The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles Among Western Publics

by Ronald Inglehart

This book contends that beneath the frenzied activism of the sixties and the seeming quiescence of the seventies, a "silent revolution" has been occurring that is gradually but fundamentally changing political life throughout the Western world. Ronald Inglehart focuses on two aspects of this revolution: a shift from an overwhelming emphasis on material values and physical security toward greater concern with the quality of life; and an increase in the political skills of Western publics that enables them to play a greater role in making important political decisions.

Originally published in 1977.

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Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, Sociology, Political Science, Psychology

496 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Ronald F. Inglehart (born September 5, 1934) was a political scientist at the University of Michigan. He was director of the World Values Survey, a global network of social scientists who have carried out representative national surveys of the publics of over 80 societies on all six inhabited continents, containing 90 percent of the world's population. The first wave of surveys for this project was carried out in 1981 and the latest wave was completed in 2014. Since 2010 Inglehart was co-director of the Laboratory for Comparative Social Research at the National Research University - Higher School of Economics in Moscow and St Petersburg. This laboratory has carried out surveys in Russia and eight ex-Soviet countries and is training Phd.-level students in quantitative cross-national research methods.

In the seventies Inglehart began developing an influential theory of Generational Replacement causing intergenerational value change from materialist to postmaterialist values that helped shape the Eurobarometer Surveys, the World Values Surveys and other cross-national survey projects. Building on this work, he subsequently developed a revised version of Modernization theory, Evolutionary Modernization Theory, which argues that economic development, welfare state institutions and the long peace between major powers since 1945, are reshaping human motivations in ways that have important implications concerning gender roles, sexual norms, the role of religion, economic behavior and the spread of democracy.

Reviews

[Steven Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An important work--and controversial, too. Ronald Inglehart, here, raises the contention that a dramatic change in political culture was taking place. As abundance replaced scarcity in many advanced countries, politics was less focuses on people getting thew necessities of life--and more on people gaining what Abraham Maslow would nterm "self-actualization." People focusing on survival needs held a cultural view, according to the author, of "materialism." The political implications were a desire for government to maintain order and ensure survibal needs being met. However, for those who grew up secure in their needs having been met, they were more apt to be "post-material" in orientation." With that view, people were more likely to want government to allow them greater freedom and exporession of their views.

The argument was that the divide between these two cultural views was beginning to restructure political debate and conflict in advanced countries. There have been many critics of this perspective, but this work (and publications in professional journals) generated a substantial debate that assisted in a new focus on political culture and its implictions.

One wonders if a new cultural divide is developing in advanced countries in recent years, as economic problems may be reemerging as issues. We shall see. . . .

[Marco · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the greatest sociological findings of the 20th century is covered by the book, which has far-reaching political consequences and all. Essential reading for any political science or demography student, the book can be considered as a masterpiece which enshrines the essential arguments of Inglehart.