Why do citizens choose to comply in democracies, even when coercion is limited? Existing answers focus on contractual trust or expected payoffs. I show that a different pathway exists in the ethical pull of the nation. A large literature in political theory argues that special communities, such as the nation, can instill an ethical obligation to the collective welfare, even in the absence of formal rules. I argue that when the identities of one’s nation and the state are seen as closely linked, this national obligation is politicized towards the state and motivates a sense of citizen duty to comply. Through statistical modeling and a pair of experiments in South Korea versus Taiwan – two otherwise similar democracies that contrast in nation-state linkage – I show that this ethical pathway is likely real and highly contextual. The findings help us better understand the varied bases of citizen compliance in democracies.
Civil Society and the State in Democratic East Asia
