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Cultural Democratization, East and West:
How People around the World View Democracy
Central European University
PCLS 5188, Spring 2015
Instructor: Doh C. Shin
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall more than two decades ago, numerous public opinion surveys have been
conducted to monitor and compare how ordinary citizenries have reacted to the democratization taking place
around them. These surveys have revealed that a large majority of the global mass publics sees democracy as
valuable and prefers it to autocratic regimes. On the basis of their findings, an increasing number of scholars
and policymakers have recently begun to advocate the thesis that the entire world is becoming democratic. This
course is designed to evaluate this thesis of global democratization by analyzing and comparing citizen views of
democracy across regions in democratic transitions, including Africa, the Middle East, East Asia, Central and
Eastern Europe, and Latin America.
Conceptually, the course builds on the notion that democratization is a dynamic phenomenon that has multiple dimensions and levels, and it thus takes place in individual citizens as well as their political institutions. Theoretically, it is grounded in the perspective that to operate properly, a democratic political system requires “software” congruent with the various components of its institutional hardware, and citizen orientations to democracy and their favorable reactions to its institutions are key components of the software required for democracy to work. Objectives: I have three objectives in teaching this course. The first is to review recent developments in the
study of democratic culture. The second is to introduce regional and global public opinion surveys recently
conducted to monitor citizen reactions to democratization. The third is to encourage students to develop the
skills of evaluating theoretical and empirical claims.
Requirements:
Students should note that this is not a lecture course; it is a seminar featuring discussion of the debates and issues raised in the daily assigned readings. As a seminar, class will be conducted in a “conference” style. In each session, students will take turns in presenting the assigned readings. As discussion leaders, they should draw the class into identifying the core questions (or issues) examined and overlooked in the assigned readings, and evaluating the answers and claims presented in those readings. All students should bring a short list of pertinent issues or questions (one paragraph) from the assigned readings and/or other sources. They should also note that this seminar is a “thinking” course, not a “fact” or “quantitative analysis” course. What matters most in research on political life always includes organizing concepts to sort out competing ideas and theoretical claims, and perform logical analyses on those. Because of the short period of the course, I do not require students to prepare a research paper. Instead, I ask
them to prepare and present a short (2-3 pages) research proposal (or design) for the study of a conceptual,
theoretical, or empirical issue, which concerns the emergence of democratic political culture in the non-Western
world. Because of limited time between classes, I do not use any of the books recommended below as a
required reading. For each class session, I will assign a few relatively short journal articles.
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Grading: Grading will be made according to the following weights: Class attendance and participation, 40%, Two short written assignments, 20%; and One written research proposal, 40%. Recommended Books: Paul Blokker, Multiple Democracies in Europe: Political Culture in New Member States, Routledge, 2012. John Booth and Patricia Richard, Latin American Political Culture: Public Opinion and Democracy, CQ Press, 2014. Hans‐Dieter Klingemann, Dieter Fuchs, and Jan Zielonka, eds., Democracy and Political Culture in Eastern Europe, Routledge, 2008. Michael Bratton, Robert Mattes, and E. Gyimah-Boadi, Public Opinion,Democracy, and Market
Reform in Africa, Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Russell J. Dalton and Christian Welzel eds., The Civic Culture Transformed, Cambridge University Press, 2014. Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner eds., How People View Democracy, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. Pippa Norris, Democratic deficit. Critical citizens revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2011.
Doh Chull Shin, Confucianism and Democratization in East Asia, Cambridge University Press, 2012. Mark A. Tessler, Islam and the Search for a Political Formula: How Ordinary Citizens in
the Muslim Middle East Think about Islam’s Place in Political Life, Indiana University
Press, 2015 (forthcoming).
