Explaining the Role of Values in Shaping the Attitudes Towards Government Surveillance: Comparative Study of 33 Countries

Over the last years several surveillance scandals have revealed the greatest problem of personal data abuse by governments. This has become a major reason for concerns for citizens of the European countries who express opposing attitudes towards government surveillance. In this study, we try to explain the difference in attitudes through the concept of values. Our hypotheses are based on Inglehart`s modernization theory, stating that higher self-expression values will contribute to more positive attitudes towards government surveillance. We expect that citizens of the European countries, who live in post-industrial prosperous societies, will not agree to sacrifice their freedom for public safety. The relationship is explored by using multilevel regression analysis on the data for 33 European countries provided by the European Values Study. Results suggest that country-level self-expression values and attitudes towards surveillance are negatively associated, meanwhile, individual-level ones have an opposite outcome.