Instituto de Estudios Políticos y Derecho Público "Dr. Humberto J. La Roche"
de la Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Políticas de la Universidad del Zulia
Maracaibo, Venezuela
Esta publicación cientíca en formato digital es continuidad de la revista impresa
ISSN-Versión Impresa 0798-1406 / ISSN-Versión on line 2542-3185Depósito legal pp
197402ZU34
ppi 201502ZU4645
Vol.39 N° 69
Julio
Diciembre
2021
ISSN 0798- 1406 ~ De pó si to le gal pp 198502ZU132
Cues tio nes Po lí ti cas
La re vis ta Cues tio nes Po lí ti cas, es una pu bli ca ción aus pi cia da por el Ins ti tu to
de Es tu dios Po lí ti cos y De re cho Pú bli co “Dr. Hum ber to J. La Ro che” (IEPDP) de la Fa-
cul tad de Cien cias Ju rí di cas y Po lí ti cas de la Uni ver si dad del Zu lia.
En tre sus ob je ti vos fi gu ran: con tri buir con el pro gre so cien tí fi co de las Cien cias
Hu ma nas y So cia les, a tra vés de la di vul ga ción de los re sul ta dos lo gra dos por sus in ves-
ti ga do res; es ti mu lar la in ves ti ga ción en es tas áreas del sa ber; y pro pi ciar la pre sen ta-
ción, dis cu sión y con fron ta ción de las ideas y avan ces cien tí fi cos con com pro mi so so cial.
Cues tio nes Po lí ti cas apa re ce dos ve ces al año y pu bli ca tra ba jos ori gi na les con
avan ces o re sul ta dos de in ves ti ga ción en las áreas de Cien cia Po lí ti ca y De re cho Pú bli-
co, los cua les son so me ti dos a la con si de ra ción de ár bi tros ca li fi ca dos.
ESTA PU BLI CA CIÓN APA RE CE RE SE ÑA DA, EN TRE OTROS ÍN DI CES, EN
:
Re vicyhLUZ, In ter na tio nal Po li ti cal Scien ce Abs tracts, Re vis ta In ter ame ri ca na de
Bi blio gra fía, en el Cen tro La ti no ame ri ca no para el De sa rrol lo (CLAD), en Bi blio-
gra fía So cio Eco nó mi ca de Ve ne zue la de RE DIN SE, In ter na tio nal Bi blio graphy of
Po li ti cal Scien ce, Re vencyt, His pa nic Ame ri can Pe rio di cals In dex/HAPI), Ul ri ch’s
Pe rio di cals Di rec tory, EBS CO. Se en cuen tra acre di ta da al Re gis tro de Pu bli ca cio-
nes Cien tí fi cas y Tec no ló gi cas Ve ne zo la nas del FO NA CIT, La tin dex.
Di rec to ra
L
OIRALITH
M. C
HIRINOS
P
ORTILLO
Co mi té Edi tor
Eduviges Morales Villalobos
Fabiola Tavares Duarte
Ma ría Eu ge nia Soto Hernández
Nila Leal González
Carmen Pérez Baralt
Co mi té Ase sor
Pedro Bracho Grand
J. M. Del ga do Ocan do
José Ce rra da
Ri car do Com bel las
An gel Lom bar di
Die ter Nohlen
Al fre do Ra mos Ji mé nez
Go ran Ther born
Frie drich Welsch
Asis ten tes Ad mi nis tra ti vos
Joan López Urdaneta y Nil da Ma rín
Re vis ta Cues tio nes Po lí ti cas. Av. Gua ji ra. Uni ver si dad del Zu lia. Nú cleo Hu ma nís ti co. Fa-
cul tad de Cien cias Ju rí di cas y Po lí ti cas. Ins ti tu to de Es tu dios Po lí ti cos y De re cho Pú bli co
“Dr. Hum ber to J. La Ro che”. Ma ra cai bo, Ve ne zue la. E- mail: cues tio nes po li ti cas@gmail.
com ~ loi chi ri nos por til lo@gmail.com. Te le fax: 58- 0261- 4127018.
Vol. 39, Nº 69 (Julio - Diciembre) 2021, 774-795
IEPDP-Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Políticas - LUZ
Recibido el 21/04/2021 Aceptado el 21/06/2021
The role of the factors determining
national character in building civil society
DOI: https://doi.org/10.46398/cuestpol.3969.48
Serhii O. Komnatnyi *
Oleg S. Sheremet **
Viacheslav E. Suslykov ***
Kateryna S. Lisova ****
Stepan D. Svorak *****
Abstract
The article deals with the mechanism of impact of
sociopsychological phenomena such as the national character
and the political mentality in the construction and functioning of
civil society. It aims to show the impact of climate, religion, and
the perception of happiness on the state of civil society through
details of a national nature. The main research method is to
compare data from global research on the state of civil society
with data from climatic conditions, dominant religions, and happiness
indices. The article proves coincidently that these factors are reected in
such essential characteristics of civil society as «openness» and «closed-
mindedness». The interaction between the national character and the
construction of civil society has two stages. It is concluded that the results
obtained are important to evaluate the prospects for the construction and
development of civil society in dierent countries and regions of the world.
Further research in this direction involves the study of other aspects of the
impact of national character and political mindset on the functioning of
civil society.
Keywords: civil society; national character; political mentality; climatic
factor; religious factor.
* PhD in Pedagogy, Senior Lecturer, Department of Civil Law Disciplines, National Academy of Internal
Aairs. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2124-2047. Email: serhkomnatniy@ukr.net
** Doctor of Law, Associate Professor, Professor, Taras Shevchenko National University "Chernihiv
Collegium". ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9512-991X. Email: sheremet.ol.cn@yahoo.com
*** PhD in History, Associate Professor, Department of Social Sciences and Humanities, Donetsk
Law Institute of MIA of Ukraine. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3803-6191. Email:
suslykovviach@ukr.net
**** PhD in History, Head of Department, General Theoretical Legal and Socio-Humanitarian Disciplines,
Kyiv University of Law the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. ORCID ID: https://orcid.