Christian Welzel, Freedom Rising: Human Empowerment and the Quest for Emancipation, Cambridge University Press, 2013. Resources
Journals:
Journal of Democracy
Democratization
Taiwan Journal of Democracy
Comparative Political Studies
Comparative Politics
International Public Opinion Surveys:
Afrobarometer: www.afrobarometer.org
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AmericasBarometer: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/lapop/about-americasbarometer.php
Arab Barometer: www.arabbarometer.org
Asian Barometer: www.asianbarometer.org
Comparative Study of Electoral Systems: www.cses.org
European Social Survey: http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/
Global Barometer Surveys: www.globalbarometers.org
International Social Survey Programme: www.issp.org
Latinobarómetro: www.latinobarometro.org/latino/latinobarometro.jsp
New Europe Barometer: www.cspp.strath.ac.uk
World Value Surveys: www.worldvaluessurvey.org
Datasets on Democracy and Democratization:
Freedom House: Freedom in the World Reports:
http://www.freedomhouse.org
Ratings on the guarantee of political rights and civil rights in all countries worldwide. Data
available from 1972 onward and yearly updated.
BTI - Bertelsmann Transformations Index:
http://www.bertelsmann-transformation-index.de
Index developed by the Bertelsmann Foundation on the political and economic development status of
120 countries in transition (2003-2012).
Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index:
http://www.eiu.com
Democracy index developed on the basis of expert evaluations of 60 factors from five areas (election
process, civil rights, government capability, participation and political culture) in 167 countries in the
years 2006, 2008 and 2010, 2012).
Transparencies International: Global Corruption Barometer
http://www.transparency.org/research/gcb/overview
Corruption perception index as evidence of corruption in 107 countries.
Global Democracy Ranking
http://www.democracyranking.org/en/index.htm
Annual ranking of the quality of democracy
Polity:
http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htm
Classification of political systems on a scale between the two extremes autocracy and democracy.
Yearly updated data available for 167 countries over the period 1800-2012.
World Bank - Worldwide Governance Indicators:
http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/index.asp
Indices for six governance dimensions based on the combination of data from a broad array of data
sources. Available for 213 countries in the time span 1996-2009.
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Course Schedule and Readings
Readings listed below for each session are divided into two groups. All the items in the first group
are mandatory readings, that is, everyone is required to read. Those in the second group are
optional ones, which will be assigned to individual students who volunteer to make extra
contributions to class discussion and earn “bonus points”.
April 20
Introduction and Overview: What, Why, and How
For this first session, students are asked to:
(1) Prepare a short essay (1-page) introducing their educational backgrounds, research
experiences and interests, and career goals;
(2) Describe the most intellectually rewarding of all the political science books read;
(3) Browse through the latest issues of Journal of Democracy, Democratization, and Taiwan
Journal of democracy.
April 21
Thesis of Global Democratization: Theoretical Debates
Francis Fukuyama, “At ‘the end of History’ still stands liberal democracy,” The Wall Street
Journal (June 6, 2014).
Amartya Sen, “Democracy as a Universal Value,” Journal of Democracy (July 1999), 3-17.
Giovanni Sartori, “How Far Can Free Government Travel,” Journal of Democracy (July 1995),
101-111.
Larry Diamond, “Why Wait for Democracy?” The Wilson Quarterly (winter 2013).
Available online from http://wilsonquarterly.com/stories/why-wait-for-democracy/
Timothy Stanley and Alexander Lee, “It is Still Not the End of History,” The Atlantic
(September 1, 2014).
Karlsten Struhl, “Is Democracy a Universal Value? Whose Democracy?” available from
https://www.academia.edu/3457921/Is_Democracy_a_Universal_Value_Whose_Democracy
April 22
Scholarly Definitions of Democracy
Aristotle, “Constitutions and their Classification” (handout).
Abraham Lincoln, “Gettysburg Address” (e-reserve).
Robert Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition, 1-9 (e-reserve).
Larry Diamond, The Spirit of Democracy, 20-26.
Richard Rose, “Choosing Democracy as the Lesser Evil” (e-reserve).
Tony Blair, “For True Democracy, the Right to Vote is not enough,” New York Times
(December 4, 2014).
Quincy Wright, “The Meaning of Democracy,” UNESCO, March 10, 1949 (e-reserve).
Ralf Dahrendorf, “A Definition of Democracy,” Journal of Democracy (October 2003), 103.
Freedom House, “Electoral Democracy Designation” (e-reserve).
Economist Intelligence Unit, “Methodology” (e-reserve).
