World Values Survey
Encyclopedia
The World Values Survey is a global research project that explores people’s values and beliefs, how they change over time and what social and political impact they have. It is carried out by a worldwide network of social scientists who, since 1981, have conducted representative national surveys in almost 100 countries. The WVS is the only source of empirical data on attitudes covering a majority of the world’s population (nearly 90%).
The WVS measures, monitors and analyzes: support for democracy
, tolerance of foreigners and ethnic minorities, support for gender equality
, the role of religion
and changing levels of religiosity, the impact of globalization
, attitudes toward the environment
, work
, family
, politics
, national identity, culture
, diversity
, insecurity, and subjective well-being.
The findings are valuable for policy makers seeking to build civil society
and democratic institutions in developing countries. The work is also frequently used by governments around the world, scholars, students, journalists and international organizations and institutions such as the World Bank and the United Nations (UNDP and UN-Habitat). Data from the World Values Survey have for example been used to better understand the motivations behind events such as the 2010-2011 Middle East and North Africa protests, the 2005 French civil unrest, the Rwandan genocide
in 1994 and the Yugoslav wars
and political upheaval in the 1990s.
Romano Prodi
, former Prime Minister of Italy and the tenth President of European Commission
has said about the work of WVS: “The growing globalization of the world makes it increasingly important to understand [...] diversity. People with varying beliefs and values can live together and work together productively, but for this to happen it is crucial to understand and appreciate their distinctive worldviews”.
, the emergence and flourishing of democratic institutions, the rise of gender equality
, and the extent to which societies have effective government
. Some of the key findings of the work are described below.
How Culture Varies
Analysis of WVS data reveals that there are two major dimensions of cross cultural variation in the world: 1) Traditional values versus Secular-rational values and 2) Survival values versus Self-expression values. The global cultural map (below) shows how scores of societies are located on these two dimensions. Moving from south to north on this map reflects the shift from Traditional values to Secular-rational and moving from west to east reflects the shift from Survival values to Self–expression values.
Traditional values emphasize the importance of religion, parent-child ties, deference to authority and traditional family values. People who embrace these values also reject divorce, abortion, euthanasia and suicide. These societies have high levels of national pride and a nationalistic outlook.
Secular-rational values have the opposite preferences to the traditional values. These societies place less emphasis on religion, authority, traditional family values and authority. Divorce, abortion, euthanasia and suicide are seen as relatively acceptable.
Industrialization tends to bring a shift from traditional values to secular-rational ones. With the rise of the knowledge society, cultural change moves in a new direction. The transition from industrial society to knowledge society is linked to a shift from Survival values to Self-expression values. In knowledge societies, an increasing share of the population has grown up taking survival for granted.
Survival values place emphasis on economic and physical security. It is linked with a relatively ethnocentric outlook and low levels of trust and tolerance.
Self-expression values give high priority to environmental protection, growing tolerance of foreigners, gays and lesbians and gender equality, and rising demands for participation in decision-making in economic and political life.
Examples:
Aspirations for Democracy
The desire for free choice and autonomy is a universal human aspiration, but it is not top priority when people grow up feeling that survival is uncertain. As long as physical survival remains uncertain, the desire for physical and economic security tends to take higher priority than democracy. When basic physiological and safety needs are fulfilled there is a growing emphasis on self-expression values. Findings from the WVS demonstrate that mass self-expression values are extremely important in the emergence and flourishing of democratic institutions in a society. With industrialization and the rise of postindustrial society, generational replacement makes self expression values become more wide spread and countries with authoritarian regimes come under growing mass pressure for political liberalization. This process contributed to the dramatic Third Wave Democracy
in the late 1980s and early 1990s and is one of the factors contributing to more recent processes of democratization.
Empowerment of Citizens
WVS researchers have identified how the empowerment of ordinary citizens can lead to democracy. This process of human development
enables and motivates people to demand democracy
, leading to regime changes that entitle people to govern their lives. Growing action resources (such as education
), and the spread of self expression values leads to the emergence of democratic institutions, that enable people to gain growing freedom of choice in how to live their own lives, and to choose their political regime
.
Globalization and converging values
During the past 30 years, the world has witnessed profound changes in political, economic and social spheres and increasingly rapid technological advances. This is often attributed to the phenomenon of globalization
. Capital markets are today integrated around the globe and movies and books circle the world in seconds. Hundreds of millions of people visit the same websites, watch the same TV channels and laugh at the same jokes. These examples have contributed to the belief that globalization brings converging values, or a McDonaldization of the world. In fact, analysis of data from the World Values Survey demonstrate that mass values have not been converging over the past three decades. Norms concerning marriage
, family
, gender
and sexual orientation show dramatic changes but virtually all advanced industrial societies have been moving in the same direction, at roughly similar speeds. This has brought a parallel movement, without convergence. Moreover, while economically advanced societies have been changing rather rapidly, countries that remained economically stagnant showed little value change. As a result, there has been a growing divergence between the values prevailing values in low-income countries and high-income countries.
Gender Values
Findings from the WVS indicate that support for gender equality
is not just a consequence of democratization. It is part of a broader cultural change that is transforming industrialized societies
with mass demands for increasingly democratic institutions. Although a majority of the world’s population still believes that men make better political leaders than women, this view is fading in advanced industrialized societies, and also among young people in less prosperous countries.
Religion
The data from the World Values Survey cover several important aspects of people’s religious orientation. One of them tracks how involved people are in religious services and how much importance they attach to their religious beliefs. In the data from 2000, 98% of the public in Indonesia
said that religion was very important in their lives while in China
only three percent considered religion very important. Another aspect concerns people’s attitudes towards the relation between religion and politics and whether they approve of religious spokesmen who try to influence government decisions and people’s voting preferences.
Happiness and Life Satisfaction
The WVS has shown that from 1981 to 2007 happiness rose in 45 of the 52 countries for which long-term data are available. Since 1981, economic development, democratization, and rising social tolerance have increased the extent to which people perceive that they have free choice, which in turn has led to higher levels of happiness around the world. The popular statistics website Nationmaster
publishes a simplified world happiness scale derived from the WVS data. The WVS website provides access to the WVS data, allowing users to carry out more complex analyses, such as comparing happiness levels over time or across socio-economic groups. One of the most striking shifts measured by the WVS was the sharp decline in happiness experienced in Russia
n and many other ex-communist
countries during the 1990s.
