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112-524: Using data from the World Values Survey , he created a model of cultural dimensions which has two axes: secular-rational values versus traditional values and self-expression values versus survival values. The data has been often visualized in the form of the Inglehart–Welzel cultural map of the world , which has been described as "one of the most famous pieces of Inglehart's research tradition". In

224-415: A factor analysis of the latest wave (6) of World Values Survey data, Arno Tausch ( Corvinus University of Budapest ) found that family values in the tradition of Joseph Schumpeter and religious values in the research tradition of Robert Barro can be an important positive asset for society. Negative phenomena, like the distrust in the state of law; the shadow economy; the distance from altruistic values;

336-441: A theory and as a political process. Karl Marx (1818–1883), Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), Max Weber (1864–1920), and Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) postulated that the modernization of society would include a decline in levels of formal religiosity . Study of this process seeks to determine the manner in which, or extent to which religious creeds , practices, and institutions are losing social significance. Some theorists argue that

448-432: A Globalized World (New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) he argues that societies around the world have experienced a flood of information from diverse channels originating beyond local communities and even national borders, transmitted through the rapid expansion of cosmopolitan communications. For more than half a century, conventional interpretations, Norris and Inglehart argue, have commonly exaggerated

560-468: A backlash in terms of increasing authoritarianism, political populism, and erosion of democracy as a consequence of the decreasing economic security that follows the growing economic inequality . The essay 'Trump and the populist authoritarian parties: the silent revolution in reverse' is a piece co-written by Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris and explores the themes that led to the rise in Populist parties in

672-588: A church (2019). Similarly, divorce was legalized in 1981, as was abortion and same-sex marriage soon after. Like other European countries, Germany has recorded a decrease in religiosity (in terms of proportion of individuals affiliated to a Church and baptisms for example) but the trends in East and West Germany are significantly different. In East Germany, the process of secularization has been significantly quicker. These differences are explained by sociologists ( Jörg Stolz , Detlef Pollack and Nan Dirk de Graaf ) by

784-563: A degree of security in many countries after World War II where people take survival for granted. This has led to decreasing authoritarianism and the rise of Postmaterialist Values : egalitarian norms, secularization, tolerance of foreigners, gender equality, and tolerance of divorce , homosexuality , and abortion . The existential security and the egalitarian norms that develop under the feeling of security are necessary for democracy to develop. The freedom of choice in postmaterialist societies also leads to improved happiness. Inglehart now sees

896-476: A different name. The secularization thesis expresses the idea that through the lens of the European enlightenment modernization , rationalization , combined with the ascent of science and technology, religious authority diminishes in all aspects of social life and governance. In recent years, the secularization thesis has been challenged due to some global studies indicating that the irreligious population of

1008-421: A dominant role in public life or in other aspects of decision making. Jack David Eller (2010) outlined Peter Glasner's 10 different institutional, normative, or cognitive versions of secularization, most of which do not lead to irreligion or atheism: C. John Sommerville (1998) outlined six uses of the term secularization in the scientific literature. The first five are more along the lines of 'definitions' while

1120-472: A growing fatigue of democracy; and the lack of entrepreneurial spirit are all correlated with the loss of religiosity . Tausch based his results on a factor analysis with promax rotation of 78 variables from 45 countries with complete data, and also calculated performance indices for the 45 countries with complete data and the nine main global religious denominations. On this account, Judaism and also Protestantism emerge as most closely combining religion and

1232-499: A key role in economic development , the emergence and flourishing of democratic institutions, the rise of gender equality , and the extent to which societies have effective government . Analysis of WVS data made by political scientists Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel asserts that there are two major dimensions of cross cultural variation in the world: The global cultural map shows how scores of societies are located on these two dimensions. Moving upward on this map reflects

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1344-482: A large number of scholarly publications and the findings have been reported in media such as BBC News , Bloomberg Businessweek , China Daily , Chinadialogue.net , CNN , Der Spiegel , Der Standard , Rzeczpospolita , Gazeta Wyborcza , Le Monde , Neue Zürcher Zeitung , Newsweek , Süddeutsche Zeitung , Time , The Economist , The Guardian , The New Yorker , The New York Times , The Sydney Morning Herald , The Washington Post , and

1456-510: A liberal post-industrial economy , an increasing share of the population has grown up taking survival and freedom of thought for granted, resulting in that self-expression is highly valued. 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

