(iPoster) The Emergence of Norms in Democratic versus Non-Democratic Cultures

• In Event: Poster Session: Issues in the Political Theory of Economic Equality and Democracy & Political Methodology
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Political Methodology

Abstract

Many governments around the world enforce discriminatory norms, such as xenophobia, and traditional masculinity, that violate human rights. Of course, interested actors can challenge and, potentially, change these norms via a process known as contestation. Previous studies on this topic have found that powerless actors indeed can change harmful norms, provided suitable structural conditions exist. In previous work (Salimi et al., 2022), developed a system dynamics simulator based on Social Identity Theory to understand the process by which powerless actors in democratic societies can contest discriminatory norms and replace them with new ones. In the current paper, using mixed-method I extend that work by applying the simulator to contrasting regime structures: democratic and non-democratic and to get new theoretical prediction. While the basic model for both democratic and non-democratic contestations is the same, parametric changes highlight key structural differences between democratic and non-democratic cultures. Model simulations, furthermore, illustrate these cultural differences are significant moderators that dramatically affect whether or not powerless actors can transform harmful norms over time. More importantly, I compare the simulated results to real-world events in two well-known cases of norm contestation by powerless actors: 1) U.S. women’s suffrage from 1830–1920 using existing data, and 2) Iranian women’s suffrage from 1880–1963, conducting expert survey to create a new data point and then panel data analysis.

Author

• Khadijeh Salimi, Old Dominion University