Catalogue of Findings
Supplementing and further detailing these insights, here follows a catalogue summarizing the 30 most crucial findings of the WVS:
(1) Much of the variation in human values between societies boils down to two broad dimensions: a first dimension of “traditional vs. secular-rational values” and a second dimension of “survival vs. self-expression values.”
(2) On the first dimension, traditional values emphasize religiosity, national pride, respect for authority, obedience and marriage. Secular-rational values emphasize the opposite on each of these accounts.
(3) On the second dimension, survival values involve a priority of security over liberty, non-acceptance of homosexuality, abstinence from political action, distrust in outsiders and a weak sense of happiness. Self-expression values imply the opposite on all these accounts.
(4) Following the ‘revised theory of modernization,’ values change in predictable ways with certain aspects of modernity. People’s priorities shift from traditional to secular-rational values as their sense of existential security increases (or backwards from secular-rational values to traditional values as their sense of existential security decreases).
(5) The largest increase in existential security occurs with the transition from agrarian to industrial societies. Consequently, the largest shift from traditional towards secular-rational values happens in this phase.
(6) People’s priorities shift from survival to self-expression values as their sense of individual agency increases (or backwards from self-expression values to survival as the sense of individual agency decreases).
(7) The largest increase in individual agency occurs with the transition from industrial to knowledge societies. Consequently, the largest shift from survival to self-expression values happens in this phase.
(8) The value differences between societies around the world show a pronounced culture zone pattern. The strongest emphasis on traditional values and survival values is found in the Islamic societies of the Middle East. By contrast, the strongest emphasis on secular-rational values and self-expression values is found in the Protestant societies of Northern Europe.
(9) These culture zone differences reflect different historical pathways of how entire groups of societies entered modernity. These pathways account for people’s different senses of existential security and individual agency, which in turn account for their different emphases on secular-rational values and self-expression values.
(10) Values also differ within societies along such cleavage lines as gender, generation, ethnicity, religious denomination, education, income and so forth.
(11) Generally speaking, groups whose living conditions provide people with a stronger sense of existential security and individual agency nurture a stronger emphasis on secular-rational values and self-expression values.
(12) However, the within-societal differences in people’s values are dwarfed by a factor five to ten by the between-societal differences. On a global scale, basic living conditions differ still much more between than within societies, and so do the experiences of existential security and individual agency that shape people’s values.
(13) A specific subset of self-expression values—emancipative values—combines an emphasis on freedom of choice and equality of opportunities. Emancipative values, thus, involve priorities for lifestyle liberty, gender equality, personal autonomy and the voice of the people.
(14) Emancipative values constitute the key cultural component of a broader process of human empowerment. Once set in motion, this process empowers people to exercise freedoms in their course of actions.
(15) If set in motion, human empowerment advances on three levels. On the socio-economic level, human empowerment advances as growing action resources increase people’s capabilities to exercise freedoms. On the socio-cultural level, human empowerment advances as rising emancipative values increase people’s aspirations to exercise freedoms. On the legal-institutional level, human empowerment advances as widened democratic rights increase people’s entitlements to exercise freedoms.
(16) Human empowerment is an entity of empowering capabilities, aspirations, and entitlements. As an entity, human empowerment tends to advance in virtuous spirals or to recede in vicious spirals on each of its three levels.
(17) As the cultural component of human empowerment, emancipative values are highly consequential in manifold ways. For one, emancipative values establish a civic form of modern individualism that favours out-group trust and cosmopolitan orientations towards others.
(18) Emancipative values encourage nonviolent protest, even against the risk of repression. Thus, emancipative values provide social capital that activates societies, makes publics more self-expressive, and vitalizes civil society. Emancipative values advance entire societies’ civic agency.
(19) If emancipative values grow strong in countries that are democratic, they help to prevent movements away from democracy.
(20) If emancipative values grow strong in countries that are undemocratic, they help to trigger movements towards democracy.
(21) Emancipative values exert these effects because they encourage mass actions that put power holders under pressures to sustain, substantiate or establish democracy, depending on what the current challenge for democracy is.
(22) Objective factors that have been found to favour democracy (including economic prosperity, income equality, ethnic homogeneity, world market integration, global media exposure, closeness to democratic neighbours, a Protestant heritage, social capital and so forth) exert an influence on democracy mostly insofar as these factors favour emancipative values.
(23) Emancipative values do not strengthen people’s desire for democracy, for the desire for democracy is universal at this point in history. But emancipative values do change the nature of the desire for democracy. And they do so in a double way.
(24) For one, emancipative values make people’s understanding of democracy more liberal: people with stronger emancipative values emphasize the empowering features of democracy rather than bread-and-butter and law-and-order issues.
(25) Next, emancipative values make people assess the level of their country’s democracy more critical: people with stronger emancipative values rather underrate than overrate their country’s democratic performance.
(26) Together, then, emancipative values generate a critical-liberal desire for democracy. The critical-liberal desire for democracy is a formidable force of democratic reforms. And, it is the best available predictor of a country’s effective level of democracy and of other indicators of good governance. Neither democratic traditions nor cognitive mobilization account for the strong positive impact of emancipative values on the critical-liberal desire for democracy.
(27) Emancipative values are the most single important factor in advancing the empowerment of women. Economic, religious, and institutional factors that have been found to advance women’s empowerment, do so for the most part because they nurture emancipative values.
(28) Emancipative values change people’s life strategy from an emphasis on securing a decent subsistence level to enhancing human agency. As the shift from subsistence to agency affects entire societies, the overall level of subjective wellbeing rises.
(29) The emancipative consequences of the human empowerment process are not a culture-specific peculiarity of the ‘West.’ The same empowerment processes that advance emancipative values and a critical-liberal desire for democracy in the ‘West,’ do the same in the ‘East’ and in other culture zones.
(30) The social dominance of Islam and individual identification as Muslim both weaken emancipative values. But among young Muslims with high education, and especially among young Muslim women with high education, the Muslim/Non-Muslim gap over emancipative values closes.
and continues to be based in the Netherlands
at the Tilburg University. The 1981 study was largely limited to developed societies, but interest in this project spread so widely that surveys were carried out in more than twenty countries, located on all six inhabited continents. Ronald Inglehart
of the University of Michigan
played a leading role in extending these surveys to be carried out in countries around the world. Today the network includes hundreds of social scientist from more than 100 countries.