1568-528: A major intergenerational shift in the values of the populations of advanced industrial societies. Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990). Economic, technological, and sociopolitical changes have been transforming the cultures of advanced industrial societies in profoundly important ways during the past few decades. This ambitious work examines changes in religious beliefs, in motives for work, in

1680-497: 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. World Values Survey data is used by the United Nation Development Programme in order to calculate the gender social norms index. The index measures attitudes toward gender equality worldwide and

1792-710: A nationalistic outlook. Secular-rational values have the opposite preferences to the traditional values. These societies place less emphasis on religion, traditional family values and authority. Divorce, abortion, euthanasia and suicide are seen as relatively acceptable. 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. Christian Welzel introduced

1904-499: A political object of secularist movements. In the 20th century, "secularization" had diversified into various versions in light of the diversity of experiences from different cultures and institutions. Scholars recognize that secularity is structured by Protestant models of Christianity, shares a parallel language to religion, and intensifies Protestant features such as iconoclasm, skepticism towards rituals, and emphasizes beliefs. In doing so, secularism perpetuates Christian traits under

2016-408: A process of functional differentiation and emancipation of the secular spheres—primarily the state, the economy, and science—from the religious sphere and the concomitant differentiation and specialization of religion within its own newly found religious sphere". Casanova also describes this as the theory of "privatization" of religion, which he partially criticizes. While criticizing certain aspects of

2128-532: A religion, but who now identify as having no religion, so-called "non-verts", had different rates of leaving the religion of their upbringing, namely 14% for Jews, 10% for Muslims and Sikhs, and 6% for Hindus. The proportions of the non-religious who convert to a faith are small: 3% now identify as Anglicans, less than 0.5% convert to Catholicism, 2% join other Christian denominations, and 2% convert to non-Christian faiths. In 2018, Pew Research Center that large majority (89%) of those who were raised as Christians in

2240-535: A religion, still hold religious beliefs and participate in religious practices, thus complicating the situation. Secularization, in the main, sociological meaning of the term, involves the historical process in which religion declines in social and cultural significance. As a result of secularization the role of religion in modern societies becomes restricted. In secularized societies faith lacks cultural authority, and religious organizations have little social power. Secularization has many levels of meaning, both as

2352-523: A sign of modernity [...] has ironically left China for centuries without a powerful and stable source of morality and law. All this simply means that the pursuit of wealth or power or simply the competition for survival can be and often has been ruthless without any sense of restraint. [...] Along with the early secularization of Chinese society which was equally early, the concomitant demise of feudalism and hereditary aristocracy, another remarkable development, transformed China earlier than any other country into

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2464-423: 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. and a report of country-specific information (for example important political events during

2576-849: A systematic erosion of traditional religious practices, values and beliefs may have occurred among the more prosperous strata in rich nations. But at the same time, a growing proportion of the population—in both rich and poor countries—spends time thinking about the meaning and purpose of life. It is argued that in developed countries, the established churches are losing their ability to tell people how to live their lives, but spiritual concerns, broadly defined, may be becoming increasingly important. Written with Christian Welzel , Modernization, Cultural Change and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence (2005) demonstrates that people's basic values and beliefs are changing, in ways that affect their political, sexual, economic, and religious behavior. These changes are roughly predictable because they can be interpreted on

2688-410: A transit from development country via industrialization to post-industrial knowledge society , a country tends to move diagonally in the direction from lower-left corner (poor) to upper-right corner (rich), indicating a transit in both dimensions. However, the attitudes among the population are also highly correlated with the philosophical, political and religious ideas that have been dominating in

2800-864: A unitary system politically, with one single power centre. It also rendered Chinese society much more egalitarian than Western Europe and Japan. In this arguably secular setting, the Chinese Communist Party régime of the People's Republic of China (in power on the Chinese mainland from 1949) promoted deliberate secularization. Many countries in the Arab world show signs of increasing secularization. For instance, in Egypt , support for imposing sharia (Islamic law) fell from 84% in 2011 to 34% in 2016. Egyptians also pray less: among older Egyptians (55+) 90% prayed daily in 2011. Among

2912-576: A worldwide network of social scientists have conducted representative national surveys as part of WVS in almost 100 countries. 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 . Romano Prodi , former Prime Minister of Italy and

3024-451: Is compatible with religion since most versions of secularity do not lead to atheism or irreligion. The term "secularization" also has additional meanings, primarily historical and religious. Applied to church property , historically it refers to the seizure of church lands and buildings, such as Henry VIII 's 16th-century dissolution of the monasteries in England and the later acts during

