Rasmus Fonnesbæk Andersen defends his PhD thesis at the Department of Political Science

Title

“Culture and Institutions: Studying Subnational Regimes, Immigrants and Moving Borders”. The thesis can be purchased as an ebook from Academic Books

Time and venue
Friday 24 February 2017 at 14.00. University of Copenhagen, Centre for Health and Society, Øster Farimagsgade 5, 1353 Copenhagen K., room 4.2.26., the lunch room (Frokoststuen). Kindly note that the defence will start precisely at the announced time.

Assessment committee
Associate professor Daniel Bochsler, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen (chair)
Professor Svend-Erik Skaaning, Department of Political Science, Aarhus University
Professor Carl-Henrik Knutsen, Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Norway

Abstract
In an age of increasing disillusion with liberal democracy across the world, it is appropriate to assess if disenchantment with democracy also portends future setbacks for democracy around the globe. Policy-makers and the general public typically assign a high importance to political culture, cultural differences and values in explaining political regime outcomes, but political scientists have been more skeptical.

This dissertation is about culture and institutions studied through, first, individuals exposed to new institutions due to moving borders or migration and, second, democracy and authoritarianism in regional and local governments.

I revisit the theme of culture and institutions with a view to improving causal identification over  existing cross-national studies of democratic demand and supply by using geocoded, subnational data. Studying particular contexts in which we can separate ‘people’ with internal cultural beliefs from ‘places’ with geographically fixed institutions that are external to the individual, in the dissertation I make progress towards separating the effects of culture and institutions.

Together, the dissertation shows the importance of moving beyond analysis of national institutions and engaging with local politics to better understand political culture – and to bring about meaningful democracy.