ABSTRACT
Ethnicity, religion, legacies and universal values — these are the four components in our analysis of culture and its impact on politics and social outcomes. Basically, ethnicity as a culture is tied down to a specific geographical place, or the area in which an ethnic group is living. A culture lies somewhere in between truly universal values such as liberty and equality on the one hand and civilizations on the other, namely legacies. Universal values such as culture have no specific connection with a geographical area. A set of universal values would be a set of attitudes and beliefs which have, in principle, no intrinsic link with a specific location. Such a culture could exist with people in any society around the globe. Universal cultures tend to display little compactness with the exception of the movements that are organized on a worldwide scale, such as Greenpeace or Amnesty International.