org/0000-0002-2664-7721. Email: katerynal73196@gmail.com
***** Doctor of Law, Professor, Department of Theory and History of State and Law, Vasyl Stefanyk
Precarpathian National University. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3116-1221. Email:
45professor_svsd_@ukr.net
775
CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 39 Nº 69 (Julio - Diciembre 2021): 774-795
El papel de los factores que determinan el carácter
nacional en la construcción de la sociedad civil
Resumen
El artículo trata sobre el mecanismo de impacto de fenómenos
sociopsicológicos como el carácter nacional y la mentalidad política en la
construcción y funcionamiento de la sociedad civil. Su objetivo es mostrar
el impacto del clima, la religión y la percepción de la felicidad en el estado
de la sociedad civil a través de detalles de carácter nacional. El principal
método de investigación es la comparación de los datos de la investigación
global sobre el estado de la sociedad civil con los datos de las condiciones
climáticas, las religiones dominantes y los índices de felicidad. El artículo
prueba fehacientemente que estos factores se reejan en características
tan esenciales de la sociedad civil como la “apertura” y la “cerrazón”. La
interacción entre el carácter nacional y la construcción de la sociedad civil
tiene dos etapas. Se concluye que los resultados obtenidos son importantes
para evaluar las perspectivas de construcción y desarrollo de la sociedad
civil en diferentes países y regiones del mundo. La investigación adicional en
esta dirección implica el estudio de otros aspectos del impacto del carácter
nacional y la mentalidad política en el funcionamiento de la sociedad civil.
Palabras clave: sociedad civil; carácter nacional; mentalidad política;
factor climático; factor religioso.
Introduction
The problem of civil society is one of the most acute in modern socio-
political discourse. In the euphoria of the 1990’s, civil society was seen
as a universal means of establishing a global liberal-democratic order
that would nally ensure peace and happiness throughout the world. But
this ideal began to fail after the crisis of 2008. In the middle of the rst
decade of the 21st century, it became clear that this recipe is not a kind of
panacea to nding solutions to dierent kinds of problems faced by not
only developing countries, but also the democratic world as a whole. Biden
(2020) states that democracies –paralyzed by hyper partisanship, hobbled
by corruption, weighed down by extreme inequality –are having a harder
time delivering for their people.
It should be emphasized that disappointment with civil society
projects is due to a supercial understanding of its essence, incorrect
assessment of the driving forces of its development, and attempts to build
it according to a single unied pattern around the world. The creation of
a new alliance of democratic forces announced by the new US President
776
Serhii O. Komnatnyi, Oleg S. Sheremet, Viacheslav E. Suslykov, Kateryna S. Lisova y Stepan
D. Svorak
The role of the factors determining national character in building civil society
requires a revision of these views. Therefore, the identication of factors
that inuence the process of building civil society in dierent socio-political
conditions has appeared on the agenda of political sciences. The study of
socio-psychological aspects that underlie the genesis and functioning of
civil society as an anthropocentric system helps to establish an objective
scientic position on its prospects in dierent countries and prevent errors
in socio-political forecasting.
Civil society issues are the subject of many social and political studies.
The most famous studies were included in The Oxford Handbook of Civil
Society edited by Edwards (2013). Kenny (2020) presents an extended
analysis of current political discourse about civil society. But no studies
cover anthropological, in particular, socio-psychological aspects of civil
society.
Some researchers explore how such a socio-psychological phenomenon
as national character manifests itself in modern political systems (Inkeles,
2017). But these scholars do not focus on national character and mentality
in the context of building and functioning of civil society, and do not use the
data on underlying factors.
• The aim of the article is to identify the role of external factors and
internal determinants of national character and political mentality
in building and functioning of civil society.
• This aim involves the fullment of the following research objectives:
• compare the state of civil society in dierent countries with the
climatic conditions of their location.
• correlate such characteristics of civil society as ‘openness’ and
‘closedness’ with the dominant religion.
• analyze the dependence of the state of civil society on the factors
that determine the feeling of happiness inherent in a certain type of
national character.
1. Literature Review
For contemporary scholars, social activists and development
professionals, civil society is a collection of diverse interest groups and social
organizations. Most cited dictionaries propose to interpret civil society as
the ‘third sector’ of society, “the set of intermediate associations which are
neither the state nor the (extended) family; civil society, therefore, includes
voluntary associations and rms, as well as other corporate bodies” (McLean
and McMillan, 2009), or more teleologically as “the organizations within a
society that works to promote the common good, usually taken to include
777
CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 39 Nº 69 (Julio - Diciembre 2021): 774-795
state-run institutions, families, charities, and community groups” (Collins
Online English Dictionary, 2021).
Those interpretations of this term are based on the positions of
institutionalism. They are linked to the rationalism of the Renaissance
and the Enlightenment and are rooted in the works of Machiavelli, Moore,
Hobbes, Locke, de Saint-Simon. But these main current usages are derived
from Hegel’s liberal theory adapted by de Tocqueville, Marx, and Tönnies.
Edwards (2013) points out to the shortcomings of this interpretation, which
caused a mimicry of the essence of civil society concept:
“First, a conversation about democracy and self-expression has become
increasingly technocratic, dominated by elites who seek to shape civil society for
their ends and increasingly mimicking the language and practices of businesses
and market-based investment. Second, much current civil society research,
funding, and policymaking are highly ethnocentric, informed by a partial reading
of work dating back to the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville in mid-nineteenth-
century America which placed voluntary associations of various kinds at the
centre of thinking and action of civil society, but later translated to settings with
completely dierent cultures of collective action, histories, and contemporary
conditions. It is this sense of mimicry that has stimulated the export of models
developed in North America and Western Europe to other parts of the world with
unsurprisingly disappointing results” (Edwards, 2013: 7).
The analysis of these failures leads to the assumption that “perhaps there
is something written into the genetic code of human beings that resists
attempts to bureaucratize the self-organizing principles of civil society or
reduce citizen action to a subset of the market” (ibid). This assumption is
not further developed by Edwards (2013) or other authors, but it is the rst
element in the structure of our hypothesis because the common genetic
code is the factor that forms the basis of the ethnos.
We make an ascent from ethnos as a genetic community to ethos as a
moral community for further theoretical substantiation of the hypothesis
about predetermined establishment of civil society. It should be noted that
the term “civil society” goes back to Aristotle’s phrase koinōnía politikḗ
(κοινωνία πολιτική) in his Politics, where it refers to a “political community,
commensurate with the Greek city-state (polis) characterized by a shared
ethos (Lord, 2013). Ethos is a Greek word meaning “character” that is used
to describe the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community,
nation, or ideology. In modern usage, ethos denotes the disposition,
character, or fundamental values peculiar to a specic person or group
(national ethos) (Cambridge Dictionary, 2021). So, the ethos is a moral core
of a national character and political mentality, it is the so-called “spirit of
people”. According to Aristotle, it denes the forms of civil society.
