Simply taking on a new set of legislation does not alter or negate the historic narrative of cultural traits a country sociologically owns. No new set of rules or laws could revise the inability of a society to immediately alter its cultural inclinations of having poor interpersonal trust or being inclined to be a part of participatory institutions if they have always acquiescing to a central authoritative rule. New legislation would simply act as a technical guide that would be difficult, if not impossible, for people in survival-belief countries to accept because it would not reflect the countries’ organic cultures or natural political inclinations.

[1] Lawrence E. Harrison and Samuel P. Huntington, Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 81.

[2] Ibid. , 84.

[3] Ibid., 84.

[4] Ibid., 92.

[5] Ibid., 83.