scholarly journals Social Modernization and the End of Ideology Debate: Patterns of Ideological Polarization

2006 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
RUSSELL J. DALTON

Over 40 years ago, Daniel Bell made the provocative claim that ideological polarization was diminishing in Western democracies, but new ideologies were emerging and driving politics in developing nations. This article tests the End of Ideology thesis with a new wave of public opinion data from the World Values Survey (WVS) that covers over 70 nations representing more than 80 per cent of the world's population. We find that polarization along the Left/Right dimension is substantially greater in the less affluent and less democratic societies than in advanced industrial democracies. The correlates of Left/Right orientations also vary systematically across regions. The twin pillars of economic and religious cleavages remain important in European states; cultural values and nationalism provide stronger bases of ideology in Asia and the Middle East. As Bell suggested, social modernization does seem to transform the extent and bases of ideological polarization within contemporary societies.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ansgar D Endress

Preexisting conditions affect disease susceptibility. Here, I show that socio-cultural values are population-level risk factors for disease. Using data from the World Values Survey, I show that, between 2 weeks and 6 months after the first COVID-19-related death in a country, COVID-19-related mortality is increased in countries endorsing values related to political participation, but decreased in countries with more trust in institutions and materialistic orientations. After controlling for income, age, urbanicity, smoking, overweight, private health expenditure and lockdown delay, these socio-cultural values were consistent across country-sets, reduced prediction errors by up to 52% and explained up to 68% of inter-country variability. They were relatively specific to COVID-19-related mortality. I could not identify values predicting general health outcomes, and values predicting increased COVID-19-related mortality predicted decreased mortality due to other causes like environmental-related mortality, explaining up to 90% of inter-country variability. Socio-cultural values might be specific predictors of health outcomes.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Mariya Omelicheva ◽  
Brittnee Carter

AbstractIs it joint democracy or state similarity that has a pacifying impact on interstate relations? This study explores the complementarity of the two propositions and demonstrates the potential of a particular kind of shared emancipative culture embracing values of autonomy, equality, choice, and voice to amplify the impact of joint democracy on interstate conflict. The data on cultural values, which comes from the World Values Survey, was integrated with the data from the Correlates of War Project to test the impact of joint democracy and cultural similarity on militarised interstate disputes (1981–2010). We find that culturally similar dyads are less likely to be involved in conflict with each other than culturally dissimilar dyads. Although, cultural similarity does not wash out the pacifying effect of democracy, it offers a complementary explanation to the democratic peace. We also find that states that are democratic and share higher than average scores on the emancipative values are less likely to engage in militarised interstate disputes than democratic states, which are culturally dissimilar or score low on the emancipative dimensions. This provides support for an additional normative/cultural impact on democratic peace.


2005 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
RUSSELL J. DALTON ◽  
NHU-NGOC T. ONG

The Singaporean patriarch Lee Kuan Yew popularized the argument that ‘Asian values’ derived from Confucian cultural traditions are inconsistent with the development of democracy in East Asia. There is an active scholarly debate over whether the hierarchic and deferential social authority relations of Confucian traditions are incompatible with support for democracy. Drawing upon the newest wave of the World Values Survey, we analyze public opinion in six East Asian nations and four Western democracies. We first assess orientations toward authority, and then link these sentiments to support for democracy. The results contradict the core tenets of the ‘culture is destiny’ argument in the Asian values literature, and offer a more positive view of the prospects for political development in the region.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cindel White ◽  
Michael Muthukrishna ◽  
Ara Norenzayan

Cultural evolutionary theories suggest that world religions have contributed to the expansion of human cooperation, in part by consolidating beliefs, values, and practices within a culturally integrated super-ethnic identity. To test this hypothesis, we measured cultural distance between religious groups within and between countries, using the Cultural Fixation Index (CF_ST) applied to the World Values Survey (88 countries, N=243,118). We found cultural similarity between co-religionists within and across countries: Individuals who shared a religious denomination and level of religiosity were more culturally similar than those with different affiliations and levels of religiosity, even after excluding overtly religious values. Moreover, distances between denominations echoed shared historical descent (e.g., Christian denominations were culturally similar). Non-religious individuals across countries also shared cultural values, suggesting the cultural evolution of secularization. Together, results reveal the pervasive cultural signature of religion and support the role of world religions in sustaining superordinate identities that transcend geographical boundaries.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 112-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Welzel ◽  
Russell Dalton

