Democratic values for crisis times. Findings of two theories

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24215/16696581e023

Keywords:

democratic values, political culture, measures of democracy.

Abstract

Using the political culture approach, the article examines a diversity of democracy indices in the light of Inglehart’s and Welzel’s theory of self-expression values and Schwartz’s theory of cultural values, in order to investigate the nature of cultural orientations that underline different ways of conceptualizing and measuring democracy. The work analyzes theoretically and empirically the areas of convergence of both theories, investigating the relationship of their cultural indicators with the various indices in a sample of 100 countries. It applies two measures of "effective democracy" proposed in the literature, as well as those developed by Freedom House, World Bank, Bertelsmann Stiftung and Berlin Social Science Center (WZB) and University of Zurich (UZH). The cultural variables are used to predict each of these democracy indices in multivariate regression models that also include a battery of economic, political, and social indicators. The conclusions aim to contribute to the normative debate in the moment in which public and academic discussions on a crisis or global decline of the democracy are growing.

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Author Biography

José Eduardo Jorge, Facultad de Periodismo y Comunicación Social; Universidad Nacional de La Plata

José Eduardo Jorge es titular del Seminario Comunicación y Cultura Política de la Facultad de Periodismo y Comunicación Social de la UNLP. Dirige el proyecto de investigación “Cultura Política Argentina, Confianza Social y Valores Democráticos”, de la Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Dirigió asimismo los proyectos “Comunidad Cívica y Cultura Política en el Gran La Plata” (UNLP. 2014-2015), “Cultura Política y Medios de Comunicación en la Región del Gran La Plata” (UNLP, 2012-2013), “Comunicación y Cultura Política en el Gran La Plata” (UNLP, 2006-2008), “Medios, Ciudadanía y Democracia” (UNNOBA, 2011-2012) y “La Cultura Política en el Noroeste Bonaerense” (UNNOBA, 2008-2011). Autor del libro “Cultura Política y Democracia en Argentina” (Edulp, 2010) y de numerosos artículos académicos sobre cultura política. Se ha desempeñado desde 1983 como consultor PNUD, periodista político, asesor en comunicación de instituciones públicas y director de encuestas de opinión

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Published

2018-01-19

How to Cite

Jorge, J. E. (2018). Democratic values for crisis times. Findings of two theories. Question/Cuestión, 1(57), e023. https://doi.org/10.24215/16696581e023

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