The De- and Re-Democratization (DRD) Workgroup of the CEU Democracy Institute cordially invites you to its next Rooftop Seminar.
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The paper is available upon request from the author.
Abstract:
In Western societies the contemporary discourse on democracy has long been intertwined with the principles of liberalism—emphasizing individual rights and freedoms—a conflation that risks overshadowing the communal responsibilities integral to the democratic ethos. I thus examine laypeople’s understandings of democracy in three socio-political contexts: the United States, Italy, and South Korea. Each of these countries has a unique democratic history and culture, providing a rich comparative framework for analysis. The findings indicate that while liberal principles like freedom and liberty are universally emphasized, there is significant variance in the terms associated with the concept of democracy. In South Korea, collectivistic terms like "people" and "community" are markedly more prevalent than in the United States or Italy, indicating a cultural inclination towards a more communal understanding of democracy. Further analyses reveal that individuals in South Korea who resonate with a collectivistic understanding of democracy report lower levels of satisfaction with their democratic system. This is an interesting finding, the significance of which I am currently investigating with a team of international scholars, including those from South Korea and Japan. Overall, this research underscores the socio-cultural influence on people’s conceptualization and evaluation of democracy, suggesting that the prevailing emphasis on individualism in democratic discourse may not adequately encompass the broader, culturally diverse understandings of democracy.
Speaker:
Evelyn Hye Kyung Jeong is a PhD student in the Department of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Trento. Her doctoral research explores socio-psychological underpinnings behind laypeople’s understanding of democracy. She holds an Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree in Social and Cultural Psychology (Global-MINDS) from the University of Limerick, Ireland, and ISCTE-IUL, Portugal. Primary research interests revolve around political and cultural psychology with a focus on democratic norms, politicized identities, intergroup relations, socio-cultural norms and values underlying political attitudes.
Discussant:
Márton Bene (PhD) is a senior research fellow at the HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences, and an assistant professor at the Faculty of Law, ELTE, Eötvös Loránd University. His research interests are in political communication, social media and politics, and political behavior.
Chair:
Levente Littvay is Research Professor at HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences, ex-CEU Professor, two-time recipient of the university's Teaching Award, teaching research design, stats, voting behavior, political psychology, electoral, and US politics. University of Nebraska-Lincoln PhD. Taught numerous methods workshops globally and online, convenor of one of Europe’s largest methods schools, founder of MethodsNET, Presidium member of the Hungarian Political Science Association and head of Team Survey in Team Populism. Active in ESS and CSES, secured ~1M EUR in grants to study survey and quantitative methods, twin and family studies, and the psychology of radicalism and populism. Awards include the European University Institute’s Fernand Braudel Senior Research Fellowship (2019-20), the 2022 Giovanni Sartori Prize , and 2017 Morton Deutsch Award. Associate Editor for Social Sciences at Twin Research and Human Genetics. Books include Contemporary US Populism in Comparative Perspective and Multilevel Structural Equation Modeling, also published in Mandarin Chinese.