Social Change, Democratization of Countries, Democracies & Republics - General & Miscellaneous, Social Sciences - General & Miscellaneous

Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence

Name: Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence
Author: Ronald Inglehart
ISBN: 9780521609715

by Ronald Inglehart, Christian Welzel

Available on Bookshop Write a review

Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.

Overview

This book demonstrates that people's basic values and beliefs are changing, in ways that affect their political, sexual, economic, and religious behavior. These changes are roughly predictable: to a large extent, they can be explained by the revised version of modernization theory presented here. Drawing on a massive body of evidence from societies containing 85 percent of the world's population, the authors demonstrate that modernization is a process of human development, in which economic development gives rise to cultural changes that make individual autonomy, gender equality, and democracy increasingly likely. The authors present a model of social change that predicts how value systems are likely to evolve in coming decades. They demonstrate that mass values play a crucial role in the emergence and flourishing of democratic institutions.

Synopsis

This book presents a revised version of modernization theory.

About the Author, Ronald Inglehart

Ronald Inglehart is a professor of political science and program director at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. He helped found the Euro-Barometer surveys and directs the World Values Surveys. His most recent books are Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic and Political Change in 43 Societies (Princeton University Press, 1997), (with Pippa Norris) Rising Tide: Gender Equality in Global Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2003), and (with Pippa Norris) Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide (Cambridge University Press, 2004). Author of almost 200 publications, he has been a visiting professor or scholar in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Brazil, and Nigeria and has served as a consultant to the US State Department and the European Union.

Christian Welzel is Associate Professor of Political Science at International University Bremen where he has been teaching since
2002. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Potsdam. He is a two time recipient of a grant from the Institute for Social Research and has published numerous articles in or contributions to the European Journal of Political Research, Comparative Politics, Comparative Sociology, International Journal of Comparative Sociology, Political Culture and Democracy (Westview Press, 2002), among others. He has also published extensively in the German language.