Adam Przeworski, “Minimalist Conception of Democracy” (e-reserve).
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Michael Coppedge and John Gerring, “Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy: A New
Approach,” Perspectives on Politics (June 2011), 246-267.
Mark Plattner, “Populism, Pluralism, and Liberal Democracy,” Journal of Democracy
(January 2010), 81-92.
Lisa Strom, “An Elemental Definition of Democracy and its Advantages for Comparing Political
Regime Types,” Democratization (2008) 15(2), 215-229.
Thomas Insua, “A Maximalist Approach to Measure Democracy,” (October 2014).
April 23
Democratic Political Culture
Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, Civic Culture (1963), 13-26 (e-reserve).
Aaron Wildavsky, “Democracy as a Coalition of Cultures” (e-reserve).
Robert Putnam, “What Makes Democracy Work?” National Civic Review, (1993) (e-reserve).
Christian Welzel and Ronald Inglehart, “The Role of Ordinary People in Democratization”
Journal of Democracy (January 2008), 126-40.
Russell Dalton and Doh Chull Shin, “Reassessing the Civic Culture Model,” in Russell Dalton
and Christian Welzel, eds., The Civic Culture Transformed, 91-115.
“Inglehart-Welzel Cultural Map of the World,” available online from
https://moldovanpress.wordpress.com/2010/09/10/inglehart-welzel-cultural-map-of-the-world/
April 27
Public Opinion Research on Democracy
For this class session, all students are asked to choose one of the regional barometer websites
listed above, and report on its main achievements.
Larry Diamond, “Introduction” in Diamond and Plattner, eds., How People View Democracy,
ix – xxii. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.
Russ Dalton and Christian Welzel, “Political Culture and Value Change,” in Russell Dalton
and Christian Welzel, eds., The Civic Culture Transformed, 1-11.
Robert Mattes, “Public Opinion Research in Emerging Democracies,” in W. Donsbach
and M.W. Traugott (eds.), The Sage Handbook of Public Opinion Research. London:
Sage, 2007, 113–22.
Russell Dalton et al., “Understanding Democracy,” Journal of Democracy (October 2007),
142-156.
Ellen Carnaghan, “The Difficulty of Measuring Support for Democracy in a Changing Society:
Evidence from Russia,” Democratization 18, no. 3 (2011): 682-706.
Andrea Schedler and Rodolfo Sarsfield, “Democrats with Adjectives: Linking Direct and
Indirect Measures of Democratic Support.” European Journal of Political Research
(2007) 46 (5): 637-659.
Doh Shin, “Democratization: Perspectives from Global Citizenries,” in Oxford
Handbook of Political Behavior eds. R. Dalton and H. Klingemann, New York: 2007
(e-reserve).
Pippa Norris, “The Globalization of Comparative Public Opinion Research.” In Todd
Landman and Neil Robinson, eds., The Sage Handbook of Comparative Politics.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc., 2009 (e-reserve).
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April 28
Citizen Views of Democracy in Confucian East Asia
Doh Shin “Confucianism in-Principle” (handout).
“What China Means by “Democracy”?” The Economist (November 2014).
Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats, “Asians on Democracy” available from
http://cald.org/site/cald/?page_id=5265 (e-reserve).
Doh Shin, “The Asian Values Debate: a Reassessment” (April 2015) (e-reserve).
Min-Hua Hwang, “Understanding of Democracy in East Asian Societies,” presented at “23rd
World Congress of Political Science,” held in Montreal, July 2014 (e-reserve).
Doh Shin and Jason Wells, “Is Democracy the Only Game in Town?” Journal of Democracy
(April 2005), 88-101.
Yun-han Chu and Min-hua Huang. 2010. “Solving an Asian Puzzle,” Journal of Democracy
21 (4): 114-121.
Doh Shin and Youngho Cho, “How East Asians Understand Democracy,” Asien (July 2010):
21-40.
Jie Lu and Tianjian Shi, “The Battle of Ideas and Discourses before Democratic
Transition,” International Political Science Review (January 2015), 36: 20-41.
