Predicting Democracy Thoughts

Democratic Proclivity is a trait of individuals that describes how much an individual endorses Democracy. The Democratic Proclivity Scale has been proposed to measure Democratic Proclivity within an individual. The DPS examines the four basic questions through a self-report measure. Democratic Proclivity can help predict behavior when taking into account External Factors. I propose the Democratic Propensity Model (DPM) to identify and relate three categories of variables that can predict an individual's Democratic Proclivity. The DPM can help predict behavior of an individual through an examination of the effect of an individual's related variables on his or her democratic proclivity and a consideration of External Factors. Perhaps more importantly, the model might predict causal relationships between variables and Democratic Proclivity.

Individuals are aware of their own expressed attitudes, and Democratic Proclivity provides a tool for measuring and describing the effects of these expressed attitudes on the extent of democratic endorsement. People might not be aware of the sources of their own conceptions and attitudes, however. In other words, people are aware of their expressed attitudes, but they might not be able to explain why they possess them. External Forces continuously act to shape a schema and attitude (note the conceptual distinction between External Factors—which act to influence behavior—and External Forces—which shape a person's Proclivity). Jill may remember that she learned America is a Representative Democracy in Mr. Johnson’s tenth grade civics class. She may not realize, however, that her family's pride in American Democracy that has been passed down to her is a result of her family's success.

Jill is unaware of the source of her attitude. Whether or not people are aware of the causes (sources) of their schema or attitude, people do not utilize external forces to determine their own schemas and Attitudes. Instead, people consciously decide what they believe. People could examine the external forces that cause their own thoughts and behaviors, but no one limits their range of thoughts based solely on this examination. In other words, people may know what has contributed to their own attitudes, but they do not predict their own behavior with this knowledge. People do not relegate themselves to act in a certain way based on the knowledge of external forces.

Whatever attitudes that Democracy provokes in an individual, multiple powerful external forces certainly contribute. The DPM is a framework for understanding the role of a multitude of variables that affect Democratic Proclivity. Thus the DPM identifies and explains External Forces on an individual's Democratic Proclivity. The goal of the DPM is to depict the interaction of each variable in such a way that social scientists could predict an individual’s support for Democratic ideals given variable attributes. Each variable within the model of Democratic Propensity theoretically contributes either a positive or a negative effect to an individual’s Propensity for Democracy. The variable of governmental satisfaction may negatively correlate with propensity, for instance, if people with low satisfaction with a non-democratic government are more prone to have a higher Democratic Proclivity. An individual can not for the most part control the variables in the model, but the proclivity itself is highly personal—a person decides whether to accept democratic ideals. The only concern of the individual is whether to accept a democratic ideal or not, whereas the only concern of the scientist who is attempting to predict Democratic Proclivity is the source—the variables that contribute to the individual's propensity for Democracy.

The Democratic Propensity Model predicts the likelihood of support for the independent concept of Democracy—the propensity for accepting an idea. The model uses correlations between variables and proclivity to attribute levels of propensity for Democratic Proclivity to individuals in possession of similar traits. Individuals with high levels of propensity for Democracy will more likely have a high democratic proclivity. Consider one variable, national economic success. Mandelbaum (2002) ties the waning belief of USSR denizens in Communism to economic failure. The Cold War transitioned the USSR to a more democratic Russian government. Following chapters will provide additional correlational evidence from past and present emerging democracies that supports the notion that individuals residing in non-democratic countries with lower economic success will be more likely to endorse democracy than individuals in non-democratic countries with greater economic success. Dr. Robert Press described to me his experience interviewing a Chinese woman about Marxism. The lady said that she did not understand such things, but that she knew that years ago she did not have a light bulb to light her house and now she did; years ago she had to walk miles for water, and now water was readily and closely available (Press, 2008). The progress that her government brought her theoretically encouraged her to support her presiding government, which hypothetically lowered her propensity. Other variables will of course moderate this effect; predicting proclivity is not as simple as examining one variable.

The variables that the DPM is particularly concerned with are sociocultural, interpersonal, and psychological. Sociocultural variables are the social and economic labels of society that apply to an individual. These include, for example, socioeconomic status, religious background, and ethnicity. Interpersonal variables describe the interaction among people within a group. These include levels of consensus, stereotyping, and assimilation. Individual variables are personal traits that affect the individual’s experience (learning) and personality. Psychological variables include levels of civic education and prior democratic experience. The model explains each attribute’s effect in the individual's social and cultural context. The same attribute in different circumstances in different circumstances may not have an identical meaning. For instance high levels of government satisfaction in a democratic government suggest a high propensity for Democracy. High levels of satisfaction in a non-democratic government could suggest a lower propensity.

The DPM estimates how each of these variables affects Democratic Proclivity both quantitatively and qualitatively. The model describes a variable’s qualitative effects by characterizing the effect as increasing or decreasing Propensity. The model describes quantitative effects by weighting the extent to which the variable influences the Propensity positively or negatively. Thus, the variable of government satisfaction might strongly increase a person’s democratic proclivity if the individual is happy with his Democratic government. Low levels of consensus within a community might mitigate the effect of the lowering of proclivity if the community’s leader discourages Democracy. I will describe the specific process of identifying, describing, and weighting variables in the following chapters.