It is necessary to consider the factors that determine the specics of the
ethos of dierent peoples to show how the national character inuences
778
Serhii O. Komnatnyi, Oleg S. Sheremet, Viacheslav E. Suslykov, Kateryna S. Lisova y Stepan
D. Svorak
The role of the factors determining national character in building civil society
the building of civil society. Thus, the logic of the development of the
theoretical substantiation of our hypothesis leads the focus of the study
to Montesquieu’s meteorological climate theory, outlined in The Spirit of
Law (1748). This concept holds that climate may substantially inuence
the nature of man and his society. Initially, Montesquieu showed how
climate aects the peculiarities of individual character and national ethos.
He argued that the feebleness of peoples of warm climates almost always
made slaves of them, and the courage of peoples of cold climates kept them
free. That is an eect that derives from its natural cause (Stewart, 2018).
Then he proved the dependence of social order and social norms on these
determinants:
If it is true that the character of the mind and the passions of the heart are
extremely dierent in the various climates, laws must be relative both to the
dierence of those passions and the dierence of those characters… Laws have a
very great relationship to how various peoples procure their subsistence (Stewart,
2018: 32).
Modern researchers conrmed those ndings. McCrae et al., (2007),
that warmth and wealth are common determinants of national stereotypes,
but that there are also idiosyncratic inuences on the perceptions of
individual nations.
Religion is the next key factor determining the formation of ethos, and
hence – civil society. Thinkers have pointed to this factor since ancient
times. Stewart (2018) argued the same as well. The Christian religion
commands men to love each other, so there is no doubt that every people
should have the best political laws and the best civil laws, because they are,
next to themselves, the greatest good that men can give and receive. That
moderate government is more compatible with the Christian religion, and
despotic government — with the Mohammedan religion.
The “spirit of the nations” from Weber (2002) The Protestant Ethic and
the Spirit of Capitalism cannot be ignored in this context. After dening
the “spirit of capitalism” in Germany, Weber argued that there are many
reasons to nd its origins in the religious ideas of the Reformation. Then he
attributed this relationship between capitalism and Protestantism to certain
accidental psychological consequences of the notions of predestination and
calling in Puritan theology. It is important how Weber revealed its role in
building certain forms of civil society:
So that a manner of a life well adapted to the peculiarities of the capitalism…
could come to dominate others, it had to originate somewhere, and not in isolated
individuals alone, but as a way of life common to the whole groups of man (Weber,
2002: 78).
Current researchers conrm the inuence of religious ethical norms
enshrined in the mentality on the formation of such components of civil
779
CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 39 Nº 69 (Julio - Diciembre 2021): 774-795
society as truth and social distance. In particular, Dingley (2009) argues
that national identity is closely linked to the religion, which in turn is
closely linked to the ideas of truth. Dierent religions will form and
transmit dierent ideas of truth, both moral and cognitive, and transmit
them and socialize their members into holding them. The ndings of Bilali
et al., (2018) the importance of considering religious identity and meaning
attached to social categories in making predictions about the inuence of
identication with dierent social categories on social distance.
It should be noted that, thinkers considered civility as an orientation
toward the common good and happiness from the time of classical Greece.
Edwards (2013) emphasizes: “How do the structures of associational life
and the dynamics of the public sphere help or hinder the achievement of
“good society” goals? This is the most important question in the civil society
debate”. This question comes from the lifelong problem of the existence of a
free individual in a society. Although each person has a sense of happiness,
individuals must reach a public agreement on interaction to achieve “the
greatest happiness for the greatest number of people” in the process of
communication. Helliwell et al., (2020) help to formulate the answer.
The primary result from their empirical analysis of the social
environment is that several kinds of individual and social trust, as well as
social connections have large direct and indirect impacts on life evaluation.
The indirect impacts, which are measured by allowing the eects of trust to
buer the estimated well-being eects of bad times, show that both social
trust and institutional trust reduce the inequality of well-being by increasing
the resilience of individual well-being to various types of adversity, including
perceived discrimination, ill-health, unemployment, low income, and fear
when walking the streets at night. Average life satisfaction is estimated to
be almost one point higher (0.96 points) in a high-trust environment as
compared to a low-trust environment. These researches also argue that the
social environment is dealt with in detail, they consider happiness in the
Nordic countries and nd that higher personal and institutional trust are
key factors in explaining why life evaluations are so high in those countries.
Together the changes in trust and social connections explain 60% of
the happiness gap between the Nordic countries and Europe as a whole
(Helliwell et al., 2020).
Social origins theory helps us to discover the meaning of the national
“happiness formula” as well. This theory is used to analyse results of the
national survey on civic participation in Sweden. The results show that
such civic virtue as charitable giving is a component of the Swedish national
character, and has a signicant impact on civil society functioning. From
this point of view, we can agree with Mahajan (2021) interpretation of civil
society as a sphere where the collective “we” emerges and acts to arm the
Kantian ideals of human dignity and equal respect.
780
Serhii O. Komnatnyi, Oleg S. Sheremet, Viacheslav E. Suslykov, Kateryna S. Lisova y Stepan
D. Svorak
The role of the factors determining national character in building civil society
2. Methods
A critical analysis of modern concepts of civil society and consideration
of scientic approaches to understanding deep predetermination of
national character and mentality as the driving forces of building civil
society is the background for substantiating the research methodology.
This methodology is designed to reveal the anthropocentric but not always
rationalistic essence of building civil society. Therefore, we take climatic
conditions as the rst variable in our research. Then, religion acts as the
second variable in our research. And we chose the feeling of happiness
as the third variable in our research, which comprehensively reects the
inuence of national character on building civil society.
The methods are consistent with the aim and objectives of this research
and include:
- the comparative analysis of the state of civil society in dierent
countries and their climatic conditions.
- the search for correlation between such characteristics of civil society
as “openness” and “closedness” with the dominant religion.
- the analysis of the statistical data of happiness index in dierent
countries and the calculation of its average value in “open society”
and “closed society” countries.
- summarizing the data from these analyses and drawing a conclusion
about the role of the factors determining national character in
building civil society.
The research materials are based on:
- the data from global studies on the state of civil society in dierent
countries, published by international civil society organization
CIVICUS (2019): World Alliance for Citizen Participation.
- the data on climatic conditions (Provisional Report on the State
of the Global Climate 2020, Climate Zone Shiny Map 2020 and
World Climate Maps 2020 demonstrated by World Meteorological
Organization (2020a; 2020b; 2021).
