Democratic Attitudes and Political Participation in the Developing World

Prior studies on political culture and democratization in the developing world have focused on either democratic attitudes or political participation. Few, however, have examined the relationship between the two. In this paper, I argue that citizens in developing countries tend to participate in democratic politics because they are attitudinally attached to democracy. Although the structural conditions for political participation such as democratic experience and resources are deficient in the developing world, citizens with strong and deeply held attitudes toward democracy compensates for this deficit. Using data from 23 transitioning and newly democratic countries listed in the fifth World Values Survey and multilevel modeling, I confirm the positive relationship between democratic attitudes and political participation. My findings shed new light on how public attitudes toward democracy enhance active political life in the developing world.