Modernization and Cultural Change - Inglehart & Welzel

Question 1

What is a modernization theory ?

Answer 1

Theory that claims that socioeconomic development (SED) brings systematic changes in political, social and cultural life

Question 2

How does SED transforms the societies ?

Answer 2

SED makes people more secular, tolerant, and trusting + place more emphasis on self-expression, participation, and the quality of life

Question 3

What is the direction of SED ?

Answer 3

SED has a predictable directions, however, the process is not deterministic as many other factors are involved

Question 4

Is religion and cultural heritage dying out due to modernization ?

Answer 4

Religion and other traditional cultural heritage will not disappear with modernisation —> contrary to Marxist expectations, a society’s historical cultural heritage continues to shape the values and behaviour of people
Industrialised societies are becoming richer and more educated, no move towards a uniform global culture (cultural convergence) - Cultural heritage is remarkably enduring

Modernization theory is not simple, has shortcomings

• religion and ethnic traditions are not dying out - resilient
• future political conflicts will be based mainly on them

Question 5

Is cultural modernization irreversible ?

Answer 5

It is not. It results from SED => economic collapse can reverse it (ex. 1990s Soviet successor states)

Question 6

Two major dimensions of cross-cultural variations ?

Answer 6

Industrialisation - gives rise to bureaucratisation and secularisation
Post-industrialisation - (instead of rationalisation, centralisation and bureaucratisation) brings emphasis on individual autonomy and self-expression values

Question 7

Is the process of cultural change linear ?

Answer 7

No, it has shifted directions repeatedly in history

Question 8

Is the modernization own to the West ? (USA)

Answer 8

Modernisation is not own to the West (do not constitute Westernisation nor Americanisation) - many countries in East Asia has led the world in modernisation
- also, the USA is not model for the cultural changes

Question 9

One of the most important shifts that modernization brings ?

Answer 9

Emerging self- expression values (+ rising effective democracy) transform modernisation into a process of human development - giving rise to a new type of humanistic society that promotes human emancipation on many fronts (from equal rights for homosexuals, handicapped people, women - female empowerment)
==> humanistic transformation of modernisation
- means, values and rights provided to make people able, willing and entitled to shape their lives according to their autonomous choices (quite free from external constrains)
- cultural change is a major factor in the emergence and survival of democracy

Question 10

What is MT based on ? How can you argue for it ?

Answer 10

It is based on the idea of human progress.
When humans did not exert significant control over their environment - steady-state equilibrium, no change took place from one generation to the next (the idea of human progress seemed unrealistic)
Change: occurrence of sustained economic growth - ex. medieval Western Europe - Commercial Revolution —> humanism and enlightenment

Question 11

What was the Commercial revolution ? (briefly)

Answer 11

The Commercial Revolution was a period of European economic expansion, colonialism, and mercantilism which lasted from approximately the 13th century until the early 18th century. It was succeeded in the mid-18th century by the Industrial Revolution.
Beginning with the Crusades, Europeans rediscovered spices, silks, and other commodities rare in Europe. This development created a new desire for trade. European states, through voyages of discovery, were looking for new trade routes, which allowed the European powers to build vast, new international trade networks.

Question 12

Where are the origins of the MT ?

Answer 12

In the Enlightenment era (belief: technological progress will give humanity increasing control over nature)
- linked economic development with cultural change

Question 13

What was the most influential version of MT ?

Answer 13

Karl Marx’s

• also provided critique of the exploitation that characterised early industrial society
• provided a utopian solution - proletarian revolution and communism (that would bring peace and an end to expatiation)
• many of his predictions were wrong - BUT: industrial workers would become increasingly numerous (true)
• he argued that SED determined subsequent cultural changes in people’s value orientations, change in the “ideological superstructure” —> reflects a society’s “socioeconomic basis”
• he also predicted a classless society, people seen as equals and dominant humanistic values

Question 14

What about Adam Smith ?

Answer 14

Adam SMITH - promoted another (competing) version of modernisation = capitalism
=> they both saw technological innovation and its socioeconomic consequences as the basis of human progress with implications for culture and political institutions

Question 15

How did the MT looked after the WW ll. ?

Answer 15

• the Cold war - two competing versions of modernisations - capitalists and communists (YET both ideologies committed to the same - economic growth, social progress and modernisation, broader mass participation in politics)
• common belief: the developing nations of the Third World would seek modernisation (either through capitalism or communism) - the two superpowers struggled to win them over
• in reality: the new nations remained poor and ruled by corrupt regimes - run by elites eager to enrich themselves

Question 16

What was the attitude towards modernization in the postwar USA ?

Answer 16

USA saw underdevelopment as a consequence of a country’s national characteristics

• traditional values should be replaced by modern values that would stimulate the modernisation of “backward” nations through economic, cultural, and military assistance
• they were criticised as blaming the victims

Question 17

How did the situation looked between 1970s - 1980s ?

Answer 17

MT was criticised and discredited, pronounced dead
Neo-Marxists and world-systems theorists —> claimed that rich countries exploit poor countries, locking them in positions of powerlessness and structural dependence
“Underdevelopment is developed” (17)
- poverty has nothing to do with internal problem - it is the fault of global capitalism - recommended to use import-substitution policies (proved not to work - the countries were least involved in global capitalism, showed least economic growth)

Question 18

How has the situation been looking in the recent years ?