- the data about religion in the world (The Global Religious Landscape
2020: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Major
Religious Groups presented by CIA World Factbook (2020), and Pew
Research Center (2020).
- the data on happiness indexes in dierent countries (World
Happiness Report 2020 prepared by UN Sustainable Development
Solutions Network, and Center for Sustainable Development
Columbia University (Helliwell et al. 2020)).
781
CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 39 Nº 69 (Julio - Diciembre 2021): 774-795
For clarity of research results, the research sample includes countries
that belong to the two ultimate categories: “open society” – 19 countries,
and “closed society” – 18 countries, by CIVICUS (2019): The State of Civil
Society.
3. Results
The research results are presented in the tables prepared by the author
using the materials mentioned above and subsequent data analysis.
The rst block (Tables 1 and 2) shows the dependence of the level of
openness of civil society on climatic indicators of temperature and humidity.
Table 1. Climatic factor in “open society” countries
# Country Climate zone Winter
t (C
o
) -
zone
Summer
t (C
o
) -
zone
Wet zone
(mm per
year)
1 Canada
(main part)
Temperate / Subpolar -24 -8 +8 +16 500-1000
2 Iceland Temperate / Subpolar -8 +8 500-1000
3 Norway Temperate / Subpolar 0 +12 500-1000
4 Sweden Temperate / Subpolar 0 +12 500-1000
5 Finland Temperate / Subpolar 0 +12 500-1000
6 Denmark Temperate 0 +16 500-1000
7 Estonia Temperate 0 +16 500-1000
8 Lithuania Temperate 0 +16 500-1000
9 Germany Temperate 0 +16 500-1000
10 Netherland Temperate 0 +16 500-1000
11 Belgium Temperate 0 +16 500-1000
12 Czech Rep. Temperate 0 +20 500-1000
13 Austria Temperate 0 +20 500-1000
14 Switzerland Temperate 0 +20 500-1000
15 Ireland Temperate +8 +16 1000-2000
16 Portugal Subtropical +8 +22 500-1000
17 New Zeeland Temperate / Subtropical +8 +16 1000-2000
18 Uruguay Subtropical +8 +16 500-1000
19 Surinam Tropical +24 +24 2000-3000
Source: Based on World Meteorological Organization (2020a; 2020b 2021).
782
Serhii O. Komnatnyi, Oleg S. Sheremet, Viacheslav E. Suslykov, Kateryna S. Lisova y Stepan
D. Svorak
The role of the factors determining national character in building civil society
Out of the 19 ‘open society’ countries, 16 countries (84%) are located in
the temperate zone (including 5 that combine the temperate and subpolar
zones, and 1 (New Zeeland) with the temperate and subtropical zones). 2
countries are located in subtropics and 1 (Surinam) in tropics. Moreover, all
countries are located in more or less humid zones. None of these countries
are located in a hot arid climate. Only in Canada, due to its vast territory,
there are areas of continental climate, but cold.
Table 2. Climatic factor in ‘closed-society’ countries
# Country Climate zone Winter
t (C
o
) -
zone
Summer
t (C
o
) -
zone
Wet zone
(mm per
year)
1 China
(main part)
Temperate /
Subtropical
-24 +8 +16 +24 250-1000
2 Lao People
Democratic Rep.
Tropical +24 +24 1000-2000
3 Viet Nam Tropical +24 +24 2000-3000
4 Uzbekistan Subtropical +8 +24 ≤100
5 Turkmenistan Subtropical +8 +24 ≤100
6 Iran Islamic Rep. Subtropical +8 +24 100-250
7 Azerbaijan Subtropical +8 +24 100-250
8 Iraq Subtropical +12 +24 ≤100
9 Syrian Arab Rep. Subtropical +12 +24 ≤100
10 Saudi Arabia Subtropical /
Tropical
+16 +32 ≤100
11 Yemen Tropical +24 +32 ≤100
12 Eritrea Tropical +24 +32 250-500-
13 Egypt Subtropical +16 +32 ≤100
14 Libya Subtropical +16 +32 ≤100
15 South Sudan Tropical +24 +32 1000-2000
16 Central African Rep. Tropical +24 +24 1000-2000
17 Equatorial Guinea Tropical +24 +24 2000-3000
18 Cuba Tropical +24 +24 1000-2000
Source: Based on World Meteorological Organization (2020a; 2020b 2021).
Out of the 18 “closed society” countries, 17 countries (94.4%) are located
in hot climates. A signicant part of the territory of China is also located
783
CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 39 Nº 69 (Julio - Diciembre 2021): 774-795
there. There are 8 countries located in tropical climates, the same number
— in subtropical, and Saudi Arabia –in both. There are 11 countries (61%)
located in arid climates, and 6 countries (33%) – in humid climates. None
of these countries are located in the temperate zone. But there are dierent
temperature and humidity conditions in China.
The second block (Tables 3 and 4) demonstrates the correlation between
such characteristics of society as “openness” and “closedness” with the
dominant religion.
