Spaiser, V, Ranganathan, S, Mann, RP et al. (1 more author) (2014) The Dynamics of Democracy, Development and Cultural Values. PLoS ONE, 10 (3). e0118878. ISSN 1932-6203
Abstract
Over the past decades many countries have experienced rapid changes in their economies, their democratic institutions and the values of their citizens. Comprehensive data measuring these changes across very different countries has recently become openly available. Between country similarities suggest common underlying dynamics in how countries develop in terms of economy, democracy and cultural values. We apply a novel Bayesian dynamical systems approach to identify the model which best captures the complex, mainly non-linear dynamics that underlie these changes. We show that the level of Human Development Index (HDI) in a country drives first democracy and then higher emancipation of citizens. This change occurs once the countries pass a certain threshold in HDI. The data also suggests that there is a limit to the growth of wealth, set by higher emancipation. Having reached a high level of democracy and emancipation, societies tend towards equilibrium that does not support further economic growth. Our findings give strong empirical evidence against a popular political science theory, known as the Human Development Sequence. Contrary to this theory, we find that implementation of human-rights and democratisation precede increases in emancipative values.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2014 Spaiser et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Law (Leeds) > School of Politics & International Studies (POLIS) (Leeds) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Mathematics (Leeds) > Statistics (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 16 Oct 2015 14:35 |
Last Modified: | 16 Oct 2015 15:43 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0097856 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Public Library of Science |
Identification Number: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0097856 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:88964 |