Findings from the first wave of surveys pointed to the conclusion that intergenerational changes were taking place in basic values relating to politics, economic life, religion, gender roles, family norms and sexual norms. The values of younger generations differed consistently from those prevailing among older generations, particularly in societies that had experienced rapid economic growth. To examine whether changes were actually taking place in these values and to analyze the underlying causes, a second wave of WVS surveys was carried out in 1990-1991. Because these changes seem to be linked with economic and technological development, it was important to include societies across the entire range of development, from low income societies to rich societies.
A third wave of surveys was carried out in 1995–1997, this time in 55 societies and with increased attention being given to analysing the cultural conditions for democracy. A fourth wave of surveys was carried out in 1999-2001 in 65 societies. A key goal was to obtain better coverage of African and Islamic societies, which had been under-represented in previous surveys. A fifth wave was carried out in 2005-2007 and a sixth wave is being carried out during 2011–2012.
Due to the European origin of the project, the early waves of the WVS were eurocentric in emphasis, with little representation in Africa and South-East Asia. To expand, the WVS adopted a decentralised structure. in which social scientists from countries throughout the world participated in the design, execution and analysis of the data, and in publication of findings. In return for providing the data from a survey in their own society, each group obtained immediate access to the data from all participating societies enabling them to analyse social change in a broader perspective.
The WVS network has produced over 1,000 publications in 20 languages and secondary users have produced several thousand additional publications. The database of the WVS has been published on the internet with free access.
The official archive of the World Values Survey is located in [ASEP/JDS] Madrid
, Spain
.
; Data collection
and Analysis
.
Questionnaire design
For each wave, suggestions for questions are solicited by social scientists from all over the world and a final master questionnaire
is developed in English. Since the start in 1981 each successive wave has covered a broader range of societies than the previous one. Analysis of the data from each wave has indicated that certain questions tapped interesting and important concepts while others were of little value. This has led to the more useful questions or themes being replicated in future waves while the less useful ones have been dropped making room for new questions.
The questionnaire is translated into the various national languages and in many cases independently translated back to English to check the accuracy of the translation. In most countries, the translated questionnaire is pre-tested to help identify questions for which the translation is problematic. In some cases certain problematic questions are omitted from the national questionnaire.
Sampling
Samples are drawn from the entire population of 18 years and older. The minimum sample is 1000. In most countries, no upper age limit is imposed and some form of stratified random sampling
is used to obtain representative national samples. In the first stages, a random selection of sampling points is made based on the given society statistical regions, districts, census units, election sections, electoral registers or voting stations and central population registers. In most countries the population size and/or degree of urbanization
of these Primary Sampling Units are taken into account. In some countries, individuals are drawn from national registers.
Data collection (Field work)
Following the sampling, each country is left with a representative national sample of its public. These persons are then interviewed during a limited time frame decided by the Executive Committee of the World Values Survey using the uniformly structured questionnaires. The survey is carried out by professional organizations using face-to-face interviews
or phone interviews for remote areas. Each country has a Principal Investigator (social scientists working in academic institutions) who is responsible for conducting the survey in accordance with the fixed rules and procedures. During the field work, the agency has to report in writing according to a specific check-list. Internal consistency checks are made between the sampling design and the outcome and rigorous data cleaning procedures are followed at the WVS data archive. No country is included in a wave before full documentation has been delivered. This means a data set with the completed methodological questionnaire.http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/survey_2005 and a report of country-specific information (for example important political events during the fieldwork, problems particular to the country). Once all the surveys are completed, the Principal Investigator has access to all surveys and data.
Analysis
The World Values Survey group works with leading social scientists, recruited from each society studied. They represent a wide range of cultures and perspectives which makes it possible to draw on the insights of well-informed insiders in interpreting the findings. It also helps disseminate social science techniques to new countries.
Each research team, that has contributed to the survey, analyses the findings according to its hypotheses. Because all researchers obtain data from all of the participating societies, they are also able to compare the values and beliefs of the people of their own society with those from scores of other societies and to test alternative hypotheses. In addition, the participants are invited to international meetings at which they can compare findings and interpretations with other members of the WVS network. The findings are then disseminated through international conferences and joint publications.http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/new_index_publications
Usage
The World Values Survey data has been downloaded by over 100,000 researchers, journalists, policy-makers and others. The data is available on the WVS website which contains tools developed for online analysis.http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/index_surveys
, Sweden
, with a constitution http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/article_base_52 and mission statement http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/article_base_52/files/constitution.pdf. The project is guided by an Executive Committee representing all regions of the world. The Committee is also supported by a Scientific Advisory Committee, a Secretariat and an Archive. The WVS Executive Committee provides leadership and strategic planning for the association. It is responsible for the recruitment of new members, the organization of meetings and workshops, data processing and distribution, capacity building and the promotion of publications and dissemination of results. The WVS Executive Committee also raises funds for central functions and assists member groups in their fundraising.
Each national team is responsible for its own expenses and most surveys are financed by local sources. However, central funding has been obtained in cases where local funding is not possible. Presently, the activities of the WVS Secretariat and WVS Executive Committee are funded by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation
. Other funding has been obtained from the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency
(SIDA), the Volkswagen Foundation and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
, Newsweek
, The New York Times
, The Guardian
, Discover Magazine, China dialogue, CNN
, The Economist
, the World Development Report
and the Human Development Report
of the United Nations.
In 2011, the WVS results on democracy helped many reporters understand the cultural motivations behind the revolts around the Arab world.http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=%22world+values+survey%22
Here follows a list of WVR papers published so far (downloadable at http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/the_paperseries):
Amy C. Alexander & Christian Welzel (2011). "Islam and Patriarchy: How Robust is Muslim Support for Patriarchal Values ?" World Values Research 4 (2): 40-70.
Amy C. Alexander, Ronald Inglehart & Christian Welzel (2011). "Measuring Effective Democracy : A Defense." World Values Research 4 (1): 1-39.
Liman Man Wai Li & Michael H. Bond (2010). "Does Individual Secularism Promote Life Satisfaction? The Moderating Role of Societal Development." World Values Research 3 (3): 14-28.
Liman Man Wai Li & Michael H. Bond (2010). "Analyzing National Change in Citizen Secularism Across Four Time Periods in the World Values Surveys." World Values Research 3 (2): 0-13.
Juan Diez-Nicolas (2010). "Cultural Differences on Values about Conflict, War, and Peace." World Values Research 3 (1): 1-20.