3136-447: Is essential reading to gain a better understanding of issues in comparative politics, public opinion, political behavior, development and sociology. Inglehart's 2004 book with Pippa Norris, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide reexamines the secularization thesis. This book draws on a base of new evidence generated by four waves of the World Values Survey executed from 1981 to 2001 in eighty societies, covering most of

3248-787: 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, he German Science Foundation (DFG) and the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science . The World Values Survey data has been used in

3360-623: 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 Stockholm, Sweden, with a constitution and mission statement. 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

3472-473: Is part of a much broader process of cultural change that is gradually transforming political, economic, and social life in these societies. Inglehart uses a massive body of time-series survey data from twenty-six nations, gathered from 1970 through 1988, to analyze the cultural changes that are occurring as younger generations gradually replace older ones in the adult population. These changes have far-reaching political implications, and they seem to be transforming

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3584-449: Is sometimes credited both to the cultural shifts in society following the emergence of rationality and the development of science as a substitute for superstition — Max Weber called this process the "disenchantment of the world"—and to the changes made by religious institutions to compensate. At the most basic stages, this begins with a slow transition from oral traditions to a writing culture that diffuses knowledge. This first reduces

3696-573: 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

3808-608: The World Development Report . World Values Research (WVR), registered as ISSN   2000-2777 , is the official online paper series of the World Values Survey Association. 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

3920-548: The human development theory . Some of the survey's basic findings are: A 2013 analysis noted the number of people in various countries responding that they would prefer not to have neighbors of the different race ranged from below 5% in many countries to 51.4% in Jordan, with wide variation in Europe. According to the 2017-2020 world values survey, 95% of Chinese respondents have significant confidence in their government, compared with

4032-500: The 18th-century French Revolution , as well as by various anti-clerical enlightened absolutist European governments during the 18th and 19th centuries, which resulted in the expulsion and suppression of the religious communities which occupied them. The 19th-century Kulturkampf in Germany and Switzerland and similar events in many other countries also were expressions of secularization. Still another form of secularization refers to

4144-469: The 1910s " legal realism " gained prominence, de-emphasizing the religious basis for law . That same decade publishing houses emerged that were independent of the Protestant establishment. During the 1920s secularization extended into popular culture and mass public education ceased to be under Protestant cultural influence. Although the general public was still highly religious during this time period, by 1930

4256-477: The 1960s as part of a much larger social and cultural revolution. Until then the postwar years had seen a revival of religiosity in Britain. Sociologists and historians have engaged in vigorous debates over when it started, how fast it happened, and what caused it. Sponsorship by royalty, aristocracy, and influential local gentry provided an important support system for organized religion. The sponsorship faded away in

4368-440: The 20th century, as the local élites were no longer so powerful or so financially able to subsidize their favorite activities. In coal-mining districts, local collieries typically funded local chapels, but that ended as the industry grew distressed and the unionized miners rejected élite interference in their local affairs. This allowed secularizing forces to gain strength. Data from the annual British Social Attitudes survey and

4480-677: The State repression in the 1950s and 1960s, which challenges predictions of natural cohort replacements stated by the Voas model. India , post-independence, has seen the emergence of an assertive secular state. One traditional view of Chinese culture sees the teachings of Confucianism - influential over many centuries - as basically secular. Chang Pao-min summarises perceived historical consequences of very early secularization in China: The early secularization of Chinese society, which must be recognized as

4592-509: The USA - a country that was co-founded by many religious sectarians who were expelled from their home countries and where witches were still being persecuted in 1692. Detlef Pollack [3] , on the other hand, argues that the higher religiosity of Americans compared to Europeans is well compatible with the assumptions of secularization theory: among other things, it can be explained by the unusually high degree of existential insecurity and social inequality in

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4704-516: The USA and the millions of religious immigrants from Latin America. However, liberal Americans have increasingly distanced themselves from church and religion due to the growing fusion of evangelical and conservative positions. [4] Another point of criticism in the discourse on secularization is the inadequate examination of the Eurocentric nature of general terms, concepts, and definitions. For example,

4816-547: The United Kingdom still identify as such, while the remainder mostly self-identify as religiously unaffiliated. Spain used to be one of the most religious countries in Europe, but secularization has progressed fast during the past few decades. This was partly due to the role of the Catholic Church constituting the "doctrinal basis of the most significant organizations of the anti-democratic and anti-liberal right-wing" and