Larry Diamond, “Coming Wave,” Journal of Democracy (January 2012), 5-13.
Taiwan Journal of Democracy (July 2013) special issue on “Contending Perspectives on the
Sources of International Trust and Regime Support in East Asia.”
April 29
Citizen Views of Democracy in the Middle East
Mark Tessler, “Mapping and Explaining Attitudes toward Political Islam among Ordinary
Citizens in the Middle East and North Africa,” Economic Research Forum Working
Paper 902, 2015.
Amaney Jamal and Mark Tessler, “Attitudes in the Arab World,” Journal of Democracy
(January 2008), 97-110.
Fares Braizat, “What Arabs Think,” Journal of Democracy (October 2010), 131-138.
Sabrina de Regt, “Arabs Want Democracy, but What Kind?” Advances in Applied Sociology
(2013), 37-46.
Ephraim Yuchtman-Ya’ar and Yasmin Alkalay, “Political Attitudes in the Muslim World,”
Journal of Democracy (July 2010), 122-134.
Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, “Islamic Culture and Democracy: Testing the ‘Clash of
Civilization’ Thesis,” Comparative Sociology (2002): 297-333.
Mark Tessler and E. Gao. 2005.’Gauging Arab Support for Democracy’ Journal
of Democracy (July 2005): 83‐97.
David Doherty and Jessica Mecellem, “Conceptions of Democracy in the Arab World.”
(unpublished working paper).
Lindsay J. Benstead, “Why Do Some Arab Citizens See Democracy as Unsuitable for their
Country?” Democratization published on line (September 2014), 1-24.
Alfred Stepan and Grame Robertson, “An ‘Arab’ More than a ‘Muslim’ Democracy Gap,”
Journal of Democracy (2003), 30-44.
Larry Diamond, “Why are there no Arab Democracies?” Journal of Democracy (January 2010),
93-104.
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April 30
Citizen Views of Democracy in Africa
Michael Bratton and Robert Mattes, “Support for Democracy in Africa: Intrinsic or
Instrumental?” British Journal of Political Science (2001) 31(3): 447–474.
Robert Mattes, “South Africa: Democracy without People,” Journal of Democracy (2002)
13 (1): 23-36.
Michael Bratton and Robert Mattes, “Neither Consolidating nor Fully Democratic:
The Evolution of African Political Regimes, 1999-2008,” Afrobarometer Briefing
Paper No. 67.
Michael Bratton, “Anchoring the “D-Word in Africa,” Journal of Democracy (January
2010), 106-113.
Nic Cheeseman, “Does African Middle Class Defend Democracy,” Afrobarometer
Working paper 150 (December 2014).
Robert Mattes and Doh Chull Shin, “Democratic Impact of Cultural Values in Africa and Asia,”
(20015), Afrobarometer Working Paper 40.
Elke Zuern, “Democratization as Liberation: Competing African perspectives on Democracy,”
Democratization (2009) 16(3): 585-603.
Mattes, Robert and Michael Bratton, “Learning about democracy in Africa: Awareness,
Performance, and Experience,” American Journal of Political Science (2007), 192-217.
Dan Ottemoeller, “Popular Perceptions of Democracy: Elections and Attitudes in Uganda,”
Comparative Political Studies (1998) 31 (1): 98-124.
E. Gimah-Boadi, “Africa’s Waning Commitment to Democracy,” Journal of Democracy
(January 2015), 101-113.
May 4
Citizen Views of Democracy in Latin America
Marta Lagos, “Latin America’s Diversity of Views,” Journal of Democracy (January 2008),
111-125.
“Latinobarometro Poll: Listen to Me,” The Economist (November 2, 2013). Available online
from http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21588886-slightly-brighter-picturedemocracy-not-liberal-freedoms-listen-me
Marta Lagos, “Democracy in Latin America” (February 2014).
Margarita Corral, “The State of Democracy in Latin America: a Comparative Analysis of the
Attitudes of Citizens and Elites,” (January 2011).
