Cultural change in Asia and beyond: From allegiant to assertive citizens

Abstract

In their classic, The Civic Culture, Almond and Verba (1963) define the ideal democratic citizen as an allegiant, trustful, and modestly participatory person. This ideal has shaped how scholars think about consolidated democracies as well the process of democratic development. In contrast, we argue that a new model of assertive citizenship spreads as nations experience social modernization, and that these new norms have potentially positive consequences for government performance. We replicate earlier analyses by Welzel and Dalton (2014) using the new sixth wave of the World Values Survey. Our results broadly confirm the earlier findings on the shift toward a more assertive model of citizenship and the consequences of this shift in producing more effective and accountable governments.