Autocratic Government Moderates the Relationship Between Culture and Legal Restriction

Abstract

Laws that restrict citizens exist in every form of government. Although previous research has shown that legal restriction is tied to culture-level variables such as collectivism, we propose and test a novel interactive model specifying that the culture-legal restriction relationship will depend on the level of democracy or autocracy present in the government. Specifically, legal restrictions in democracies should show more consistent relationships with culture-level variables because lawmakers in democracies are more directly accountable to the populace. In contrast, legal restrictions in autocracies should be less subject to influence by culture-level variables because lawmakers are less directly accountable to the populace. In our study, we tested this interactive model by examining if horizontal/vertical legal restrictions predict culture-level variables (wealth, urbanity, collectivism) differently for democracies versus autocracies. Results provide qualified support for the model: Especially for higher power tests with larger samples of nations, we found that the level of democracy/autocracy significantly moderated the relationship between culture-level variables and two different types of legal restriction. Also consistent with our model, the nature of these interactions generally revealed significant culture-legal restriction effects for democracies but not autocracies. Our results suggest that the path between culture and legal systems might take very different routes depending on level of autocracy or democracy in the ruling government.