Because the DPM models the effect of variables on Democratic Proclivity, it suffers from the same predictive insufficiencies of Democratic Proclivity. Earlier I explained that Democratic Proclivity would not suffice on its own to predict behavior because external factors moderate Proclivity's effects on behavior. Remember also that Propensity measures an individual's expressed attitude concerning his own schema of Democracy. This schema will not reflect a consistent theoretical conception. Thus, I explained that expressed democratic attitudes necessitated the schema to be triggered. Since the model predicts Democratic Proclivity, the effectiveness of the DPM to predict behavior depends on both the individual's classification of a behavior into his or her own personal Democratic concept and the same external factors that moderate the effects of proclivity on behavior.

If the DPM is used to predict specific behaviors, then it is important to consider that certain behaviors likely require more proclivity than others. An individual may believe that both taking part in a military rebellion to institute Democracy and voting in a free election are examples of democratic affairs. Clearly, however, these two behaviors are quite different and the former would likely involve much more democratic proclivity to participate.

Political scientists, political psychologists, and sociologists attempt to identify the sources of variability in participation in Democratic affairs. Earlier, I described their efforts as attempting to identify and describe external factors. Utilizing Democratic Propensity could assist their efforts by accounting for at least some of the variability of participation in democratic affairs. Additionally, the DPM could be useful for identifying possible modes of increasing participation by providing methods of enhancing proclivity. The DPM not only predicts the magnitude of support for Democracy, but also provides a rich theoretical framework for investigating how to increase that proclivity.

The method that I will use to identify variables that contribute to the model utilizes the contributions of a variety of disciplines. For example, historical characterizations of nations immediately preceding a democratic revolution reveal the relationship between national government satisfaction and individual support. Political scientists have investigated the impact of a number of environmental and behavioral variables that play a role in civic engagement. An understanding of group functioning provided by psychologists illuminates the role of group decision-making on personal choice. The following chapters in the first section of “Conditioning Democracy” use the contributions of those and other disciplines to identify, describe, and weight the effects of those variables. Additionally, I hypothesize new variables and analyze the other variables based on work in the field. Manipulating these variables to create a basis for individual’s high proclivity “conditions” these individuals. Contrast this type of conditioning with Rumsfeld’s conditioning that I described in “Introducing Democratic Propensity.” Rumsfeld wanted to create conditions for countries to transition to Democracy, whereas Democratic Propensity policy should create conditions for people to endorse Democracy.

Since democratic government ultimately derives its source of authority from the people, personal endorsements are important to the success of democratic governments. Endorsements are perhaps more important than democratic behaviors themselves because the rule of law in democracies theoretically stems from individuals' trust in democratic practices even without the participation of the individual. Scott Ritter spoke to this when he differentiated elections from a successful democracy (Ritter, 2005). Low voter turnouts do not necessarily indicate loss of confidence in the democratic system, nor would low voter turnouts necessarily signify a loss of functioning of the rule of law. Instead, low voter turnouts could, for instance, imply a loss of interest in politics. Democratic law-abiding people still agree to abide by laws whether or not they participate in democratic affairs. Although there could be other reasons for abiding by laws in a Democracy, people who endorse Democratic ideals do support the rule of law in a Democracy.

The DPM models the role of variables that will influence the level of individual endorsement of democratic affairs when opportunities have been created. Democratic initiatives of the U.S. can manipulate many External Factors, so success will likely be largely dependent on the proclivity of the individuals involved. For instance, the United States may have successfully provided Iraqis with the opportunity to participate in a free election by limiting security issues as an external factor prohibiting participation. It is unclear whether the successful turnout was due to heavy social influence or a fundamental potential for acceptance of the new Democratic government. This distinction is important because Iraq will only function as a Democratic government if the people fundamentally accept the Democratic rule of law. Understanding the DPM might provide policy-makers with an opportunity to increase the Iraqis' propensity.

The DPM is a tool for policy-makers to understand, evaluate, and predict the success of those initiatives. To evaluate a program's effectiveness, policy-makers can utilize the level of proclivity that the model predicts for public acceptance of a particular project as a baseline for a program's effectiveness. Policy-makers can also analyze proposals for evidence of the proposal’s consideration of democratic propensity and thus gain insight into the proposed effectiveness of democratic initiatives. Policy-makers can also utilize the DPM to create new policy for increasing the success of democratic initiatives by increasing propensity for Democracy.

 Theorists can use the DPM to understand current, past, and future individual reactions to Democracy. This analysis identifies the model's variables of a historical or hypothetical individual and applies them according to the DPM. This understanding and predictive insight allows more accurate representations of social functioning in relation to Democracy. With a more accurate understanding of social functioning, these analyses could result in a rich source of hypotheses for researchers interested in increasing Democratic Proclivity. Social scientists can also utilize the DPM as a source for hypotheses regarding the causal relationship of the theoretical variables within the model. Historical and hypothetical analyses illuminate the potential effects of variables, and the DPM provides a predictive model that researchers can empirically examine for causal effects. If research identifies variables that have causal implications for Democratic Propensity, then policy-makers should work with scientists to develop methods that should be introduced to manipulate variables to increase Propensity in Democratic iniatives. Preliminary or simultaneous work could accompany those initiatives to enhance the impact of democratic opportunities. Manipulating propensity's variables in favor of increasing democratic propensity amplifies individual support of democratic initiatives. This increased support is manifest in increased participation in democratic affairs, reduced likelihood in speaking out against democratic reforms, and extending the democratic rule of law.