Political Culture and Regime Type: Evidence from Nicaragua and Costa Rica

Political science has long attempted to link the development of a civic culture to the emergence and stability of democratic political systems. This paper uses recent survey data from Nicaragua and Costa Rica to examine this linkage by testing the thesis that Costa Rica, Latin America's oldest democracy, should exhibit higher levels of support for democratic norms than would Nicaragua, a country that up through the date of the survey (1989) had not experienced full formal democratic governance. The findings refute this thesis and suggest, instead, that democratic values are far more utilitarian than have been previously suggested.