Answer 18

Export-oriented strategies were more efficient in bringing sustained economic growth - even democracy
Dependency theory fell out of favour, Western capitalist version of modernisation regained credibility
- rapid development of East Asia and democratisation of Taiwan and South Korea - confirmation of claims that producing low-cost goods for the world market initiates economic growth
- reinvesting the returns into human capital qualifies the work force to produce high-tech goods, whose export brings even higher returns and enlarges the educated urban middle classes
- once the middle class becomes large enough, its pressure for liberal democracy can no longer be resisted
- foreign investment seems to stimulate the growth, improve national welfare, benefit the masses, not just elites (multinational corporations are not harmful in the countries as world-systems theorists claimed)
- nations that traded most and had the most investment from capitalist countries showed higher rated of economic growth

Question 19

There are two schools of thought when it comes to the persistance of traditional cultures - name them.

Answer 19

1/ emphasis on convergence of values as a result of M - predicts the decline of traditional values and their replacement with modern ones
2/ emphasis on persistence of traditional values despite economic and political changes - values are relatively independent of economic conditions - they will continue to exert influence on the cultural changes

Huntington, Putnam, Fukuyama - cultural traditions are remarkably enduring - shape the political and economic behaviour of the societies
Marx, Weber, Bell, Toffler - rise of industrial society is linked with cultural shifts away from traditional value systems
(Both claims are true)

Question 20

What is the process of modernization like ? How does SED propel various societies in a roughly predictable directions ?

Answer 20

• it starts from technological innovations that increases labour productivity
• it then brings occupational specialisation, rising educational and income levels
• it diversifies human interaction, shifting the emphasis from authority relations towards bargaining relations
• this brings cultural changes - changing gender roles, attitudes towards authority, sexual norms, declining fertility rates, broader political participation, more critical and less easily led publics

Question 21

The cultural change has a dependent path - how do values and traditions manifest themselves ?

Answer 21

Societies are historically Protestant/Orthodox/Islamic, etc. and this manifests in coherent cultural zones with distinctive value systems (these persist even when one controls SED
These cultural zones are robust
Although the value systems of different countries are moving in the same direction (under the impact of powerful modernising forces), their value systems have not been converging

Postindustrial societies are changing rapidly and are moving in a common direction, but the cultural differences between them were as great in 2001 as they were in 1981

Question 22

How do traditional religious/social values affect the societies in which they prevail ?

Answer 22

Ex. regions in Italy where democratic institutions function well = those in which civil society was well developed in 19th sentry (Putnam 1995)
Fukuyama (1995) - “societies with cultural heritage of “low-trust” are at a competitive disadvantage in global markets because they are less able to develop large and complex social institutions”

ex. just because people look alike, eat in the same McDonald restaurants and drink Coca-Cola - these have different social meanings and fulfil different social functions in different cultural zones
Spiritual life is being transformed into forms compatible with individual self-expression

Question 23

Why do economic threats concern people’s most basic needs ?

Answer 23

It directly affects people’s sense of existential security, determining physical survival is uncertain or can be taken for granted (survival is a basic human goal - low income powerfully impacts ones life than ex. free elections)
- Maslow’s hierarchy of needs - survival comes before any other needs

Question 24

Why the values differ between developed and developing societies ?

Answer 24

The values and beliefs differ between developed and developing societies (religion - one of most salient examples - agrarian societies - religion is central to theirs lives, industrial - religion on periphery)

• then gender roles, self-expressions, quality of life - ex. low-income societies claim that men are better leaders than women, postindustrial societies - minority agrees)
• value orientation = sets standards for desirable and undesirable goals (= it is a powerful motivational regulator of human behaviour) - value change is an evolutionary process in which those values that are best suited to cope with life under given existential conditions have a selective advantage over values that are less suited (make you survive and cope)

Question 25

Two implications of an evolution of values principle ?

Answer 25

1/ prevailing value orientations reflect prevailing existential conditions
2/ if existential conditions change, value orientations are likely to change correspondingly (but only after a significant time lag - need to react to the impact of existential changes and to experiment with new life strategies)
x/ new life strategies are more likely to be adopted by the young (old - more difficult to abandon deeply rooted habits)

Question 26

How does SED diminishes constrains on human autonomy, creativity, choice (3) ?

Answer 26

1/ reduction of poverty —> nourished sense of existential/material security
2/ increases formal education —> greater access to information through mass media, knowledge and intellectual independence 
3/ increases occupational specialisation and social complexity, diversifying human interactions —> liberates people from communal ties and closed social circles, prefixed social ties and roles - interaction on bargaining basis —> making them autonomous socially (socialising become a matter of choice - gender and class are eroding 
===> all three points lead to increased human autonomy

Question 27

The impact of SED on cultural change operates in two phases - name them.

Answer 27

Industrialisation and postindustrialisation

Question 28

Describe industrialisation.

Answer 28

Industrialisation - gives rise to bureaucratisation and secularisation ==> secularisation of authority

 - focused on maximising material output (alleviating starvation and life expectancies)
 - “quality of commodities”

 - secular-rational values (secularisation of authority  - shift from being legitimised by traditional religious beliefs to being legitimised by secular-rational ones, which are no less dogmatic than religious ones) - these do not challenge unlimited political authority but legitimise it, ex. fascist and communist ideology

Question 29

Describe postindustrialisation.

Answer 29

Postindustrialisation - (instead of rationalisation, centralisation and bureaucratisation) brings emphasis on individual autonomy and self-expression values ==> emancipation from authority

 - focused on maximising well-being through life-style changes 
 - “quality of experience”
 - rising self-expression values - rejection of external authority, authority internalises within people themselves