VALUES: LINKING HOSFTEDE’S CULTURAL DIMENSIONS TO ADRIAN-PAUL ILIESCU’S “RIGHT” & “LEFT” INTERPRETATIONS FROM POPPER’S “OPEN SOCIETY”PERSPECTIVE

The study presented in this article aims at identifying a framework for value analysis in linking Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and the dually oriented, left-right, value-ideological options of Adrian-Paul Iliescu’s theory, from Popper’s “open society” perspective, and with a focus on the Romanian democratic context. In relation with the theoretical framework, there was an ex ante expectation that the ideological right (valorization towards the right of freedom, equality, solidarity and the market economy) must be correlated with the value dimensions specific to the Western liberal democracies (low Power Distance, Individualism, Acceptance of Risks). Against this perspective, for the considered sample in the study, it can be underlined that the respondents with ideological orientation to the right according to Adrian-Paul Iliescu’s theory also manifested a mainly positive orientation towards Hofstede’s dimensions specific to liberal democracies: moderate Risk Acceptance and moderate Individualism, although a bias towards high Power Distance must be pointed out. In spite of sampling limitations, the study confirmed certain relationships among the value domains afferent to the two considered theories, from an “open society” perspective.