In their classic, The Civic Culture, Almond and Verba (1963) define the ideal democratic citizen as an allegiant, trustful, and modestly participatory person. This ideal has shaped how scholars think about consolidated democracies as well the process of democratic development. In contrast, we argue that a new model of assertive citizenship spreads as nations experience social modernization, and that these new norms have potentially positive consequences for government performance. We replicate earlier analyses by Welzel and Dalton (2014) using the new sixth wave of the World Values Survey. Our results broadly confirm the earlier findings on the shift toward a more assertive model of citizenship and the consequences of this shift in producing more effective and accountable governments.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ansgar D Endress

Preexisting conditions affect disease susceptibility. Here, I show that socio-cultural values are population-level risk factors for disease. Using data from the World Values Survey, I show that, between 2 weeks and 6 months after the first COVID-19-related death in a country, COVID-19-related mortality is increased in countries endorsing values related to political participation, but decreased in countries with more trust in institutions and materialistic orientations. After controlling for income, age, urbanicity, smoking, overweight, private health expenditure and lockdown delay, these socio-cultural values were consistent across country-sets, reduced prediction errors by up to 52% and explained up to 68% of inter-country variability. They were relatively specific to COVID-19-related mortality. I could not identify values predicting general health outcomes, and values predicting increased COVID-19-related mortality predicted decreased mortality due to other causes like environmental-related mortality, explaining up to 90% of inter-country variability. Socio-cultural values might be specific predictors of health outcomes.


Author(s):  
Gerald Pratley

PRODUCTION ACTIVITY It was not so many years ago it seems when speaking of motion pictures from Asia meant Japanese films as represented by Akira Kurosawa and films from India made by Satyajit Ray. But suddenly time passes and now we are impressed and immersed in the flow of films from Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, South Korea, the Philippines, with Japan a less significant player, and India and Pakistan more prolific than ever in making entertainment for the mass audience. No one has given it a name or described it as "New Wave," it is simply Asian Cinema -- the most exciting development in filmmaking taking place in the world today. In China everything is falling apart yet it manages to hold together, nothing works yet it keeps on going, nothing is ever finished or properly maintained, and yes, here time does wait for every man. But as far...


2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-164
Author(s):  
Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn

Freedom and life satisfaction are desirable conditions and they both have a special meaning in Eastern Europe — transition was largely about gaining freedom and ultimately overall wellbeing. There are several studies about the effect of freedom on life satisfaction, but none of them focuses on Eastern Europe. I investigate the effect of self-reported freedom on life satisfaction in post-transition Eastern Europe using the World Values Survey. Surprisingly, East Europeans feel less free and less satisfied with their lives than other nationals. But a personal feeling of freedom increases their life satisfaction at a higher rate than in other countries. Freedom is a strong predictor of life satisfaction as compared to national income.


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Dr. Neha Sharma

Language being a potent vehicle of transmitting cultural values, norms and beliefs remains a central factor in determining the status of any nation. India is a multilingual country which tends to encourage people to use English at national and international level. Basically English in India owes its presence to the British but its subsequent rise is not fully attributable to the British. It has now become the language of wider communication which is now spoken by large number of people all over the world. It is influenced by many factors such as class, society, developments in science and technology etc. However the major influence on English language is and has been the media.


2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-100
Author(s):  
Bakare Adewale Muteeu

In pursuit of a capitalist world configuration, the causal phenomenon of globalization spread its cultural values in the built international system, as evidenced by the dichotomy between the rich North and the poor South. This era of cultural globalization is predominantly characterized by social inequality, economic inequality and instability, political instability, social injustice, and environmental change. Consequently, the world is empirically infected by divergent global inequalities among nations and people, as evidenced by the numerous problems plaguing humanity. This article seeks to understand Islam from the viewpoint of technological determinism in attempt to offset these diverging global inequalities for its “sociopolitical economy”1existence, as well as the stabilization of the interconnected world. Based upon the unifying view of microIslamics, the meaning of Islam and its globalizing perspectives are deciphered on a built micro-religious platform. Finally, the world is rebuilt via the Open World Peace (OWP) paradigm, from which the fluidity of open globalization is derived as a future causal phenomenon for seamlessly bridging (or contracting) the gaps between the rich-rich, rich-poor, poor-rich and poor-poor nations and people based on common civilization fronts.


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