The Roaring Revolution

Abstract

Inglehart’s Silent Revolution carefully starts to predict a future wherein the world will become more post-materialistic as opposed to materialistic. Younger generations grow up in a more secure environment, causing them to hold more post-material values than their predecessors. However, it seems that the opposite is going on in the world today. Authoritarian leaders are rising in all parts of the world, and people seem to be more polarized than ever before. How does this fit into Inglehart’s theory? Inglehart himself sees post-materialism and authoritarianism connected as a scale: on the short term the decline of one leads to the rise of the other. This thesis investigates how the relationship between younger generations and post-material values respectively authoritarian values is settled nowadays, and how democratic living conditions play a role in these relations. Different waves from the World Values Survey and European Values Study are used for this research. The most important findings are that, after a slight dip a few years ago, post-material values are back on the rise again, and authoritarian values tend to decline. This paints an optimistic picture for the future.