This article builds on research demonstrating that high levels of economic and physical security are conducive to a shift from materialist to postmaterialist values—and that this shift tends to make people more favorable to important social changes. This article updates this research, demonstrating that: (1) These value changes occur with exceptionally large time lags between the onset of the conditions conducive to them, and the societal changes they produce—as previous work implies but does not demonstrate. The evidence suggests that there was a time lag of forty to fifty years between when Western societies first attained high levels of economic and physical security after World War II, and related societal changes such as legalization of same-sex marriage. (2) A distinctive set of “individual-choice norms,” dealing with acceptance of gender equality, divorce, abortion, and homosexuality, is moving on a different trajectory from other cultural changes. These norms are closely linked with human fertility rates and require severe self-repression. (3) Although basic values normally change at the pace of intergenerational population replacement, the shift from pro-fertility norms to individual-choice norms is now moving much faster, having reached a tipping point where conformist pressures have reversed polarity and are now accelerating changes they once resisted. We test these claims against data from eighty countries containing most of the world's population, surveyed from 1981 to 2014. External link: http://academic.oup.com//sf/article/doi/10.1093/sf/sox008/2952925/Cultural-Change-Slow-and-Fast-The-Distinctive?guestAccessKey=392023bc-2c74-4775-b9a4-353007e44281

Cultural_Change,_Slow_and_Fast--__Norms_Governing_Gender_Equality_and_Sexual_Orientation.pdf [Download count:87]

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About 45 years ago, I suggested “a transformation may be taking place in the political culture of advanced industrial societies. This transformation seems to be altering the basic value priorities of given generations as a result of changing con- ditions influencing their basic socialization” (Inglehart, 1971, p. 991). This chapter traces the evolution of values in Western countries since 1970, and examines to what extent similar value changes are transforming other countries today, with special attention to Muslim-majority countries. External link: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/values-political-action-and-change-in-the-middle-east-and-the-arab-spring-9780190269098?cc=lt&lang=en&

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This paper examines correlations between the genetic characteristics of human populations and their aggregate levels of tolerance and happiness. A metadata analysis of genetic polymorphisms supports the interpretation that a major cause of the systematic clustering of genetic characteristics may be climatic conditions linked with relatively high or low levels of parasite vulnerability. This led vulnerable populations to develop gene pools conducive to avoidance of strangers, while less-vulnerable populations developed gene pools linked with lower levels of
avoidance. This, in turn, helped shape distinctive cultures and subsequent economic development. Survey evidence from 48 countries included in the World Values Survey suggests that a combination of cultural, economic and genetic factors has made some societies more tolerant of outsiders and more predisposed to accept gender equality than others. These relatively tolerant societies also tend to be happier, partly because tolerance creates a less stressful social environment. Though economic development tends to make all societies more tolerant and open to gender equality and even somewhat happier, these findings suggest that cross-national differences in how readily these changes are accepted, may reflect genetically-linked cultural differences.

Keywords: genetic influences; gender equality; homosexuality; tolerance; happiness; World Values Survey External link: https://www.addletonacademicpublishers.com/contents-jrgs/245-volume-4-1-2014/2231-genetic-factors-cultural-predispositions-happiness-and-gender-equality

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In recent decades, rising levels of economic and physical security have been reshaping human values and motivations, and thereby transforming societies. Economic and physical insecurity are conducive to xenophobia, strong in-group solidarity, authoritarian politics and rigid adherence to traditional cultural norms; conversely, secure conditions lead to greater tolerance of outgroups, openness to new ideas and more egalitarian social norms.
Existential security shapes societies and cultures in two ways. Modernization increases prevailing security levels, producing pervasive cultural changes in developed countries. But long before this happened, substantial cross-sectional cultural difference already existed, reflecting historical differences in vulnerability to disease and other factors. Analysts working from different perspectives have described these cultural differences as Collectivism versus Individualism, Materialism versus Postmaterialism, Survival versus Self-expression values, or Autonomy versus Embeddedness, but they all tap a common dimension of cross-cultural variation that reflects different levels of existential security.