Juan Diez-Nicolas (2009). "Two Contradictory Hypotheses on Globalization: Societal Convergence or Civilizational Differentiation?." World Values Research 2 (4): 78-105.
Maximilian Held, Jan Mueller, Franziska Deutsch, Ewa Grzechnik & Christian Welzel (2009). "Value Structures and Dimensions: Evidence from the German WVS." World Values Research 2 (3): 56-77.
Delhey, Jan (2009). "From Materialist to Postmaterialist Happiness?." World Values Research 2 (2): 31-55.
Tim Mueller (2009). "Religiosity and Attitudes towards the Involvement of Religious Leaders in Politics." World Values Research 2 (1): 1-30.
Abdollahian, Mark, Coan Travis, Hana Oh & Birol Yesilada (2008). "Dynamics of Cultural Change: The Human Development Perspective." World Values Research 1 (4): 94-119.
Christian Welzel & Hans-Dieter Klingemann (2008). "Evidencing and Explaining Democratic Congruence: The Perspective of Substantive Democracy." World Values Research 1 (3): 59-93.
Mansoor Moaddel (2008). "Religious Regimes and Prospects for Liberal Politics: Futures of Iran, Iraq, and Saudi-Arabia." World Values Research 1 (2): 36-58.
Christian Welzel & Amy Alexander (2008). "Measuring Effective Democracy: The Human Empowerment Approach." World Values Research 1 (1): 1-35.
The WVS measures, monitors and analyzes: support for democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
, tolerance of foreigners and ethnic minorities, support for gender equality
Gender equality
Gender equality is the goal of the equality of the genders, stemming from a belief in the injustice of myriad forms of gender inequality.- Concept :...
, the role of religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
and changing levels of religiosity, the impact of globalization
Globalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
, attitudes toward the environment
Natural environment
The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....
, work
Work
Work may refer to:Human labor:* Employment* House work* Labor , measure of the work done by human beings* Manual labor, physical work done by people* Wage labor, in which a worker sells their labor and an employer buys it...
, family
Family
In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...
, politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
, national identity, culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
, diversity
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...
, insecurity, and subjective well-being.
The findings are valuable for policy makers seeking to build civil society
Civil society
Civil society is composed of the totality of many voluntary social relationships, civic and social organizations, and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society, as distinct from the force-backed structures of a state , the commercial institutions of the market, and private criminal...
and democratic institutions in developing countries. The work is also frequently used by governments around the world, scholars, students, journalists and international organizations and institutions such as the World Bank and the United Nations (UNDP and UN-Habitat). Data from the World Values Survey have for example been used to better understand the motivations behind events such as the 2010-2011 Middle East and North Africa protests, the 2005 French civil unrest, the Rwandan genocide
Rwandan Genocide
The Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass murder of an estimated 800,000 people in the small East African nation of Rwanda. Over the course of approximately 100 days through mid-July, over 500,000 people were killed, according to a Human Rights Watch estimate...
in 1994 and the Yugoslav wars
Yugoslav wars
The Yugoslav Wars were a series of wars, fought throughout the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1995. The wars were complex: characterized by bitter ethnic conflicts among the peoples of the former Yugoslavia, mostly between Serbs on the one side and Croats and Bosniaks on the other; but also...
and political upheaval in the 1990s.
Romano Prodi
Romano Prodi
Romano Prodi is an Italian politician and statesman. He served as the Prime Minister of Italy, from 17 May 1996 to 21 October 1998 and from 17 May 2006 to 8 May 2008...
, former Prime Minister of Italy and the tenth President of European Commission
European Commission
The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....
has said about the work of WVS: “The growing globalization of the world makes it increasingly important to understand [...] diversity. People with varying beliefs and values can live together and work together productively, but for this to happen it is crucial to understand and appreciate their distinctive worldviews”.
Key Insights
The WVS has over the years demonstrated that people’s beliefs play a key role in economic developmentEconomic development
Economic development generally refers to the sustained, concerted actions of policymakers and communities that promote the standard of living and economic health of a specific area...
, the emergence and flourishing of democratic institutions, the rise of gender equality
Gender equality
Gender equality is the goal of the equality of the genders, stemming from a belief in the injustice of myriad forms of gender inequality.- Concept :...
, and the extent to which societies have effective government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
. Some of the key findings of the work are described below.
How Culture Varies
Analysis of WVS data reveals that there are two major dimensions of cross cultural variation in the world: 1) Traditional values versus Secular-rational values and 2) Survival values versus Self-expression values. The global cultural map (below) shows how scores of societies are located on these two dimensions. Moving from south to north on this map reflects the shift from Traditional values to Secular-rational and moving from west to east reflects the shift from Survival values to Self–expression values.
Traditional values emphasize the importance of religion, parent-child ties, deference to authority and traditional family values. People who embrace these values also reject divorce, abortion, euthanasia and suicide. These societies have high levels of national pride and a nationalistic outlook.
Secular-rational values have the opposite preferences to the traditional values. These societies place less emphasis on religion, authority, traditional family values and authority. Divorce, abortion, euthanasia and suicide are seen as relatively acceptable.
Industrialization tends to bring a shift from traditional values to secular-rational ones. With the rise of the knowledge society, cultural change moves in a new direction. The transition from industrial society to knowledge society is linked to a shift from Survival values to Self-expression values. In knowledge societies, an increasing share of the population has grown up taking survival for granted.
Survival values place emphasis on economic and physical security. It is linked with a relatively ethnocentric outlook and low levels of trust and tolerance.
Self-expression values give high priority to environmental protection, growing tolerance of foreigners, gays and lesbians and gender equality, and rising demands for participation in decision-making in economic and political life.
Examples:
- Societies that have high scores in Traditional and Survival values: Zimbabwe, Morocco, Jordan, Bangladesh.
- Societies with high scores in Traditional and Self-expression values: the U.S., most of Latin America, Ireland.
- Societies with high scores in Secular-rational and Survival values: Russia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Estonia.
- Societies with high scores in Secular-rational and Self-expression values: Sweden, Norway, Japan, the Netherlands.
