ArticleRoyal Society open science2020
Multi-level modelling of time-series cross-sectional data reveals the dynamic interaction between ecological threats and democratic development.
Article in Royal Society open science, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Country's value priorities in health crisis: How dominant societal motivations shape COVID-19 severity.SSM - population health · 2023Article
- Coronavirus-Related Searches on the Internet Predict COVID-19 Vaccination Rates in the Real World: A Behavioral Immune System Perspective.Social psychological and personality science · 2023Article
- Heightened religiosity proactively and reactively responds to the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe: Novel insights from the parasite-stress theory of sociality and the behavioral immune system theory.International journal of intercultural relations : IJIR · 2022Article
- Infection threat shapes our social instincts.Behavioral ecology and sociobiology · 2021Review
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2 authors.
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Abstract
What is the relationship between environment and democracy? The framework of cultural evolution suggests that societal development is an adaptation to ecological threats. Pertinent theories assume that democracy emerges as societies adapt to ecological factors such as higher economic wealth, lower pathogen threats, less demanding climates and fewer natural disasters. However, previous research confused within-country processes with between-country processes and erroneously interpreted between-country findings as if they generalize to within-country mechanisms. We analyse a time-series cross-sectional dataset to study the dynamic relationship between environment and democracy (1949-2016), accounting for previous misconceptions in levels of analysis. By separating within-country processes from between-country processes, we find that the relationship between environment and democracy not only differs by country but also depends on the level of analysis. Economic wealth predicts increasing levels of democracy in between-country comparisons, but within-country comparisons show that democracy declines in years when countries become wealthier. This relationship is only prevalent among historically wealthy countries but not among historically poor countries, whose wealth also increased over time. By contrast, pathogen prevalence predicts lower levels of democracy in both between-country and within-country comparisons. Multi-level modelling also confirms that the within-country effect of pathogen prevalence remains robust even after considering a region-level analysis. Longitudinal analyses identifying temporal precedence reveal that not only reductions in pathogen prevalence drive future democracy, but also democracy reduces future pathogen prevalence and increases future wealth. These nuanced results contrast with previous analyses using narrow, cross-sectional data. Overall, our findings illuminate the dynamic process by which environment and democracy shape each other.
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