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.

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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.

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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.

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