Aspirations for Democracy
The desire for free choice and autonomy is a universal human aspiration, but it is not top priority when people grow up feeling that survival is uncertain. As long as physical survival remains uncertain, the desire for physical and economic security tends to take higher priority than democracy. When basic physiological and safety needs are fulfilled there is a growing emphasis on self-expression values. Findings from the WVS demonstrate that mass self-expression values are extremely important in the emergence and flourishing of democratic institutions in a society. With industrialization and the rise of postindustrial society, generational replacement makes self expression values become more wide spread and countries with authoritarian regimes come under growing mass pressure for political liberalization. This process contributed to the dramatic Third Wave Democracy
Third Wave Democracy
In political science, Third Wave Democracy, also known as Democracy's Third Wave, refers to the third major surge of democracy in history. The term was coined by Samuel P...
in the late 1980s and early 1990s and is one of the factors contributing to more recent processes of democratization.
Empowerment of Citizens
WVS researchers have identified how the empowerment of ordinary citizens can lead to democracy. This process of human development
Human development (humanity)
Human development in the scope of humanity, specifically international development, is an international and economic development paradigm that is about much more than the rise or fall of national incomes. People are the real wealth of nations...
enables and motivates people to demand democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
, leading to regime changes that entitle people to govern their lives. Growing action resources (such as education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
), and the spread of self expression values leads to the emergence of democratic institutions, that enable people to gain growing freedom of choice in how to live their own lives, and to choose their political regime
Regime
The word regime refers to a set of conditions, most often of a political nature.-Politics:...
.
Globalization and converging values
During the past 30 years, the world has witnessed profound changes in political, economic and social spheres and increasingly rapid technological advances. This is often attributed to the phenomenon of globalization
Globalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
. Capital markets are today integrated around the globe and movies and books circle the world in seconds. Hundreds of millions of people visit the same websites, watch the same TV channels and laugh at the same jokes. These examples have contributed to the belief that globalization brings converging values, or a McDonaldization of the world. In fact, analysis of data from the World Values Survey demonstrate that mass values have not been converging over the past three decades. Norms concerning marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
, family
Family
In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...
, gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
and sexual orientation show dramatic changes but virtually all advanced industrial societies have been moving in the same direction, at roughly similar speeds. This has brought a parallel movement, without convergence. Moreover, while economically advanced societies have been changing rather rapidly, countries that remained economically stagnant showed little value change. As a result, there has been a growing divergence between the values prevailing values in low-income countries and high-income countries.
Gender Values
Findings from the WVS indicate that support for gender equality
Gender equality
Gender equality is the goal of the equality of the genders, stemming from a belief in the injustice of myriad forms of gender inequality.- Concept :...
is not just a consequence of democratization. It is part of a broader cultural change that is transforming industrialized societies
Industrialisation
Industrialization is the process of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial one...
with mass demands for increasingly democratic institutions. Although a majority of the world’s population still believes that men make better political leaders than women, this view is fading in advanced industrialized societies, and also among young people in less prosperous countries.
Religion
The data from the World Values Survey cover several important aspects of people’s religious orientation. One of them tracks how involved people are in religious services and how much importance they attach to their religious beliefs. In the data from 2000, 98% of the public in Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
said that religion was very important in their lives while in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
only three percent considered religion very important. Another aspect concerns people’s attitudes towards the relation between religion and politics and whether they approve of religious spokesmen who try to influence government decisions and people’s voting preferences.
Happiness and Life Satisfaction
The WVS has shown that from 1981 to 2007 happiness rose in 45 of the 52 countries for which long-term data are available. Since 1981, economic development, democratization, and rising social tolerance have increased the extent to which people perceive that they have free choice, which in turn has led to higher levels of happiness around the world. The popular statistics website Nationmaster
NationMaster
NationMaster is a statistical website that aims to facilitate comparison of publicly available data on all countries of the world. Self-described as "a massive central data source," the developers bring together information found in a wide range of documents, including the Central Intelligence...
publishes a simplified world happiness scale derived from the WVS data. The WVS website provides access to the WVS data, allowing users to carry out more complex analyses, such as comparing happiness levels over time or across socio-economic groups. One of the most striking shifts measured by the WVS was the sharp decline in happiness experienced in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n and many other ex-communist
Ex-communist
Ex-communist can refer to:*Post-Communism, the period of political and economic transition in former communist states located in parts of Europe and Asia...
countries during the 1990s.
Catalogue of Findings
Supplementing and further detailing these insights, here follows a catalogue summarizing the 30 most crucial findings of the WVS:
(1) Much of the variation in human values between societies boils down to two broad dimensions: a first dimension of “traditional vs. secular-rational values” and a second dimension of “survival vs. self-expression values.”
(2) On the first dimension, traditional values emphasize religiosity, national pride, respect for authority, obedience and marriage. Secular-rational values emphasize the opposite on each of these accounts.
(3) On the second dimension, survival values involve a priority of security over liberty, non-acceptance of homosexuality, abstinence from political action, distrust in outsiders and a weak sense of happiness. Self-expression values imply the opposite on all these accounts.
(4) Following the ‘revised theory of modernization,’ values change in predictable ways with certain aspects of modernity. People’s priorities shift from traditional to secular-rational values as their sense of existential security increases (or backwards from secular-rational values to traditional values as their sense of existential security decreases).
(5) The largest increase in existential security occurs with the transition from agrarian to industrial societies. Consequently, the largest shift from traditional towards secular-rational values happens in this phase.
(6) People’s priorities shift from survival to self-expression values as their sense of individual agency increases (or backwards from self-expression values to survival as the sense of individual agency decreases).
(7) The largest increase in individual agency occurs with the transition from industrial to knowledge societies. Consequently, the largest shift from survival to self-expression values happens in this phase.
(8) The value differences between societies around the world show a pronounced culture zone pattern. The strongest emphasis on traditional values and survival values is found in the Islamic societies of the Middle East. By contrast, the strongest emphasis on secular-rational values and self-expression values is found in the Protestant societies of Northern Europe.
(9) These culture zone differences reflect different historical pathways of how entire groups of societies entered modernity. These pathways account for people’s different senses of existential security and individual agency, which in turn account for their different emphases on secular-rational values and self-expression values.
(10) Values also differ within societies along such cleavage lines as gender, generation, ethnicity, religious denomination, education, income and so forth.
(11) Generally speaking, groups whose living conditions provide people with a stronger sense of existential security and individual agency nurture a stronger emphasis on secular-rational values and self-expression values.
(12) However, the within-societal differences in people’s values are dwarfed by a factor five to ten by the between-societal differences. On a global scale, basic living conditions differ still much more between than within societies, and so do the experiences of existential security and individual agency that shape people’s values.
