The Laboratory for Comparative Social Research announces the next regular seminar, which will be held as a zoom session on May, 22nd, at 03:30 p.m. CET (04:30 p.m. Moscow time, GMT+3). Viyaleta Korsunava (Ronald F. Inglehart Laboratory for Comparative Social Research, HSE University, Russia) will deliver a report "Cultural Modernization Shapes Attitudes to Government Surveillance: Cross-national Analysis".

To participate, please, register via the link.

Abstract

Existing research on support for government surveillance defines it as a trade-off between the benefits and downsides of external observation (the so-called “liberty-security balance”). Revised modernization theory employs similar concepts to describe the manifestation of cultural modernization: improved living conditions and economic development foster orientations toward self-expression and secularism and decrease the perceived need for security and traditionalism. The current paper analyzes attitudes toward government surveillance through the lens of revised modernization theory. Based on the joined EVS/WVS data collected from 2017 to 2022 in 84 countries, this study examines the association between acceptance of 3 government surveillance practices and self-expression/secular-rational values, both as individual attitudes and measures of cultural context. The findings from multilevel regression analysis show a negative effect of individual’s secular rational values on support for all surveillance practices and a similar effect of self-expression values on acceptance of intrusive digital surveillance. Conversely, countries with a medium prevalence of self-expression values exhibit lower approval of surveillance. Furthermore, a greater prevalence of self-expression values reinforces the association between individual’s self-expression orientations and their views on government surveillance.

Everyone interested is invited!

Working language is English.