Table 3. Religious factor in “open-society” countries
# Country Religious denominations
1 Canada Christian Roman Catholic 43%, Protestant 23% (including
United Church 10%, Anglican 7%, Baptist 2%, Lutheran 2%),
other Christian 4%, Muslim 2%, none 16%
2 Iceland Christian Lutheran Church of Iceland 85.5%, Reykjavik Free
Church 2.1%, Roman Catholic Church 2%, Hafnarfjorour Free
Church 1.5%, other Christian 2.7%, other or unspecied 3.8%,
unaliated 2.4%
3 Norway Christian Evangelical Lutheran 86% (state church),
Pentecostal 1%, Roman Catholic 1%, other Christian 2%
4 Sweden Christian Lutheran 87%, Roman Catholic, Orthodox,
Baptist, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist
5 Finland Christian Evangelical Lutheran 84%, Greek Orthodox 1%,
other Christian 1%, none 14%
6 Denmark Christian Evangelical Lutheran 95%, other Protestant and
Roman Catholic 3%, Muslim 2%
7 Estonia Christian Evangelical Lutheran 14%, Russian Orthodox 13%,
other Christian (including Methodist, Seventh-Day Adventist,
Roman Catholic, Pentecostal) 1%, unaliated 34%, none 6%
8 Lithuania Christian Roman Catholic 79%, Russian Orthodox 4%,
Protestant (including Lutheran, evangelical Christian Baptist)
2%, none 10%
9 Germany Christian Protestant 34%, Roman Catholic 34%, Islam 4%,
Unaliated or other 28%
10 Netherland Christian Roman Catholic 31%, Dutch Reformed 13%,
Calvinist 7%, Islam 6%, none 41%
11 Belgium Christian Roman Catholic 75%, Protestant or other 25%
12 Czech Rep. Christian Roman Catholic 27%, Protestant 2%, unaliated
59%
13 Austria Christian Roman Catholic 74%, Protestant 5%, Islam 4%,
none 12%
14 Switzerland Christian Zionist (a blend of Christianity and indigenous
ancestral worship) 40%; Roman Catholic 20%; Muslim 10%;
Anglican, Bahai, Methodist, Mormon, Jewish, and other 30%
784
Serhii O. Komnatnyi, Oleg S. Sheremet, Viacheslav E. Suslykov, Kateryna S. Lisova y Stepan
D. Svorak
The role of the factors determining national character in building civil society
15 Ireland Christian Roman Catholic 88%, Church of Ireland 3%, other
Christian 2%, none 4%
16 Portugal Christian Roman Catholic 94%
17 New
Zeeland
Christian Anglican 15%, Presbyterian 11%, Methodist 3%,
Pentecostal 2%, Baptist 1%, Roman Catholic 12%, other
Christian 9%, none 26%
18 Uruguay Christian Roman Catholic 66%, Protestant 2%, Jewish 1%
19 Surinam Christian Protestant 25.2% (predominantly Moravian),
Roman Catholic 22.8%, Hindu 27.4%, Islam 19.6%,
indigenous 5%
Source: Based on Pew Research Center (2020).
Table 4. Religious factor in “closed-society” countries
# Country Religious denominations
1 China Ocially atheist Daoist (Taoist) 22%, Buddhist 18%,
Christian 5%, Muslim 2%, none 52%
2 Lao People
Democratic Rep.
Buddhist 60%, animist and other 40% (including
Christian 2%)
3 Viet Nam Ocially atheist Folk religion 45%, Buddhist 16,5%,
Catholic 7%, Protestant 1%,
4 Uzbekistan Muslim (mostly Sunnis) 88%, Eastern Orthodox 9%
5 Turkmenistan Muslim 89%, Eastern Orthodox 9%, unknown 2%
6 Iran Islamic
Rep.
Muslim 98% (Shi’a 89%, Sunni 9%); Zoroastrian,
Jewish, Christian, and Baha’i 2%
7 Azerbaijan Muslim 93%, Russian Orthodox 3%, Armenian
Orthodox 2%, other 2%
8 Iraq Muslim 97% (Shiite 60%?65%, Sunni 32%?37%),
Christian or other 3%
9 Syrian Arab
Rep.
Muslim (Sunni) 74%; Alawite, Druze, and other Islamic
sects 16%; Christian (various sects) 10%; Jewish (tiny
communities in Damascus, Al Qamishli, and Aleppo)
10 Saudi Arabia Muslim 100%
11 Yemen Muslim (including Sunni and Shiite), small numbers of
Jewish, Christian, and Hindu
12 Eritrea Christian (Eritrean Orthodox Christianity, Roman
Catholic, Protestant) 50%, Muslim 48%
13 Egypt Muslim (mostly Sunni) 90%, Coptic 9%, Christian 1%,
other 6%
14 Libya Muslim (Sunni) 97%
15 South Sudan Christian 60,5% Muslim 20%
785
CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 39 Nº 69 (Julio - Diciembre 2021): 774-795
16 Central African
Rep.
Christian 50% (Protestant and Roman Catholic -
both with animist inuence - 25% each), Muslim 15%
indigenous beliefs 35%,
17 Equatorial
Guinea
Muslim 85%, Christian 8%, indigenous 7%
18 Cuba Christian predominantly Roman Catholic and Santera
(Afro-Cuban syncretic religion)
Source: Based on Pew Research Center (2020).
The Table 3 demonstrates that 100% of “open-society” countries are
Christian. Roman Catholics have the majority in 9 countries, Protestants
have a clear majority in 7 countries, and 3 countries have some balance.
The orthodox denomination has some impact in Estonia. Such Orthodox
countries as Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, and Northern Macedonia are
categorized by CIVICUS (2019) as “narrowed”.
Out of the 18 “closed-society” countries, 11 countries (61%) are
predominantly Islamic, 3 countries (16.7%) are predominantly Christian,
and 1 (Eritrea) is divided almost equally. East religions (Daoism, Buddhism,
and others) have a traditional impact in 3 countries (16.7%).
The third block (Tables 5 and 6) reveals the inuence of the happiness
index on the state of civil society.
Table 5. Religious factor in “closed-society” countries
# Country Place in WHR 2020 Index
1 Finland 1 7.809
2 Denmark 2 7.646
3 Switzerland 3 7.560
4 Iceland 4 7.504
5 Norway 5 7.488
6 Netherland 6 7.449
7 Sweden 7 7.353
8 New Zeeland 8 7.300
9 Austria 9 7.294
10 Canada 11 7.232
11 Ireland 16 7.094
12 Germany 17 7.076
786
Serhii O. Komnatnyi, Oleg S. Sheremet, Viacheslav E. Suslykov, Kateryna S. Lisova y Stepan
D. Svorak
The role of the factors determining national character in building civil society
13 Czech Rep. 19 6.911
14 Belgium 20 6.864
15 Uruguay 26 6.440
16 Lithuania 41 6.215
17 Estonia 51 6.022
18 Portugal 59 5.911
19 Surinam - no data
Source: Based on Pew Research Center (2020).
Table 6. Happiness factor in “closed-society” countries
# Country Place in WHR 2020 Index
1 Saudi Arabia 27 6.406
2 Uzbekistan 38 6.258
3 Viet Nam 83 5.353
4 Azerbaijan 89 5.165
5 China 94 5.124
6 Turkmenistan 96 5.119
7 Equatorial Guinea 102 4.949
8 Lao People Democratic Rep. 104 4.889
9 Iraq 110 4.785
10 Iran Islamic Rep. 118 4.672
11 Egypt 138 4.151
12 Yemen 146 3.527
13 Central African Rep. 149 3.476
14 Syrian Arab Rep. 150 3.462
15 South Sudan 152 2.817
16 Eritrea - no data
17 Libya - no data
18 Cuba - no data
Source: Based on Pew Research Center (2020).
