Social movements or rebel groups? Disobedience as a prediction of the level of democracy at institutional level

The relationship between the individual and the authority has a pivotal importance within the social sciences and political psychology. Although obedience to authority has been thoroughly studied in its positive and negative aspects, many cross-cultural studies still tend to consider obedience as a one-dimensional phenomenon. Some theoretical frameworks have instead underlined that obedience is a multidimensional issue and disobedience is far to be merely the opposite side of obedience. The aim of this research was to empirically verify the multidimensionality of obedience and disobedience and their role in supporting the ideological dimension of democracy. This research has been developed from cross-cultural data (source: World Values Survey). Results underline that obedience has, at least, two dimensions which correlate in a different way with the support for democracy. Differences between these dimensions are mirrored also in the correlations with pro-social disobedience, which may be considered a complementary aspect of the pro-democratic obedience.