The Ronald F. Inglehart Honorary Lecture 2025
Dear WVSA Members, Subscribers, and Friends,
The World Values Survey Association is pleased to invite you to the 2025 Ronald F. Inglehart Honorary Lecture. Established in 2022, this annual lecture commemorates the memory and scientific legacy of Professor Ronald F. Inglehart, the founder of the World Values Survey.
We are honored to announce that this year’s lecture will be delivered by Dr. Elizabeth J. Zechmeister, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Political Science, Senior Associate Provost for Research and Development, and Senior Advisor to the Center for Global Democracy at Vanderbilt University. The lecture, titled "Preserving Public Commitment to Democracy", will take place on Tuesday, December 16, 2025, at 15:00 UTC. It will be held online via Zoom, and participation is free of charge. A video recording will be made available following the event.
Preserving Public Commitment to Democracy
Is public allegiance to democratic processes and institutions easier to undermine than restore? The first part of this lecture demonstrates that universal human norms around reciprocity can generate vicious cycles that fuel democratic decline through tit-for-tat politics. The second part of the lecture asks whether fundamental human tendencies can, conversely, be activated to strengthen public commitment to democracy. Here the focus turns toward consideration of how efforts to forge meaningful human connections carry the potential to seed political trust and promote compromise. This lecture draws on survey and experiment data from a range of countries to offer novel perspective on challenges and opportunities to bolster public commitment to democracy.
Dr. Elizabeth J. Zechmeister is Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Political Science, Senior Associate Provost for Research & Development, and Senior Advisor to the Center for Global Democracy at Vanderbilt University. An expert in comparative political behavior, she has published widely on topics related to public opinion, elections, and democracy. She is former Director of LAPOP Lab; in that capacity, she led the award-winning AmericasBarometer. She is former Chair of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) Planning Committee. Throughout her career, Dr. Zechmeister has worked to advance best practices in public opinion research. A dedicated educator, Dr. Zechmeister has created multiple programs that open opportunities for student involvement in research and she has won multiple teaching and mentoring awards.
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