Democracy and Mass Skepticism of Science

• In Event: Trust

Abstract

Ever since the age of enlightenment, democracy has long seen as a system conducive to promoting science and technology. We qualify this view by arguing that the certain aspects of democratic institutions can actually aggravate the anti-intellectual tendency of the mass public and potentially hinder scientific progress. Analyzing a new global survey of public opinion on science with several empirical strategies that exploit cross-country and cross-cohort variations in experience with democracy, we show that the less educated mass in democracies are considerably less trustful of both science and scientists than their counterparts in non-democratic systems. Further analyses suggest that, instead of a result of stronger religiosity, the increase in skepticism was mainly driven by a change in the basis of governing legitimacy, which undermines both the willingness and the ability of elected governments to act as public endorsers of science. These findings shed light on the institutional sources of ``science-bashing'' behaviors in many long-standing democracies.

Authors

• Junyan Jiang, Columbia University

• Kinman Wan, Chinese University of Hong Kong