787
CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 39 Nº 69 (Julio - Diciembre 2021): 774-795
All “open society” countries, in which the World Happiness Report
Research-2020 (Helliwell et al., 2020) was conducted, occupy positions
in the top half of the ranking, which includes 153 countries. There are 14
countries (77.8%) in the top twenty. However, 3 countries from the list
of “open society” are inferior to the top countries from the list of “closed
society”. In “open society” countries the average happiness index is 7.065.
Only 2 of the 15 “closed-society” countries, in which the WHR research
was conducted, occupy positions in the top half of the ranking. There are 13
countries (86.6%) in the bottom half of the rating, of which 5 (33.3%) are
among the unhappiest 10% of the world. The average happiness index in
“closed-society” countries is 4.677.
4. Discussion
The presented results take the interpretation of civil society beyond
the narrow frameworks of institutionalism. After all, these frameworks
limit the subject of research by the actual existence of institutions and
organizations of civil society in all spheres of life. They involve the use of
a predominantly statistical method. This method shows the state but does
not reveal the driving forces of the process of building civil society as in
some political systems either on regional or on the global level (Feenstra,
2017). Institutionalism does not answer the fundamental questions: Why
in some countries stable and inuential entities of civil society were formed
independently, while in other countries public organizations, even created
by external forces, are disintegrated, or work ineciently? Why in some
countries the low assessment of the state of civil society development due
to the absence or a small number of formal institutions and organizations of
civil society was inadequate, given the real impact of civil society on socio-
political processes? The forecasts that were made based on institutionalism
fell through and problems seem insurmountable.
The limitation of the institutional approach is especially evident when
assessing the inuence of religion on building civil society. This approach
leads to supercial conclusions. Omelicheva and Ahmed (2018) emphasize:
“Religiosity, by itself, often serves as a deterrent rather than mobilizing
force for political engagement, regardless the denominational dierences.
It is the membership in religious organizations and other voluntary
associations of a secular nature that make individuals more likely to engage
in political activity”. It is obvious that these researchers habitually regard
religion as a set of social institutions in isolation from its moral inuence on
the formation of a national ethos. And there has been too little investigation
of how individual religious beliefs and practices aect interactions and
outcomes within organizations, including educational, legal, political, and
occupational (Glass, 2019).
788
Serhii O. Komnatnyi, Oleg S. Sheremet, Viacheslav E. Suslykov, Kateryna S. Lisova y Stepan
D. Svorak
The role of the factors determining national character in building civil society
Vamstad (2020) argues that structural barriers to the formation of a
community, Muslims in the present case, are neither xed nor immutable.
Mclean and Mcmillan (2009) argue that civil society can actively foster anti-
democratic agendas that propel young democracies on an autocratic path.
But they did not reveal the root causes of these strong autocratic features.
Similarly, institutionalists consider the inherently moral problems
of civil society in isolation from understanding the specics of national
character. In particular, researchers are exploring such issues as the eect of
generalized trust on political participation, the translating individual-level
explanations of dierences in political participation to an organizational
level, and citizens’ initiatives (Inkeles, 2017; Kenny, 2020) only at the
organizational level. They do not correlate these issues with natural, social
and psychological factors.
On the contrary, our research proves that these factors with a high degree
of correlation are reected in the essential characteristics of civil society,
which CIVICUS summarizes in the categories of “open”, “narrowed”,
“repressed” and “closed”. The inuence of climatic and religious factors on
building civil society is due to the particularly stable archetypes of human
relations, which they predetermine. Thus, the research conrms the
identication of national character not only with the innate characteristics
of a group, but involves the identication of people, ethnicity, and races
according to specic indomitable cultural characteristics (Wiarda, 2016).
Our research shows that it is not the institutions themselves that are
important, but the “spirit of the people”, which is expressed in the national
character and mentality. Such factors as: (a) climatic conditions; (b) the
religious precepts that determine its ethos are often subconscious; (c) the
national “happiness formula”, which determines a certain goal in the process
of social interaction, reect the dierent levels of national character.
But issues concerning large countries that are located in several
climatic zones, as well as countries that do not have a dominant religion or
denomination, remain controversial. These issues need to be considered
in separate studies. For example, Sun (2016) goes this way exploring the
Chinese national character. However, these studies cannot replace a global
generalized view on the problem, where certain exceptions only conrm the
general rule.
Issues of the so-called “split countries”, such as Korea, also remain
controversial and show cultural-historic contentious system. Such examples
show that the national character formed under the inuence of climate
and religion has dierent manifestations and building of civil society also
depends on the course of historical events. So, the issue must be addressed
as to whether political institutions shape national character more or less
than they are shaped by it (Charlesworth, 1967).
789
CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 39 Nº 69 (Julio - Diciembre 2021): 774-795
The criterion of the national “happiness formula” proposed in this study
helps to solve this long-standing dilemma. If the linearity of the inuence
of climatic and religious actors is obvious, the inuence of the happiness
factor found in the study through the use of World Happiness Report
2020 (Helliwell et al., 2020) data is not so unambiguous. The denition of
Helliwell et al., (2020), — “several kinds of individual and social trust and
social connections” — should be seen as components of national “happiness
formula”, which determines the national character. After all, the question
of whether the national “happiness formula” aects building civil society
in the country, or, conversely, the state of civil society aects the feeling
of happiness is really debatable. Values that collectively determine the
perception of happiness within a particular social group are the basis of
ethos. Thus, the image of happiness that dominates a certain nation both
on a conscious and unconscious level determines its mentality. On the one
hand, happiness is an essential goal of civil society, and, on the other hand,
the specics of the happy feeling, the so-called “happiness formula”, as
a determinant of national character, aects the formation of civil society
space.
Thus, based on WHR data, which we compared with the state of civil
society in dierent countries around the world, we concluded that building
civil society is two-stage. Initially, the inherent features of the national
character (ethos, national “happiness formula”) form a civil society through
social communication. Then, the specics of the established institutions
of civil society aect the individual and group mentality through public
opinion, trust, and sanctions.
So, the results of our study develop the provisions of the system functional
approach, which gained popularity in the second decade of the 21st century.
The authors of this approach focus on the analysis of the processes of
functioning, connections, and interaction of various elements, institutions
and organizations of civil society. For example, Kenny (2020) interprets
civil society as a dense network of groups, communities, networks, and ties
that stand between the individual and the modern state.