Elizabeth J. Zechmeister, “The Political Culture of Democracy in the Americas, 2014:
Democratic Governance across 10 Years of the AmericasBarometer Executive Summary”
Julio Carrión, “Illiberal Democracy and Normative Democracy: How is Democracy Defined
in the Americas?” In Mitchell Seligson, ed. Challenges to Democracy in LatinAmerica
and the Caribbean: Evidence from the AmericasBarometer. VanderbiltUniversity, 2008.
Available from http://www.vanderbilt.edu/lapop/ab2006/challenges1-en.pdf (e-reserve).
Mitchell Seligson and Amy Smith, “Political Culture of Democracy, 2010: Democratic
Consolidation in Americas in Hard Times.” Available online from
http://lapop.ccp.ucr.ac.cr/pdf/Report_on_the_Americas_English_Final2.pdf
Damarys Canache, “Citizens’ Conceptualizations of Democracy: Structural Complexity,
Substantive Content, and Political Significance,” Comparative Political
Studies (2012) 45(9), 1132–1158.
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David Crow, “The Party’s Over: Citizen Conceptions of Democracy and Political Dissatisfaction
in Mexico,” Comparative Politics (2010) 43(1), 41–61.
Scott Mainwaring and Anival Perez-Linan, “Cross-currents in Latin America,” Journal of
Democracy (January 2015), 114-127.
May 5
Citizen Views of Democracy in Europe
Richard Rose, “Learning to Support Democracy,” Journal of Democracy (July 2007),
Richard Rose, “Advancing into Europe? The Contrasting Goals of Post-Communist Countries.”
Ellen Carnaghan, 2012. “Popular Support for Democracy ad Autocracy in Russia,” Russian
Analytical Digest (September 19), 2-4.
Henry Hale. 2012. “Trends in Russian Views on Democracy 2008-2012: Has There Been a
Russian Democratic Awakening?” Russian Analytical Digest (September 19), 9-12.
“Opinion Polls: Conceptions of Democracy,” Russian Analytical Digest (September 19), 5-8.
Dieter Fuchs and Edeltraud Roller. “Learned Democracy? Support for Democracy in
Central and Eastern Europe.” International Journal of Sociology (2006) 36 (3): 70-96.
Robert Rohrschneider, “Transitional Democracies: The East/West German Model,” presented at
“Rethinking Democracy in the New Millennium,” University of Houston, Houston,
Texas, February 17-20, 2000 (e-reserve).
Monica Ferrin and Hanspeter Kriesi, “Europeans’ Understandings and Evaluations of
Democracy.” Available from http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/permalink/800ea36f3a8d-11e4-95d4-005056b8065f.pdf.
Besir Ceska and Pedro Magalhael, “The Meaning of Democracy and its Determinants.”
(2014, unpublished manuscript) (e-reserve).
Elenora Tafuro, “Support for Democracy in Russia: Where Next,” (April 25, 2013).
Available online from http://fride.org/blog/support-for-democracy-in-russia-where-next/
Dieter Fuch, “The Democratic Culture of United Germany.” In Pippa Norris (ed.), Critical
Citizens, 123-145. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Monica Pereira,“Types of Democrats in Europe: Hierarchy and Differences.” Paper presented
at the Seminar in Politics and Society, Collegio Carlo Alberto, November 8 2012.
Christian Haerpfer and Kseniya Kisilov, “Support for Democracy in Postcommunist Europe
and Post-Soviet Eurasia,” in Dalton and Welzel, eds., The Civic Culture Transformed,
158-183.
May 6
Global Democratization Thesis: Empirical Tests
Doh Chull Shin, “Citizen Conceptions of Democracy: an Evaluation and Synthesis of Recent
Public Opinion Research.” The Center for the Study of Democracy, University of
California, Irvine, April 2015.
Pippa Norris, Democratic Deficit, chap. 8 “Democratic Knowledge,” 142-168.
Christian Welzel, Freedom Rising, chap. 10 “Paradox of Democracy”, 307-331.
Alejandro Moreno Alvarez and Christian Welzel, “How Values Shape People’s View
of Democracy?” available from http://www.democracy.uci.edu/files/docs/
conferences/2011/Moreno%20Welzel_Chapter.pdf
May 7
Presentations of Research Proposals
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