The Civic Culture Transformed
From Allegiant to Assertive Citizens

This is the first study to demonstrate a broad shift in how citizens around the world relate to democratic politics.

Russell J. Dalton (Edited by), Christian Welzel (Edited by)

9781107682726, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 31 December 2014

360 pages, 53 b/w illus. 35 tables
22.6 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.48 kg

'This is an interesting and important volume on political culture, focusing on postmaterialist values and beliefs, their origin, evolution and relation to functioning democracy … It contributes to substantive political science research, especially comparative research; and, perhaps even more to the processes of studying comparative politics.' Perspectives on Politics

This book re-evaluates Almond, Verba, and Pye's original ideas about the shape of a civic culture that supports democracy. Marshaling a massive amount of cross-national, longitudinal public opinion data from the World Values Survey Association, the authors demonstrate multiple manifestations of a deep shift in the mass attitudes and behaviors that undergird democracy. The chapters in this book show that in dozens of countries around the world, citizens have turned away from allegiance toward a decidedly 'assertive' posture to politics: they have become more distrustful of electoral politics, institutions, and representatives and are more ready to confront elites with demands from below. Most importantly, societies that have advanced the most in the transition from an allegiant to an assertive model of citizenship are better-performing democracies - in terms of both accountable and effective governance.

Foreword: pushing the envelope: analyzing the impact of values Marita R. Inglehart
1. Political culture and value change Russell J. Dalton and Christian Welzel
Part I. Changing Values: 2. Value change over a third of a century: the evidence for generational replacement Paul R. Abramson
3. The decline of deference revisited: evidence after twenty-five years Neil Nevitte
4. Enlightening people: the spark of emancipative values Christian Welzel and Alejandro Moreno
Part II. Changing Images of Government: 5. Reassessing the civic-culture model Russell J. Dalton and Doh Chull Shin
6. Dissatisfied democrats: democratic maturation in old and new democracies Hans-Dieter Klingemann
7. Support for democracy in postcommunist Europe and Eurasia Christian Haerpfer and Kseniya Kizilova
Part III. The Impact of Cultural Change: 8. The structure and sources of global environmental attitudes Robert Rohrschneider, Matt Miles and Mark Peffley
9. Social change and the politics of protest Tor Georg Jakobsen and Ola Listhaug
10. Mecca or oil?: why Arab states lag in gender equality Pippa Norris
11. Allegiance eroding: people's dwindling willingness to fight in wars Bi Puranen
12. From allegiant to assertive citizens Christian Welzel and Russell J. Dalton.

Subject Areas: Comparative politics [JPB], Politics & government [JP]