(13) A specific subset of self-expression values—emancipative values—combines an emphasis on freedom of choice and equality of opportunities. Emancipative values, thus, involve priorities for lifestyle liberty, gender equality, personal autonomy and the voice of the people.
(14) Emancipative values constitute the key cultural component of a broader process of human empowerment. Once set in motion, this process empowers people to exercise freedoms in their course of actions.
(15) If set in motion, human empowerment advances on three levels. On the socio-economic level, human empowerment advances as growing action resources increase people’s capabilities to exercise freedoms. On the socio-cultural level, human empowerment advances as rising emancipative values increase people’s aspirations to exercise freedoms. On the legal-institutional level, human empowerment advances as widened democratic rights increase people’s entitlements to exercise freedoms.
(16) Human empowerment is an entity of empowering capabilities, aspirations, and entitlements. As an entity, human empowerment tends to advance in virtuous spirals or to recede in vicious spirals on each of its three levels.
(17) As the cultural component of human empowerment, emancipative values are highly consequential in manifold ways. For one, emancipative values establish a civic form of modern individualism that favours out-group trust and cosmopolitan orientations towards others.
(18) Emancipative values encourage nonviolent protest, even against the risk of repression. Thus, emancipative values provide social capital that activates societies, makes publics more self-expressive, and vitalizes civil society. Emancipative values advance entire societies’ civic agency.
(19) If emancipative values grow strong in countries that are democratic, they help to prevent movements away from democracy.
(20) If emancipative values grow strong in countries that are undemocratic, they help to trigger movements towards democracy.
(21) Emancipative values exert these effects because they encourage mass actions that put power holders under pressures to sustain, substantiate or establish democracy, depending on what the current challenge for democracy is.
(22) Objective factors that have been found to favour democracy (including economic prosperity, income equality, ethnic homogeneity, world market integration, global media exposure, closeness to democratic neighbours, a Protestant heritage, social capital and so forth) exert an influence on democracy mostly insofar as these factors favour emancipative values.
(23) Emancipative values do not strengthen people’s desire for democracy, for the desire for democracy is universal at this point in history. But emancipative values do change the nature of the desire for democracy. And they do so in a double way.
(24) For one, emancipative values make people’s understanding of democracy more liberal: people with stronger emancipative values emphasize the empowering features of democracy rather than bread-and-butter and law-and-order issues.
(25) Next, emancipative values make people assess the level of their country’s democracy more critical: people with stronger emancipative values rather underrate than overrate their country’s democratic performance.
(26) Together, then, emancipative values generate a critical-liberal desire for democracy. The critical-liberal desire for democracy is a formidable force of democratic reforms. And, it is the best available predictor of a country’s effective level of democracy and of other indicators of good governance. Neither democratic traditions nor cognitive mobilization account for the strong positive impact of emancipative values on the critical-liberal desire for democracy.
(27) Emancipative values are the most single important factor in advancing the empowerment of women. Economic, religious, and institutional factors that have been found to advance women’s empowerment, do so for the most part because they nurture emancipative values.
(28) Emancipative values change people’s life strategy from an emphasis on securing a decent subsistence level to enhancing human agency. As the shift from subsistence to agency affects entire societies, the overall level of subjective wellbeing rises.
(29) The emancipative consequences of the human empowerment process are not a culture-specific peculiarity of the ‘West.’ The same empowerment processes that advance emancipative values and a critical-liberal desire for democracy in the ‘West,’ do the same in the ‘East’ and in other culture zones.
(30) The social dominance of Islam and individual identification as Muslim both weaken emancipative values. But among young Muslims with high education, and especially among young Muslim women with high education, the Muslim/Non-Muslim gap over emancipative values closes.
History
The World Values Surveys were designed to test the hypothesis that economic and technological changes are transforming the basic values and motivations of the publics of industrialized societies. The surveys build on the European Values Study (EVS) first carried out in 1981. The EVS was conducted under the aegis of Jan Kerkhofs and Ruud de MoorRuud de Moor
Ruud Alphons de Moor was a Dutch professor of sociology linked to the University of Tilburg and the Open University in the Netherlands....
and continues to be based in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
at the Tilburg University. The 1981 study was largely limited to developed societies, but interest in this project spread so widely that surveys were carried out in more than twenty countries, located on all six inhabited continents. Ronald Inglehart
Ronald Inglehart
Ronald F. Inglehart is a political scientist at the University of Michigan. He is 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 85...
of the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
played a leading role in extending these surveys to be carried out in countries around the world. Today the network includes hundreds of social scientist from more than 100 countries.
Findings from the first wave of surveys pointed to the conclusion that intergenerational changes were taking place in basic values relating to politics, economic life, religion, gender roles, family norms and sexual norms. The values of younger generations differed consistently from those prevailing among older generations, particularly in societies that had experienced rapid economic growth. To examine whether changes were actually taking place in these values and to analyze the underlying causes, a second wave of WVS surveys was carried out in 1990-1991. Because these changes seem to be linked with economic and technological development, it was important to include societies across the entire range of development, from low income societies to rich societies.
A third wave of surveys was carried out in 1995–1997, this time in 55 societies and with increased attention being given to analysing the cultural conditions for democracy. A fourth wave of surveys was carried out in 1999-2001 in 65 societies. A key goal was to obtain better coverage of African and Islamic societies, which had been under-represented in previous surveys. A fifth wave was carried out in 2005-2007 and a sixth wave is being carried out during 2011–2012.
Due to the European origin of the project, the early waves of the WVS were eurocentric in emphasis, with little representation in Africa and South-East Asia. To expand, the WVS adopted a decentralised structure. in which social scientists from countries throughout the world participated in the design, execution and analysis of the data, and in publication of findings. In return for providing the data from a survey in their own society, each group obtained immediate access to the data from all participating societies enabling them to analyse social change in a broader perspective.
The WVS network has produced over 1,000 publications in 20 languages and secondary users have produced several thousand additional publications. The database of the WVS has been published on the internet with free access.
The official archive of the World Values Survey is located in [ASEP/JDS] Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
.
Methodology
The World Values Survey uses the sample survey as its mode of data collection, a systematic and standardized approach to collect information through interviewing representative national samples of individuals.The basic stages of a sample survey are Questionnaire design; SamplingSampling
Sampling may refer to:*Sampling , converting a continuous signal into a discrete signal*Sampling , converting continuous colors into discrete color components*Sampling , re-using portions of sound recordings in a piece...
