Democratic values and mutual perceptions of human rights in four Pacific Rim nations

Popular belief generally regards Euro-American civic cultures as more democratic than Asian civic cultures. That belief, generally untested, is a potential influence on the effectiveness and satisfactory outcome of intercultural relations. This study investigated first whether this belief, in regard to human rights violations. was shared by 821 university students from Australia, Japan, South Korea. and the USA. Second, these students' own democratic orientation and commitment to human rights were measured using Western concepts of liberal democracy to find if the belief could be empirically substantiated. Third, influences from religious background, sex, attribution style, individualism/collectivism, dogmatism. and general trust in people on these responses were compared to find similarities and/or differences in democracy norms across groups. The result indicated that the students' perception regarding human rights practice conformed to the popular belief by evaluating Australia and the USA more favorably than Japan and Korea. Their own levels of democratic orientation including commitment to human rights, however, did not support this distinction. Some evidence of an East-West cultural divide was found in terms of factors correlating with democracy responses. Although democracy-related judgments were similar across the 4 groups, there were nation acid culture-specific differences in how these judgments were brought about. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.