In general, this approach can be agreed upon. But the results show that
to understand the patterns of building civil society, it is necessary to go
beyond the study of its forms, norms and spaces, which is presented in the
fundamental collective work The Oxford Handbook of Civil Society edited
by Edwards (2013). In contrast to the materials presented in this book, the
results of our research show that the emphasis on anthropological aspects
of the geometry of human relations makes the system-functional approach
more eective. On the one hand, it becomes deeper, because it is immersed
in the depths of the human subconscious, where archetypes of national
character are hidden. And, on the other hand, it becomes broader, because
it brings a research from the case-study of one country to the global level.
790
Serhii O. Komnatnyi, Oleg S. Sheremet, Viacheslav E. Suslykov, Kateryna S. Lisova y Stepan
D. Svorak
The role of the factors determining national character in building civil society
The results of the research of the impact of national peculiarities on
building civil society as a whole are in line with modern studies. According to
the latter, civil society is still invoked by many of its advocates as a synonym
for the values of authenticity and belonging, neither of which, as assumed,
can be achieved in politics or economic life (Kenny, 2020). But these results
reject institutionalism, which is entrenched in the interpretation of the
national character as well.
Conclusion
The research expands and deepens the system functional approach
to the evaluation of building civil society. It overcomes the aws of
instrumentalism and presents a view of civil society through the prism of
an anthropologist.
The author compared the following factors that aect the type of
national character: (a) the climatic conditions; (b) the dominant religion;
c) understanding of happiness.
The comparison shows that:
• the correlation of a location in a temperate climate zone with the
inclusion of a country in an “open-society” group is 84%, and a
location in a hot climate zone with the inclusion of a country in a
“closed-society” group is 94.4%.
• the correlation of Christianity as dominant religion with the
inclusion of a country in an “open-society” group is 100%, and of
Islam as predominant religion with the inclusion of a country in a
“closed-society” group is 61%.
• 77.8% “open-society” countries are in the top twenty of the World
Happiness Report rating, in “open-society” countries the average
index of happiness is 7.065, and 86.6% “closed-society” countries
are in the bottom half of the rating, of which 33.3% are among the
unhappiest 10% of the world; the average index of happiness in
“closed-society” countries is 4.677.
Thus, the research reliably proves that the factors which determine the
specics of national character and political mentality are reected with a
high degree of correlation in the essential characteristics of civil society
through certain stable recurring stereotypes of human relations.
The hot climate, which aects ‘hot’ temperament as a physiological
background of southern character, combined with harsh sanctions that
ensure the observance of moral norms in Islam, shapes the geometry
of human relations according to the patriarchal-paternalistic formula
791
CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 39 Nº 69 (Julio - Diciembre 2021): 774-795
“domination – submission”. These factors form the type of national
character that determines the specics of closed societies.
On the contrary, there are three interrelated components of Nordic
national character, which forms an open civil society: (a) the temperament
inherent in the inhabitants of temperate countries, (b) combined with the
Christian ethos of love and charity, (c) which forms a specic cooperative
“happiness formula”, as “several kinds of individual and social trust and
social connections”.
Civil society is built in two stages. Initially, the peculiarities of the
national character (temperament, ethos, national “happiness formula”)
form a civil society through social communication. The specics of the
established institutions of civil society aect the individual and group
mentality through public opinion, trust, reputation, and sanctions.
The research results are important for the evaluation of building civil
society and its development prospects in dierent countries and regions of
the world.
Further research in this area is related to the study of other aspects of
the impact of national character and political mentality on civil society, in
particular in the eld of social media.
The calculations carried out by the author make it possible to solve the
assigned tasks and achieve the set research goal.
The comparison of dierent countries civil society’s state with the
climatic conditions of their location shows that the correlation of a location
in a temperate climate zone with the inclusion of a country in an “open-
society” group is 84%, and a location in a hot climate zone with the inclusion
of a country in a “closed-society” group is 94.4%.;
The collation of such key characteristics of civil society as ‘openness’ and
‘closedness’ with the dominant religion demonstrates that the correlation
of Christianity as dominant religion with the inclusion of a country in an
“open-society” group is 100%, and of Islam as predominant religion with
the inclusion of a country in a “closed-society” group is 61%.
The analysis of the dependence of civil society’s state on the factors that
determine the feeling of happiness inherent in a certain type of national
character reveals that 77.8% “open-society” countries are in the top twenty of
the World Happiness Report rating, in “open-society” countries the average
index of happiness is 7.065, and 86.6% “closed-society” countries are in the
bottom half of the rating, of which 33.3% are among the unhappiest 10% of
the world; the average index of happiness in “closed-society” countries is
4.677.
792
Serhii O. Komnatnyi, Oleg S. Sheremet, Viacheslav E. Suslykov, Kateryna S. Lisova y Stepan
D. Svorak
The role of the factors determining national character in building civil society
Thus, our research of the role of external factors and internal determinants
of national character and political mentality in building and functioning
of civil society reliably proves that such factors and determinants as: (a)
the climatic conditions; (b) the dominant religion; c) understanding of
happiness are reected with a high degree of correlation in the essential
characteristics of civil society through certain stable recurring stereotypes
of human relations.
The hot climate, which aects ‘hot’ temperament as a physiological
background of a southern character, combined with harsh sanctions that
ensure the observance of moral norms in Islam, shapes the geometry
of human relations according to the patriarchal-paternalistic formula
“domination – submission”. These factors form the type of national
character that determines the specics of closed societies.
On the contrary, there are three interrelated components of Nordic
national character, which forms an open civil society: (a) the temperament
inherent in the inhabitants of temperate countries, (b) combined with the
Christian ethos of love and charity, (c) which forms a specic cooperative
“happiness formula”, as “several kinds of individual and social trust and
social connections”.
The research results are important for the evaluation of building civil
society and its development prospects in dierent countries and regions of
the world.
Further research in this area is related to the study of other aspects of
the impact of national character and political mentality on civil society,
particularly in social media.
Bibliographic References
BIDEN, Joseph R. 2020. Why America must lead again. Rescuing U. S. foreign
policy after Trump. Available online. In: https://www.foreignaairs.
com/articles/united-states/2020-01-23/why-america-must-lead-again.
Consultation date: 04/23/2021.
BILALI, Rezarta; IQBAL, Yeshim; ÇELIK, Ayşe Betül. 2018. “The role of national
identity, religious identity, and intergroup contact on social distance
across multiple social divides in Turkey” In International Journal of
Intercultural Relations. Vol. 5, pp. 73-85. Available online. In: https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2018.04.007. Consultation date: 04/23/2021.
