The Influence of Democracy on National Happiness: Examination of Multinational Survey Data

Abstract

Despite being emphasized and supported by many countries, democracy still covered less than half of the world’s countries which, in turn, probably affected people’s happiness.  This quantitative research article aimed at examining the influence of national democratic status on citizens’ happiness. The analysis was conducted on the data surveyed by international organizations from 108 countries/governing districts. The data included 2 sets. The first set was the data on national happiness collected by the World Happiness Report Project and the second set was the data on national democratic status collected by EIU. The analysis of the data was the comparison between democratic and happiness trends to find out whether these trends are compatible or not. The regression analysis was also performed to examine the influence of democracy on happiness. This study found that there were 6 countries/governing districts whose happiness increased along with democratic scores. The regression analysis revealed that the average of the democratic scores affected the average of the happiness scores at a significant level of .05. On the other hand, the changes in the democratic scores did not affect the changes in the happiness scores at a significant level of .05. These results led to the conclusion that the continuity of democratic improvement and the average democratic score could affect national happiness.