; Data collection
Data collection
Data collection is a term used to describe a process of preparing and collecting data, for example, as part of a process improvement or similar project. The purpose of data collection is to obtain information to keep on record, to make decisions about important issues, to pass information on to...
and Analysis
Analysis
Analysis is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts to gain a better understanding of it. The technique has been applied in the study of mathematics and logic since before Aristotle , though analysis as a formal concept is a relatively recent development.The word is...
.
Questionnaire design
For each wave, suggestions for questions are solicited by social scientists from all over the world and a final master questionnaire
Questionnaire
A questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of questions and other prompts for the purpose of gathering information from respondents. Although they are often designed for statistical analysis of the responses, this is not always the case...
is developed in English. Since the start in 1981 each successive wave has covered a broader range of societies than the previous one. Analysis of the data from each wave has indicated that certain questions tapped interesting and important concepts while others were of little value. This has led to the more useful questions or themes being replicated in future waves while the less useful ones have been dropped making room for new questions.
The questionnaire is translated into the various national languages and in many cases independently translated back to English to check the accuracy of the translation. In most countries, the translated questionnaire is pre-tested to help identify questions for which the translation is problematic. In some cases certain problematic questions are omitted from the national questionnaire.
Sampling
Samples are drawn from the entire population of 18 years and older. The minimum sample is 1000. In most countries, no upper age limit is imposed and some form of stratified random sampling
Sampling
Sampling may refer to:*Sampling , converting a continuous signal into a discrete signal*Sampling , converting continuous colors into discrete color components*Sampling , re-using portions of sound recordings in a piece...
is used to obtain representative national samples. In the first stages, a random selection of sampling points is made based on the given society statistical regions, districts, census units, election sections, electoral registers or voting stations and central population registers. In most countries the population size and/or degree of urbanization
Urbanization
Urbanization, urbanisation or urban drift is the physical growth of urban areas as a result of global change. The United Nations projected that half of the world's population would live in urban areas at the end of 2008....
of these Primary Sampling Units are taken into account. In some countries, individuals are drawn from national registers.
Data collection (Field work)
Following the sampling, each country is left with a representative national sample of its public. These persons are then interviewed during a limited time frame decided by the Executive Committee of the World Values Survey using the uniformly structured questionnaires. The survey is carried out by professional organizations using face-to-face interviews
Interviews
Interviews is:# the plural form of "interview"# a compilation album by Bob Marley & the Wailers, see Interviews # a C++ toolkit for the X Window System, see InterViews...
or phone interviews for remote areas. Each country has a Principal Investigator (social scientists working in academic institutions) who is responsible for conducting the survey in accordance with the fixed rules and procedures. During the field work, the agency has to report in writing according to a specific check-list. Internal consistency checks are made between the sampling design and the outcome and rigorous data cleaning procedures are followed at the WVS data archive. No country is included in a wave before full documentation has been delivered. This means a data set with the completed methodological questionnaire.http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/survey_2005 and a report of country-specific information (for example important political events during the fieldwork, problems particular to the country). Once all the surveys are completed, the Principal Investigator has access to all surveys and data.
Analysis
The World Values Survey group works with leading social scientists, recruited from each society studied. They represent a wide range of cultures and perspectives which makes it possible to draw on the insights of well-informed insiders in interpreting the findings. It also helps disseminate social science techniques to new countries.
Each research team, that has contributed to the survey, analyses the findings according to its hypotheses. Because all researchers obtain data from all of the participating societies, they are also able to compare the values and beliefs of the people of their own society with those from scores of other societies and to test alternative hypotheses. In addition, the participants are invited to international meetings at which they can compare findings and interpretations with other members of the WVS network. The findings are then disseminated through international conferences and joint publications.http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/new_index_publications
Usage
The World Values Survey data has been downloaded by over 100,000 researchers, journalists, policy-makers and others. The data is available on the WVS website which contains tools developed for online analysis.http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/index_surveys
Governance and Funding
The World Values Survey is organised as a network of social scientists coordinated by a central body - the World Values Survey Association. It is established as a non-profit organization seated in StockholmStockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, with a constitution http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/article_base_52 and mission statement http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/article_base_52/files/constitution.pdf. The project is guided by an Executive Committee representing all regions of the world. The Committee is also supported by a Scientific Advisory Committee, a Secretariat and an Archive. The WVS Executive Committee provides leadership and strategic planning for the association. It is responsible for the recruitment of new members, the organization of meetings and workshops, data processing and distribution, capacity building and the promotion of publications and dissemination of results. The WVS Executive Committee also raises funds for central functions and assists member groups in their fundraising.
Each national team is responsible for its own expenses and most surveys are financed by local sources. However, central funding has been obtained in cases where local funding is not possible. Presently, the activities of the WVS Secretariat and WVS Executive Committee are funded by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation
Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation
The Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation is a Swedish foundation which awards grants to individuals and research groups for research projects in science, the humanities, social sciences, medial research, technology, and law. It was created to celebrate the Bank of Sweden's 300th anniversary in...
. Other funding has been obtained from the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency
Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency
The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency is a government agency of the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Sida is responsible for organization of the bulk of Sweden's official development assistance to developing countries....
(SIDA), the Volkswagen Foundation and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Media
The World Values Survey data has been used in thousands of scholarly publications and the findings have been reported in media such as TimeTime (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
, Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, Discover Magazine, China dialogue, CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, The Economist
The Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
, the World Development Report
World Development Report
The World Development Report is an annual report published since 1978 by the World Bank. Each WDR provides in-depth analysis of a specific aspect of economic development. Past reports have considered such topics as agriculture, youth, equity, public services delivery, the role of the state,...
and the Human Development Report
Human Development Report
The Human Development Report is an annual milestone publication by the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme .-History:...
of the United Nations.
In 2011, the WVS results on democracy helped many reporters understand the cultural motivations behind the revolts around the Arab world.http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=%22world+values+survey%22
World Values Paper Series: World Values Research
World Values Research (WVR), registered as ISSN 2000-2777, is the official online paper series of the World Values Survey Association http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/the_paperseries. The series is edited by the Executive Committee of the Association. WVR publishes research papers of high scientific standards based on evidence from World Values Surveys data. Papers in WVR follow good academic practice and abide to ethical norms in line with the mission of the World Values Survey Association. Publication of submitted papers is pending on an internal review by the Executive Committee of the World Values Survey Association. WVR papers present original research based on data from the World Values Surveys, providing new evidence and novel insights of theoretical relevance to the theme of human values. Submission guidelines can be found at http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/index_paperseries.Here follows a list of WVR papers published so far (downloadable at http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/the_paperseries):
Amy C. Alexander & Christian Welzel (2011). "Islam and Patriarchy: How Robust is Muslim Support for Patriarchal Values ?" World Values Research 4 (2): 40-70.
