Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic, and Political Change in 43 Societies - Softcover

Inglehart, Ronald

Softcover

ISBN 10: 069101180X ISBN 13: 9780691011806

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1997

Synopsis

Argues that economic development, cultural change, and political change go together in coherent and even, to some extent, predictable patterns. This title provides information from societies representing 70 percent of the world's population.

About this title

Review

"This latest book by Ronald Inglehart represents another path-breaking advance in his three-decade-long exploration of cultural change in contemporary societies. Few scholars are as adept as Inglehart in weaving together a broad vision of historical change and a fine-grained analysis of survey results into a coherent account of how the world is changing around us."--Robert D. Putnam, author of Making Democracy Work

"Inglehart's new book analyzes the most encompassing dataset on political values and orientations ever collected, in order to assess cultural theories of political and economic change. His well-understood (and subtly reinterpreted) version of modernization theory will draw throngs of critics, as did Inglehart's previous works. But he provides clinching evidence for a logic of cultural development that even his toughest critics can not ignore."--Herbert Kitschelt, Professor of Political Science, Duke University

"[This is] Inglehart's most convincing demonstration of the theory of intergenerational value change, the cornerstone of his scholarship. . . . With data from 43 societies collected over nearly three decades, and representing 70 percent of the world's population . . .the analysis of Inglehart's unprecedented comparative dataset is nuanced, sophisticated, and certain to stimulate the kind of criticism that will deepen our understanding of social change."--The Review of Politics

"

Ronald Inglehart is one of the very few scholars to have remained consistently engaged with both the study of political culture and the
development of modernization theory over the past few decades. In Modernization and Postmodernization, he presents the cumulative results of decades of research on the interrelationships among cultural values, democracy, and capitalism. His findings are consistently thought-provoking and often surprising and should inspire prolonged and productive controversy. . . . Overall, Inglehart's fascinating book raises tantalizing questions about the long-term trajectory of value change in modern society.

"---Stephen E. Hanson, Comparative Politics

Synopsis

This work argues that economic development, cultural change and political change go together in coherent and even, to some extent, predictable patterns. It implies that some trajectories of socioeconomic change are more likely than others, and consequently that certain changes are foreseeable. Once a society has embarked on industrialization, for example, a whole syndrome of related changes, from mass mobilization to diminishing differences in gender roles, is likely to appear. Advanced industrial society leads to a basic shift in values, de-emphasizing the instrumental rationality that characterized modern society. Postmodern values then bring new societal changes, including democratic political institutions and the decline of state socialist regimes. To demonstrate the links between belief systems and political and socioeconomic variables, this book draws on a database, the "World Values Surveys". It covers a broad range for looking at the impact of mass publics on political and social life.

It provides information from societies representing 70 per cent of the world's population from societies with per capita incomes as low as USD300 per year to those with per capita incomes 100 t

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 069101180X
• ISBN 13: 9780691011806
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 464