4928-480: The United States (a debate still taking place). Finally, some claim that demographic forces offset the process of secularization, and may do so to such an extent that individuals can consistently drift away from religion even as society becomes more religious. This is especially the case in societies like Israel (with the ultra-Orthodox and religious Zionists ) where committed religious groups have several times

5040-580: 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 300 publications in 20 languages and secondary users have produced several thousand additional publications. The database of

5152-628: 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. 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; Sampling ; Data collection and Analysis . For each wave, suggestions for questions are solicited by social scientists from all over

5264-510: The World (New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) examines how the twentieth century gave rise to profound changes in traditional sex roles. This study reveals how modernization has changed cultural attitudes towards gender equality and analyzes the political consequences. It systematically compares attitudes towards gender equality worldwide, comparing almost 70 nations, ranging from rich to poor, agrarian to postindustrial. This volume

5376-536: The act of Prince-Bishops or holders of a position in a Monastic or Military Order - holding a combined religious and secular authority under the Catholic Church - who broke away and made themselves into completely secular (typically, Protestant ) hereditary rulers. For example, Gotthard Kettler (1517–1587), the last Master of the Livonian Order , converted to Lutheranism , secularised (and took to himself)

5488-523: 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

5600-436: The authority of clerics as the custodians of revealed knowledge. The shift of responsibility for education from the family and community to the state has had two consequences: A major issue in the study of secularization is the extent to which certain trends such as decreased attendance at places of worship indicate a decrease in religiosity or simply a privatization of religious belief, where religious beliefs no longer play

5712-444: The basis of a revised version of modernization theory presented here. Drawing on evidence from societies containing 85% of the world's population, the authors argue that modernization is a process of human development, in which economic development triggers cultural changes that make individual autonomy, gender equality, and democracy increasingly likely. Written with Pippa Norris. In Cosmopolitan Communications: Cultural Diversity in

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5824-548: The biennial European Social Survey suggest that the proportion of Britons who identify as Christian fell from 55% (in 1983) to 43% (in 2015). While members of non-Christian religions – principally Muslims and Hindus – quadrupled, the non-religious ("nones") now make up 53% of the British population. More than six in 10 "nones" were brought up as Christians, mainly Anglican or Catholic. Only 2% of "nones" were raised in religions other than Christian. People who were brought up to practice

5936-455: The birth rate of seculars. The religious fertility effect operates to a greater or lesser extent in all countries, and is amplified in the West by religious immigration. For instance, even as the white British became more secular, London , England, has become more religious in the past 25 years as religious immigrants and their descendants have increased their share of the population. Across the board,

6048-470: The concepts of emancipative values and secular values . He provided measurements for those values using World Values Survey data. Emancipative values are an updated version of self-expression values. Secular values are an updated version of traditional versus secular rational values. The survival versus self-expression values and the traditional versus secular rational values were factors extracted with an orthogonal technique of factor analysis , which forbids

6160-888: The contrary that the modern age, including its belief in progress, grew out of a new secular self-affirmation of culture against the Christian tradition ." Wolfhart Pannenberg , a student of Löwith, has continued the debate against Blumenberg. Hans Blumberg's assumption that secularization did not exactly grow out of a western-christian tradition also seems to be in line with more recent findings by Christoph Kleine and Monika Wohlrab-Sahr who have shown that similar historical developments can also be found in largely non-christian contexts such as Japan or Sri Lanka. Charles Taylor in A Secular Age (2007) challenges what he calls 'the subtraction thesis' – that science leads to religion being subtracted from more and more areas of life. Proponents of "secularization theory" demonstrate widespread declines in

6272-524: The countries in the former Soviet Union or large cities in the Western world with significant amounts of religious immigrants. There is no particular monolithic direction or trend for secularization since even in Europe, the trends in religious history and demographical religious measures (e.g. belief, belonging, etc) are mixed and make the region an exception compared to other parts of the world. Even global studies show that many people who do not identify with

6384-562: The country. Secular-rational values and materialism were formulated by philosophers and the left-wing politics side in the French Revolution , and can consequently be observed especially in countries with a long history of social democratic or socialistic policy, and in countries where a large portion of the population have studied philosophy and science at universities. Survival values are characteristic for eastern-world countries and self-expression values for western-world countries. In

6496-550: 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 2005–07 and a sixth wave was carried out during 2011–12. 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,

6608-499: 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. In

6720-446: The economic and political environment, but take place with a generational time lag. Following industrialization, advanced industrial society leads to a basic shift in values, de-emphasizing instrumental rationality . Postmodern values then bring new societal changes, including democratic political institutions and the decline of state socialist regimes. Written with Pippa Norris , Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change Around