Keywords: Existential security, modernization, cultural change, xenophobia, authoritarianism, individualism, autonomy, Postmaterialism, self-expression values. External link: https://global.oup.com/academic/content/series/a/advances-in-culture-and-psychology-acp/?lang=en&cc=lt

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The Democratic Peace thesis suggests that the absence of war between major powers since 1945 is caused by the spread of democracy. The Capitalist Peace thesis emphasizes trade and the rise of knowledge economies as the factors driving peace. Complementing these interpretations, we present empirical evidence of a cultural change that is making peace more desirable to the publics of most societies around the world. Analyzing public opinion data covering 90 percent of the world’s population over three decades, we demonstrate that rising levels of economic and physical security elevate the life opportunities of growing population segments and lead them to become increasingly tolerant of diversity and place growing emphasis on self-realization. In recognition of life’s rising opportunities, people’s valuation of life changes profoundly: readiness to sacrifice one’s life gives way to an increasing insistence on living it, and living it the way one chooses. Hence, pro-choice values rise at the same time as willingness to sacrifice lives in war dwindles. Historical learning based on the specific experiences of given societies has also changed their publics’ willingness to fight in wars. This transformation of worldviews places interstate peace on an increasingly solid mass basis.

Keywords: long peace, democratic peace, willingness to fight, modernization, historical learning External link: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0022343314565756

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Over forty years ago, The Silent Revolution thesis argued that when people grow up taking survival for granted it makes them more open to new ideas and more tolerant of outgroups. Consequently, the unprecedentedly high level of existential security that emerged in developed democracies after World War II, was giving rise to an intergenerational shift toward Postmaterialist values, bringing greater emphasis on freedom of expression, environmental protection, gender equality, and tolerance of gays, handicapped people and foreigners. Insecurity has the opposite effect. For most its existence, humanity lived just above the starvation level and under extreme scarcity, xenophobia becomes realistic: when a tribe’s territory produces just enough food to sustain it, and another tribe moves in, it can be a struggle in which one tribe or the other survives. Insecurity encourages an authoritarian xenophobic reaction in which people close ranks behind strong leaders, with strong in-group solidarity, rejection of outsiders, and rigid conformity to group norms, in a struggle for survival against dangerous outsiders. Conversely, the high levels of existential security that emerged after World War II gave more room for free choice and openness to outsiders During the postwar era, the people of developed countries experienced peace, unprecedented prosperity and the emergence of advanced welfare states, making survival more secure than ever before. Postwar birth cohorts grew up taking survival for granted, bringing an intergenerational shift toward Postmaterialist values. Survival is such a central goal that when it is threatened, it dominates people’s life strategy. Conversely, when it can be taken for granted, it opens the way for new norms concerning everything from economic behavior to sexual orientation and the spread of democratic institutions. Compared with previously prevailing values, which emphasized economic and physical security above all, Postmaterialists are less conformist, more open to new ideas, less authoritarian, and more tolerant of outgroups. But these values depend on high levels of economic and physical security. They did not emerge in low-income countries, and were most prevalent among the younger and more secure strata of high-income countries. Security shaped these values in two ways: (1) through an intergenerational shift toward Postmaterialism based on birth cohort effects: younger cohorts that had grown up under secure conditions, gradually replaced older ones who had been shaped by two World Wars and the Great Depression; and (2) through period effects: people respond to current conditions as well as to their formative experiences, with economic downturns making all birth cohorts less Postmaterialist, and rising prosperity having the opposite effect.
The 35 years of rapid economic growth and expanding opportunities that developed democracies experienced following WWII brought pervasive cultural changes contributing to the rise of Green parties and the spread of democracy. But during the most recent 35 years, while these countries still had significant economic growth, virtually all of the gains went to those at the top; the less-educated experienced declining real income and a sharply declining relative position that fueled support for populist authoritarian parties. Postmaterialism eventually became its own grave-digger. External link: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics

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A collective monograph by the network of WVS scholars on global trends of change in social and political values. External link: http://www.amazon.com/Tendencias-mundiales-sociales-politicos-Coleccion/dp/8481120227

lib._1994-02_Tendencias_mundiales_de_cambio_en_los_valores_sociales_y_politicos_.pdf [Download count:60]

