The Diffusion of Values among Democracies and Autocracies

Over the past couple of years, our knowledge about diffusion processes has increased greatly. So far, the focus has been on public policies, political institutions, and civil society repertories. Our paper breaks new ground by exploring value diffusion at the societal level. Using the World Values Survey data, we are interested in the diffusion of emancipative values in different regime types, building a bridge between research on the micro foundations and macro political expressions of democratization and political regimes. In particular, we wish to understand whether the psychological bedrock of a pro-democratic mass culture – emancipative values – is diffusing between countries and, if yes, to what extent this diffusion is limited to democracies or also makes inroads into autocratically governed societies.