CAMBRIDGE DICTIONARY. 2021. Ethos. Available online. In: https://
dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ethos. Consultation date:
04/23/2021.
793
CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 39 Nº 69 (Julio - Diciembre 2021): 774-795
CHARLESWORTH, James. 1967. “National character in the perspective of
political science” In the Annals of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science, vol. 370, No. 1, pp. 23-29.
CIA WORLD FACTBOOK. 2020. World Religions. Available online. In:
https://www.infoplease.com/world/social-statistics/world-religions.
Consultation date: 04/23/2021.
CIVICUS. 2019. State of Civil Society Report. Available online. In: https://www.
civicus.org/index.php/state-of-civil-society-report-2019. Consultation
date: 04/23/2021.
COLLINS ONLINE ENGLISH DICTIONARY. 2021. Civil Society. Available
online. In: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/civil-
society. Consultation date: 04/23/2021.
DINGLEY, James. 2009. “Religion, truth, national identity and social
meaning: The example of Northern Ireland” In National Identities.
Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 367-383. Available online. In: https://doi.
org/10.1080/14608940903321994. Consultation date: 04/23/2021.
EDWARDS, Michael. 2013. Introduction: Civil Society and the Geometry of
Human Relations. In M. Edwards (ed.), “The Oxford Handbook of Civil
Society”. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, pp. 1-12. Available online.
In: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195398571.013.0001.
Consultation date: 04/23/2021.
FEENSTRA, Ramon. 2017. “Essay: Rethinking Global Civil Society and the
Public Sphere in the Age of Pro-democracy Movements” In Journal of
Civil Society. Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 337-348. Available online. In: https://doi.
org/10.1080/17448689.2017.1359886. Consultation date: 04/23/2020.
GLASS, Jennifer. 2019. “Why Aren’t We Paying Attention? Religion and Politics
in Everyday Life” In Sociology of Religion. Vol. 80, pp. 9-27. Available
online. In: https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/sry041. Consultation date:
04/23/2020.
HELLIWELL, John; LAYARD, Richard; SACHS, Jerey; DE NEVE, Jan
Emmanuel. (eds.). (2020). World Happiness Report 2020. Sustainable
Development. Available online. In: https://worldhappiness.report/
ed/2020/#read. Consultation date: 04/23/2021.
INKELES, Alex. 2017. National Character and Modern Political Systems: A
Psycho–Social Perspective. In A. Inkeles (ed.), National Character.
Routledge, New York, NY, pp. 211-250. Available online. In: https://doi.
org/10.4324/9781315125053-6. Consultation date: 04/23/2020.
794
Serhii O. Komnatnyi, Oleg S. Sheremet, Viacheslav E. Suslykov, Kateryna S. Lisova y Stepan
D. Svorak
The role of the factors determining national character in building civil society
KENNY, Michael. 2020. Civil society. Available online. In: https://www.
britannica.com/topic/civil-society/Contemporary-political-discourse.
Consultation date: 04/23/2021.
LORD, Carnes. 2013. Aristotle’s Politics. (2nd ed.). University of Chicago Press,
Chicago, IL. London, UK.
MAHAJAN, Gurpreet. 2021. “Does a plural civil society matter? Reecting on
the varieties of associational life in India” In Journal of Civil Society. Vol.
17, No. 1, pp. 5-17. Available online. In: https://doi.org/10.1080/174486
89.2021.1886761. Consultation date: 04/23/2020.
MCCRAE, Robert; TERRACCIANO, Antonio; REALO, Anu; ALLIK, Jüri.
2007. “Climatic Warmth and National Wealth: Some Culture-Level
Determinants of National Character Stereotypes” In: European Journal
of Personality. Vol. 21, No. 8, pp. 953-976. Available online. In: https://
doi.org/10.1002/per.647. Consultation date: 04/23/2020.
MCLEAN, Iain; MCMILLAN, Alistair. 2009. Civil Society. In The Concise
Oxford Dictionary of Politics. (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press,
Oxford, UK. Available online. In: https://doi.org/10.1093/
acref/9780199207800.001.0001. Consultation date: 04/23/2020.
OMELICHEVA, Mariya; AHMED, Ranya. 2018. “Religion and politics:
examining the impact of faith on political participation” In Religion, State
and Society. Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 4-25. Available online. In: https://doi.org
/10.1080/09637494.2017.1363345. Consultation date: 04/23/2020.
PEW RESEARCH CENTER. 2020. The Global Religious Landscape: A Report
on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Major Religious Groups.
Available online. In: https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/
uploads/sites/11/2020/01/global-religion-full.pdf. Consultation date:
04/21/2021.
STEWART, Philip. 2018. Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Law. Available online.
In: http://montesquieu.ens-lyon.fr/spip.php?rubrique186. Consultation
date: 04/23/2021.
SUN, Warren. 2016. The Chinese National Character: From Nationhood to
Individuality. Routledge, New York, NY.
WEBER, Max. (2002). The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism.
Transl. by P. Baehr & Gordon C. W. Penguin Books, London, UK.
WIARDA, Howard. 2016. Political Culture, Political Science, and Identity
Politics: An Uneasy Alliance. Routledge, New York, NY.
795
CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 39 Nº 69 (Julio - Diciembre 2021): 774-795
WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION. 2020a. Climate Zone Shiny
Map. Available online. In: https://community.rstudio.com/t/climate-
zone-shiny-map/56366. Consultation date: 04/24/2021.
WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION. 2020b. Provisional
Report on the State of the Global Climate 2020. Available online. In:
https://library.wmo.int/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=21804#.
YGOajtIzbIU. Consultation date: 04/24/2021.
WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION. 2021. World Climate Maps.
Available online. In: https://www.climate-charts.com/World-Climate-
Maps.html. Consultation date: 04/24/2021.
VAMSTAD, Johan. 2020. “Giving to be civil or civic? – A social origins analysis
of charitable giving in Sweden” In Journal of Civil Society. Vol. 16, No. 1,
pp. 1-14. Available online. In: https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2020.
1717158. Consultation date: 04/23/2021.
www.luz.edu.ve
www.serbi.luz.edu.ve
www.produccioncienticaluz.org
Esta revista fue editada en formato digital y publicada
en julio de 2021, por el Fondo Editorial Serbiluz,
Universidad del Zulia. Maracaibo-Venezuela
Vol.39 Nº 69