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In 2012, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)—which had governed Mexico with an iron grip for 71 years before being ousted in 2000—was surprisingly returned to power. In Mexico's Evolving Democracy, a team of distinguished political scientists delivers an exceptional analysis of the remarkable 2012 Mexican elections. Extending the scholarship that the editors generated in their panel studies of the 2000 and 2006 elections, the book assesses all three elections from both traditional and nontraditional vantage points, seeking fuller answers to the lingering question of why this maturing democracy returned the party associated with Mexico’s old regime to office. To evaluate the PRI’s rehabilitation and eventual electoral success, the authors explore Mexico’s electoral institutions, parties, candidates, campaign strategies, public opinion surveys, and media coverage. They also delve into issues of clientelism, corruption, drugs, violence, and the rise of new protest movements in the run-up to and aftermath of the elections. External link: https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/mexicos-evolving-democracy (Click for more...)

This book re-evaluates Almond, Verba, and Pye's original ideas about the shape of a civic culture that supports democracy. Marshaling a massive amount of cross-national, longitudinal public opinion data from the World Values Survey Association, the authors demonstrate multiple manifestations of a deep shift in the mass attitudes and behaviors that undergird democracy. The chapters in this book show that in dozens of countries around the world, citizens have turned away from allegiance toward a decidedly 'assertive' posture to politics: they have become more distrustful of electoral politics, institutions, and representatives and are more ready to confront elites with demands from below. Most importantly, societies that have advanced the most in the transition from an allegiant to an assertive model of citizenship are better-performing democracies - in terms of both accountable and effective governance. External link: http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/comparative-politics/civic-culture-transformed-allegiant-assertive-citizens?format=PB (Click for more...)

In this book, Miguel Basáñez presents a provocative look at the impact of culture on global development. Drawing on data from governments, NGOs, the World Values Survey and more addressing over one hundred countries, he argues that values, as the "building blocks" of culture, are directly related to the speed with which social, cultural and economic development occurs. Basáñez utilizes quantitative survey data to delineate three cultural hyperclusters across the globe: cultures of honor, which prioritize political authority; cultures of achievement, which emphasize economic advancement; and cultures of joy, which focus on social interactions. According to Basáñez, these cultures evolved chronologically, mirroring the development of agrarian, industrial and service societies. He argues that a country's developmental path is profoundly influenced by its people's values and culture, as crystallized through its formal and informal governing institutions. Culture is passed down over generations through families, schools, the media, religious institutions, leadership, and the law. Although culture and values are in a permanent state of evolution, leaders and policymakers can also push cultural change in order to promote desirable goals such as economic growth, democratization, and equality. External link: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/a-world-of-three-cultures-9780190270377?cc=at&lang=en& (Click for more...)

El cambio de valores en América Latina es un estudio que rechaza categóricamente muchos de los paradigmas dados por verdaderos: que la modernización de las sociedades traerá inevitablemente su secularización, que la convergencia económica se ve necesariamente acompañada de convergencia cultural o que la globalización es un proceso lineal, único para todos los países del mundo, que terminará por incluir a todas las sociedades. Esto se explica, como argumenta el libro, porque los cambios sociales en Latinoamérica han desafiado los postulados teóricos y han cuestionado los estereotipos, pues cae en esa categoría de naciones emergentes al desarrollo, donde las teorías sociales diseñadas en otras realidades aplicadas carecen de capacidad alguna para intentar anticipar algún fenómeno social. External link: http://revistafal.com/el-cambio-de-valores-en-america-latina-hallazgos-de-la-encuesta-mundial-de-valores/ (Click for more...)

Despite growing concern about elections around the world which are flawed or even failed, there has been little systematic understanding of the importance of this phenomenon. This book theorizes that electoral integrity matters for multiple reasons, including for political legitimacy, by strengthening public confidence in electoral institutions, a sense of external political efficacy, and satisfaction with the performance of democracy; for civic activism, by increasing levels of voting turnout and civic activism, while dampening the propensity to engage in protest politics; for political representation, including by improving the electoral accountability and thus the responsiveness of elected officials for the delivery of private and collective goods; for security, by accommodating all groups through electoral channels and thereby reducing the underlying grievances which lead towards electoral violence, popular unrest, and civil wars; and ultimately for processes of democratization, including encouraging the macro-level consolidation of democratic procedures, norms, and institutions. By developing a new conceptual framework, measured by new sources of cross-national evidence, this volume demonstrate the importance of all these relationships. This first volumes establishes the foundations for a trilogy of books published by Cambridge University Press. External link: http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/comparative-politics/why-electoral-integrity-matters (Click for more...)

