Explaining democratic support in Pakistan and India using modernization theory and instrumentalism

Little is known about determinants of democratic support in South Asia. We study whether modernization theory and/or instrumentalism explain individual variations in democratic support in Pakistan and India. Modernization theory predicts that people with higher education and income and less religious people more strongly endorse self-expression values, which in turn enhance support for democracy. In contrast, instrumentalism theory predicts that the relation between one's societal status and support for democracy is negative in an authoritarian country (Pakistan) but positive in a democratic country (India). Using data from the World Value Survey 6, tolerance is as expected positively related to democratic support in both countries. We interestingly find that support for gender equality is negatively related with democratic support in Pakistan but positively in India. And in contrast to instrumentalism, Pakistani with higher levels of education more strongly support democracy, and Indians with higher income are less supportive of democracy. To conclude, our results only partially support modernization theory for India, and do not support instrumentalism for both countries. We conclude our article with a discussion of possible alternative explanations for these findings and suggestions for future research.