Comparative Politics Democracy and Culture

Culture(s) incompatible with democracy?

Do we need a democratic culture?
Are certain cultures incompatible with democracy?

Culture: primordialist vs constructivist arguments
Cultural modernization theory (Montesquieu and Mill):
Economic development > cultural changes > democratic reform
Which aspects of culture are problematic?
Which exactly are the causal relationships?

Civic culture

Almond and Verba, The Civic Culture, 1960
How individuals feel about the political system
Parochial, subject, and civic culture

Inglehart, 1990

Political culture is determined by life satisfaction, trust, and support
for gradual social change

Inglehart and Welzel, Word Cultural Map, 2005

Two dimensions of cross-cultural variation
Traditional values or rational-secular values (religion, family roles,
deference to authority, national pride; social issues?)
Survival values or self-expression values (physical, economic
security, ethnocentric, low trust, low tolerance; gender, racial,
sexual equality, environment, tolerance, activism, satisfaction)
Economic development > move from bottom left to top right
Two phases: industrialization, post-industrialization

Religion(s) incompatible with democracy?

Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, 1996
Confucianism and Islam incompatible with democracy

Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 1930

Protestantism > economic development > bourgeoisie > democracy
Counterarguments: basics already in Renaissance Italy, Christianity in
general

Lipset, 1960

Catholicism, contrary to democracy, belief in one God
contrary to pluralism

Discussion: Democracy in the Arab world

Do you think that economic development would lead to democracy in
the Arab region? Or do we need a cultural change first?
Taking into account some iliberal opinions among certain Muslim
communities in the West, was Huntington right when he said that Islam
is not compatible with democracy?
Larry Diamond, what must change for Arab democracies to exist:
One single democratic regime in the region
US pressing for democratic reforms
A decrease in oil prices
Thoughts?
Could it be there is nothing in cultures and religions that is
incompatible with democracy, and the key factor is the political leaders
and elites decisions?