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Modernization, Cultural change and the persistence of traditional values
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Modernization, Cultural change and the persistence of traditional values
Inglehart & Baker
Main points
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Economic development is associated with shifts away from absolute norms towards more rational and accepting values.
Differences between the values held by members of different religions within given societies are much smaller than are cross-national differences
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Data/Results
From reviewing the World Values Surveys. Check figure 1, 2and 3, very informative.
They look at two dimensions, one spanning traditional to secular-rational values, and one spanning survival to self-expression values.
They find quite clear connections between the wealth of the country and its stance towards these two dimensions. In general, higher values for self-expression and secular-rational values correlate to more wealth.
Correlation does not equal causation. But it seems somewhat intuitive to say that the wealth/industrialisation probably causes the value shift since the pre-industrial west was not very different from the current pre-industrial world. To me it seems like the west did not first change values and they resulted in economic gain, but the other way around.
It is important to point out that it is not only economics that decide values. Table 4 shows that the cultural heritage also plays a large part.
Figure 5 shows that even within countries with a religiously mixed population, values persist. Thus the economic factors are not enough to shift values completely.
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Conclusions
General
Evidence from the World Values Surveys demonstrates both massive cultural change and the persistence of distictive traditional values
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The rise of industrial society is linked with coherent cultural shifts away from traditional value systems, and the rise of postindustrial society is linked with a shift away fro absolut norms and values toward "modern" values.
Numbered
1: Modernization does not follow a linear path -> Countries can move both backwards and forwards along the modernization journey.
2: The secularisation thesis is oversimplified -> Religious belief does not disappear as society moves into postmodernity, it morphs.
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4: It is misleading to view cultural change as "Americanization" -> Accepting the core values of modernity does not mean that every culture becomes America. Distinct cultural identities and heritage will persist accompanied by new knowledge.
5: Modernization is probabilistic, not deterministic -> A large part of societal development is subject to randomness, and thus there is no guaranteed end state.