Abstract
<p>We analyse the dynamics of the distribution of democratic values in a population where<br />agents have heterogeneous preferences about democracy, distinguishing between<br />fundamentalist-antidemocratic agents and pro-democracy agents. Cultural traits and norms<br />are acquired through a process of intergenerational cultural transmission and socialization.<br />The driving force in the equilibrium selection process is the education effort exerted by<br />parents; this depends on the distribution of democratic values in the population and on<br />expectations about future policies affecting formal and informal institutions.<br />The main result is that when fundamentalism is sufficiently diffused in all institutional<br />dimensions of social life, the imposition of formal democratic rules do not significantly affect<br />social preferences. On the other hand the model shows how a cruel fundamentalist<br />dictatorship cannot wholly destroy democratic preferences in the population; the sole result is<br />a fictitious homologation of manifested attitudes, with no preferences dynamics and the<br />previous real attitudes immediately emerging as soon as dictatorship falls.</p>
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