ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how culture relates to economic inequality and government quality and explores the impact on governance of cultural traits reflecting hierarchical social relationships on the one hand, and the strength of ingroups on the other. It describes the main cultural indicators that will be employed and explore some preliminary associations between them and the quality of governance. The chapter reviews work that has explored the relationship between these cultural traits and governance as well as that between these traits and economic inequality. It explores the impact of culture and economic inequality on governance. The chapter aims to reduce biases that may emerge from the omission of potentially confounding covariates and from the possibility that the quality of governance may also impact on culture. Social psychologists have identified cross-societal differences along a range of cultural dimensions. Timeto empirical consider the impact of economic inequality and culture on the quality of governance.
