Hybrid Political Cultures? Analysing Attitudinal Patterns in South East Asia

In recent years, much research has been conducted on public opinion not only in democratic, but also in non-democratic political systems. Remarkably, many studies have shown that democracy has a widespread appeal among citizens almost everywhere in the world, even in the most resilient authoritarian regimes. Is this open support for democracy just “lip service” (Inglehart 2003) or is it part of a new kind of hybrid political culture in which certain aspects of (liberal) democracy are embraced by the public, while others are opposed? Drawing mainly on the conceptual work of Dieter Fuchs (2002, 2007), the paper aims to systematically identify specific patterns of attitudes towards democracy and its alternatives as well as democratic values and their prevalence in one of the strongholds of authoritarianism. It analyses recent Asian Barometer Survey data for seven Southeast Asian countries, covering a wide range of regimes from electoral democracy to closed authoritarianism. Keywords: Asia,