Amy C. Alexander, Ronald Inglehart & Christian Welzel (2011). "Measuring Effective Democracy : A Defense." World Values Research 4 (1): 1-39.
Liman Man Wai Li & Michael H. Bond (2010). "Does Individual Secularism Promote Life Satisfaction? The Moderating Role of Societal Development." World Values Research 3 (3): 14-28.
Liman Man Wai Li & Michael H. Bond (2010). "Analyzing National Change in Citizen Secularism Across Four Time Periods in the World Values Surveys." World Values Research 3 (2): 0-13.
Juan Diez-Nicolas (2010). "Cultural Differences on Values about Conflict, War, and Peace." World Values Research 3 (1): 1-20.
Juan Diez-Nicolas (2009). "Two Contradictory Hypotheses on Globalization: Societal Convergence or Civilizational Differentiation?." World Values Research 2 (4): 78-105.
Maximilian Held, Jan Mueller, Franziska Deutsch, Ewa Grzechnik & Christian Welzel (2009). "Value Structures and Dimensions: Evidence from the German WVS." World Values Research 2 (3): 56-77.
Delhey, Jan (2009). "From Materialist to Postmaterialist Happiness?." World Values Research 2 (2): 31-55.
Tim Mueller (2009). "Religiosity and Attitudes towards the Involvement of Religious Leaders in Politics." World Values Research 2 (1): 1-30.
Abdollahian, Mark, Coan Travis, Hana Oh & Birol Yesilada (2008). "Dynamics of Cultural Change: The Human Development Perspective." World Values Research 1 (4): 94-119.
Christian Welzel & Hans-Dieter Klingemann (2008). "Evidencing and Explaining Democratic Congruence: The Perspective of Substantive Democracy." World Values Research 1 (3): 59-93.
Mansoor Moaddel (2008). "Religious Regimes and Prospects for Liberal Politics: Futures of Iran, Iraq, and Saudi-Arabia." World Values Research 1 (2): 36-58.
Christian Welzel & Amy Alexander (2008). "Measuring Effective Democracy: The Human Empowerment Approach." World Values Research 1 (1): 1-35.
See also
- EurobarometerEurobarometerEurobarometer is a series of surveys regularly performed on behalf of the European Commission since 1973. It produces reports of public opinion of certain issues relating to the European Union across the member states...
- International Social Survey ProgrammeInternational Social Survey ProgrammeThe International Social Survey Programme is a collaboration between different nations conducting surveys covering topics which are useful for social science research. The ISSP researchers develop questions which are meaningful and relevant to all countries which can be expressed in an equal...
- Post-materialismPost-materialismThe concept of post-materialism is a tool in developing an understanding of modern culture. It can be considered in reference of three distinct concepts of materialism...
- Self-expression valuesSelf-expression valuesSelf-expression values are part of a core value dimension in the modernization process. Self-expression is a cluster of values that include social toleration, life satisfaction, public expression and an aspiration to liberty. Ronald Inglehart, the University of Michigan professor who developed the...
- Gross national happinessGross national happinessThe assessment of gross national happiness was designed in an attempt to define an indicator that measures quality of life or social progress in more holistic and psychological terms than only the economic indicator of gross domestic product .-Origins and meaning:The term...
Further reading
- Alesina, A., Giuliano, P. & Nunn, N. (2010) "The Origins of Gender roles - Women and the Plough"http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/publication_590/files/gender-roles-and-plough.pdf
- Brockmann, H., Delhay, J, Yuan, H. & Welzel, C. (2008) "The China Puzzle: Declining Happiness in a Rising Economy"http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/publication_577
- Haerpfer, C, Bernhagen, P., Inglehart R., & Welzel, C. (2009) (eds.) Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press
- Inglehart, R. (2008) "Changing Values among Western Publics from 1970 to 2006"http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/publication_559
- Inglehart, R. (1997) Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic and Political Change in 43 Societies. Princeton: Princeton University Press
- Inglehart, R. (1990) Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society Princeton: Princeton University Press
- Inglehart, R. & Welzel, C. (2010) "Changing Mass Priorities: The Link between Modernization and Democracy"http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/publication_587
- Inglehart, R. & Welzel, C. (2009) "Development and Democracy: What We Know about Modernization Today"http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/publication_593
- Inglehart, R. & Welzel, C.(2005) Modernization, Cultural Change and Democracy. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- Inglehart, R. & Norris, P. (2003) Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change Around the World New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- Norris, P. & Inglehart, R. (2009) Cosmopolitan Communications: Cultural Diversity in a Globalized World. New York: Cambridge University Press
- Norris, P. & Inglehart R. (2004) Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- Van de Vliert, E. (2006) "Climatoeconomic Roots of Survival Versus Self-expression Cultures"http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/publication_546
- Welzel, C. (2009) "Theories of Democratization"http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/publication_579
- Welzel, C. (2007) "Are Levels of Democracy Affected by Mass Attitudes?"http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/publication_571
- Welzel, C. (2006) "Individual Modernity"http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/publication_573
- Welzel, C. (2006) "Democratization in the Human Development Perspective"
- Welzel, C. (2006) "Democratization as an Emancipative Process"http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/publication_555
- Welzel, C. & Inglehart, R. (2009) "The Role of Ordinary People in Democratization"http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/publication_558
- Welzel, C. & Inglehart, R. (2009) "Mass Beliefs and Democratization"http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/publication_580
- Welzel, C. (2009) "How Selfish Are Self-Expression Values? A Civicness Test"http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/publication_585
- Welzel, C. & Inglehart, R. (2009) "Agency, Values, and Well-Being: A Human Development Model"http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/publication_584
- Welzel, C. & Inglehart, R. (2006) "Mass Beliefs in Comparative Politics"http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/publication_572
- Welzel, C., Inglehart, R. & Klingemann, H-D. (2003). "The Theory of Human Development: A Cross-Cultural Analysis." European Journal of Political Research 42(3): 341–79 (http://www.jacobs-university.de/imperia/md/content/groups/schools/shss/cwelzel/papers/12.pdf)