Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

Even dogs prefer democracy

But the right, as well as the left, has plenty to learn about how to deploy it

issue 14 January 2012

Recent research has shown a robust and positive correlation between the amount of democracy we enjoy and how happy we are. This is true for the Swiss, at any rate, for it was among the cantons of Switzerland that the research was conducted. If you believe the Swiss are a peculiarly unrepresentative group, you may be interested to know that the same rule holds true not only for melted-cheese-­eating neutrality monkeys, but also for dogs.

Dogs prefer democracy? How can we possibly know? I’m not suggesting here that dogs have sophisticated political views — though Rod Liddle has written that ‘all dogs are notoriously right-of-centre creatures: loyal, patriotic, implacably pro-hunting … wedded to the family unit and deeply suspicious of all aliens’. Instead I am referring to a psychological experiment conceived by some ingenious though faintly sadistic scientists in order to demonstrate that it is not only your circumstances that determine your happiness, but the extent to which you control them.

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