This second volume in the trilogy seeks to unpack the reasons why elections are undermined by numerous kinds of flaws and failures. Structural, international, and institutional accounts provide alternative theoretical perspectives seeking to explain general processes of democratization and these frameworks are adapted to develop insights into why elections may fail to meet international standards. The first perspective suggests that some problems are probably best explained by the challenging conditions and the societal constraints in which contemporary elections are attempted. An alternative argument focuses upon the international community’s attempts to uphold global norms, through monitoring elections, diplomatic pressures threatening or punishing regimes which violate standards, as well as the provision of technical assistance and development aid. By contrast to these predominant perspectives, this book focuses primarily upon institutional design, to explore the claim that the most effective interventions for strengthening contests involve the types of domestic constitutional, legal, and regulatory arrangements. The study concludes that insights into effective institutional designs should be firmly rooted in theories of consensus or power-sharing electoral governance. The essential aspect is rules to prevent winners from consolidating power through manipulating the electoral rules and processes. At the same time, electoral authorities need sufficient resources and capacities to prove effective when managing contests. External link: http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/comparative-politics/why-elections-fail?format=PB (Click for more...)

South Africa's transition to democracy was met by the global audience with at first, disbelief, followed later by applause. After fifteen years of democracy big questions remain: has a more democratic regime also lead to a more liberal society? And has democracy made for a more peaceful society? External link: http://www.palgrave.com/de/book/9780230108882 (Click for more...)

A book entitled: “How Do They Look at Us? … Islam and Muslims in the World Opinion Polls,” has been recently published by Al-Bayan Center for Research and Studies. The book, which is written by Dr. Samir Rudwan Abu Rumman, Executive Director of the Gulf Opinions Center for Polls in Kuwait, and visiting scholar in University of Delaware/USA, deals with hundreds of questions and analysis of Western opinion polls relating to Islam and Muslims. External link: http://www.gulfopinions.com/ar/?p=3204 (Click for more...)

This study engages the triangular theory, which links Islamic orientations, gender equality attitudes and democracy, using the Arab Barometer and WVS data. For democratic support only the Islamist values seem an important negative influence -not religious piety- partly working through economic gender equality attitudes. Attitudes towards women’s position in politics and education seem unrelated to democratic support. In addition, this study applies the gender and postcolonial concept of ‘othering’ and predicts that in the current neo-colonial era, anti-Western feelings might create more Islamic and less democracy and gender equal attitudes simultaneously, making Islam’s impact partly spurious. Empirically, this argument is supported for the Islamist-democracy link only. However, anti-Western feelings do relate to gender equality, democratic support, and religious attitudes.

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The goal of this research is not to measure "objective" security but to measure the "subjective" security regardless of what is the "objective" security.

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This book presents a comprehensive theory of why human freedom gave way to increasing oppression since the invention of states. External link: www.cambridge.org/9781107034709 (Click for more...)

This volume is written in honor of Thorleif Pettersson, an erudite social scientist with a special interest in sociology of religion, a gifted researcher and a scholar playing a key role in the World Values Surveys.

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The relationship between economic development, cultural change, and political liberalization is often explored through the lens of classic modernization theory. Recent scholarship attempts to extend classic theory to be more closely aligned with empirical reality. Under the human development perspective, economic prosperity acts as a catalyst for cultural development, leading to social values that favor liberalization, and thus promotes effective democracy. Using a systems dynamic approach, we formalize the dynamic causal structure specified in the human development perspective, develop a novel econometric procedure (Genetic Algorithm Nonlinear Least Squares) to estimate the parameters of highly nonlinear, continuous time models, and verify our formal model using five waves of data from the World Values Survey. Our results indicate that development is strongly nonlinear and path dependent: Economic progress is a necessary condition for successful secularization and expressive political behavior, which are antecedents for lasting democratic institutions. Thus, policies and institutional arrangements must be tailored to, not outpace, a nation’s level of economic progress to create demand for a secular and expressive political marketplace where democratic institutions can sustain and thrive. External link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2478.2012.00736.x/abstract (Click for more...)