The Role of Meritocracy in Support for Democracy: Evidence from Cross-National Data

This paper investigates the relationship between social meritocratic beliefs and civic support for democracy. While previous studies highlighted many potentials about the effect of social meritocracy as a culture on democratic attitudes, there have been uncertain about their relationship. Drawing on World Values Survey data across multiple countries, I argue that individuals who endorse social meritocracy is more likely to support democratic systems, as they perceive it to be consistent with fairness and personal effort. Using linear regression models with clustered standard errors, the results show a robust positive association between meritocratic beliefs and support for democracy at different levels, even after controlling for demographic, socioeconomic and institutional factors. Sensitivity analyses suggest that the findings are robust to potential omitted variable bias. In addition, I find a heterogeneous effect across regime types: the positive relationship between meritocracy and support for democracy weakens---and even reverses---in relatively more democratic countries. These findings contribute to (1) ongoing debates about the role of meritocracy in democratic societies; and (2) discussions on democratic backsliding by identifying a new factor that may facilitate its occurrence.