ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the outcomes which have been connected with culture. The dominance of the rational choice framework within political science has contributed to a neglect of the impact of cultural and altruistic preferences on society and politics, which the cultural approach framework targets. Several theories of ethnicity and religion highlight the relevance of cultural preferences for explaining macro outcomes. Among the macro-level outcomes attributed to culture, the chapter deals with democracy and affluence, as well as various social outcomes such as income distribution and gender equality. High levels of economic affluence are a key outcome, since they remain crucial to improvements in the living conditions of the population. The six countries are USA, Russia, Switzerland, Spain, Belgium and India all countries characterized by high cultural heterogeneity. The World Values Surveys, in their different versions, contain an immense variety of information concerning attitudes of representative samples of people from a variety of different countries.
