Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword by Hans-Dieter Klingemann
- Introduction
- PART I THE FORCES SHAPING VALUE CHANGE
- 1 A Revised Theory of Modernization
- 2 Value Change and the Persistence of Cultural Traditions
- 3 Exploring the Unknown: Predicting Mass Responses
- 4 Intergenerational Value Change
- 5 Value Changes over Time
- 6 Individualism, Self-Expression Values, and Civic Virtues
- PART II THE CONSEQUENCES OF VALUE CHANGE
- Conclusion: An Emancipative Theory of Democracy
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - A Revised Theory of Modernization
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword by Hans-Dieter Klingemann
- Introduction
- PART I THE FORCES SHAPING VALUE CHANGE
- 1 A Revised Theory of Modernization
- 2 Value Change and the Persistence of Cultural Traditions
- 3 Exploring the Unknown: Predicting Mass Responses
- 4 Intergenerational Value Change
- 5 Value Changes over Time
- 6 Individualism, Self-Expression Values, and Civic Virtues
- PART II THE CONSEQUENCES OF VALUE CHANGE
- Conclusion: An Emancipative Theory of Democracy
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The Controversy over Modernization Theory
People in different societies see the world differently and have strikingly different values. In some countries, 95 percent of the people say that God is very important in their lives; in others, as few as 3 percent say so. In some societies, 90 percent of the people believe that if jobs are scarce, men have more right to a job than women; in others, only 8 percent think so. These cross-national differences are robust and enduring. But as this book demonstrates, these and many other important values are gradually changing in developed countries throughout the world.
These changes are roughly predictable, for they are closely linked with socioeconomic development. They are occurring in virtually all modern societies, and they have important consequences. Changing values are reshaping religious beliefs, job motivations, fertility rates, gender roles, and sexual norms and are bringing growing mass demands for democratic institutions and more responsive elite behavior. As we will demonstrate, socioeconomic development brings roughly predictable cultural changes – and beyond a certain point, these changes make democracy increasingly likely to emerge where it does not yet exist, and to become stronger and more direct where it already exists.
Modernization theory is based on the idea of human progress (Carneiro, 2003). Historically, this idea is relatively new. As long as humans did not exert significant control over their natural environment, and agrarian economies were trapped in a steady-state equilibrium where almost no perceptible change took place from one generation to the next, the idea of human progress seemed unrealistic (Jones, 1985; McNeill, 1990).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Modernization, Cultural Change, and DemocracyThe Human Development Sequence, pp. 15 - 47Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005