Culture and accountability

Abstract

The purpose of the present paper is to explore the relationship between the level of accountability and political culture. In doing so, we do not simply rely on a conceptualization of (political) culture as religion or religious denominations, but also as civicness, familism, secularism and post­materialism. The results of our data analyses suggest two broad considerations: first, that culture matters and, second, that some aspects of culture are more important than others. Specifically our data analyses reveal that accountability is more sensitive to civicness, post-materialism, and years of democratic rule than it is to familism or the pervasiveness of Christianity. Finally, our data analyses reveal that these facets of (political) culture have a greater impact on accountability than some institutional factors such as the form of government.