6832-481: The economic growth rates of societies and the kind of economic development that is pursued. In Modernization and Postmodernization (1997) Inglehart argued that economic development, cultural change, and political change go together in coherent and, to some extent, predictable patterns. Inglehart theorised that industrialization leads to related changes such as mass mobilization and diminishing differences in gender roles. Changes in worldviews seem to reflect changes in

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6944-469: The fieldwork, problems particular to the country). Once all the surveys are completed, the Principal Investigator has access to all surveys and data. 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

7056-446: 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,

7168-495: The first being what motivates people to support populist parties, and why have the votes for populist parties risen so high compared to three decades ago. Inglehart has received the following honors: Inglehart has written more than 250 publications, including: World Values Survey The World Values Survey ( WVS ) 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. Since 1981

7280-599: The fraction of Americans who did not identify with any particular religion steadily rose from 14.6% in 2008 to 19.6% in 2015. At the same time, the fraction of Americans identifying as Christians sank from 80.1% to 69% in 2021. In December 2021 ~21% of Americans declared no religious identity or preference. Given that non-Christian religions stayed roughly the same (at about 5-7% from 2008 to 2021) secularization thus seems to have affected primarily Christians. However, researchers argue that being unaffiliated does not automatically mean objectively nonreligious since most of

7392-504: The idea of a historical continuity – fundamental to the so-called 'theorem of secularization'; the Modern age in his view represents an independent epoch opposed to Antiquity and the Middle Ages by a rehabilitation of human curiosity in reaction to theological absolutism. "Blumenberg targets Löwith 's argument that progress is the secularization of Hebrew and Christian beliefs and argues to

7504-431: The issues that give rise to political conflict, in the importance people attach to having children and families, and in attitudes toward divorce, abortion, and homosexuality. Ronald Inglehart's earlier book, The Silent Revolution (Princeton, 1977), broke new ground by discovering a major intergenerational shift in the values of the populations of advanced industrial societies. This new volume demonstrates that this value shift

7616-693: The lands of Semigallia and Courland which he had held on behalf of the order - which enabled him to marry and leave to his descendants the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia . Perhaps the most widely known example of such secularization is that of 1525, which led to the establishment of Prussia , a state which would later become a major power in European politics. The 1960s saw a trend toward increasing secularization in Western Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand. This transformation accompanied major social factors: economic prosperity, youth rebelling against

7728-433: 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

7840-435: The lifting of monastic restrictions from a member of the clergy, and to deconsecration , removing the consecration of a religious building so that it may be used for other purposes. The first use of "secular" as a change from religion to the mundane is from the 16th century that referred to transforming ecclesiastical possessions for civil purposes, such as monasteries to hospitals; and by the 19th century it gained traction as

7952-668: The long peace between major powers since 1945, are reshaping human motivations in ways that have important implications concerning gender roles, sexual norms, the role of religion, economic behavior and the spread of democracy. Ronald Inglehart's numerous writings have become extremely influential, with translations published in German, Italian, Spanish, French, Swedish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Polish, Croatian, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Persian, Urdu and Indonesian. Brief descriptions of some of his most influential works include: In The Silent Revolution (1977) Inglehart discovered

8064-529: The marginalization of religion in those domains, or it may also entail the transformation of religion as a result of its recharacterization (e.g. as a private concern, or as a non-political matter or issue). Secularism's origins can be traced to the Bible itself and fleshed out throughout Christian history into the modern era. " Secular " is a part of the Christian church's history, which even has secular clergy since

8176-498: The medieval period. Furthermore, secular and religious entities were not separated in the medieval period, but coexisted and interacted naturally. Significant contributions to principles used in modern secularism came from prominent theologians and Christian writers such as St. Augustine , William of Ockham , Marsilius of Padua , Martin Luther , Roger Williams , John Locke and Talleyrand . The term "secularization" can also mean

8288-477: 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. An archive of published WVR papers is available on

8400-553: The modern world. This is explored through various examples, such as Brexit, France's National Party and the rise of Trumpism in the Republican Party in the USA. Inglehart states that the economic gains of the last 3 decades have gone almost entirely to those at the top, whilst those lower down the ladder have instead dealt with declining real wages as well as cutting costs decreasing the security of their jobs. Inglehart and Norris also explain two questions that arise during their piece,

8512-518: The national questionnaire. 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 roll or polling place and central population registers. In most countries

8624-699: The network includes hundreds of social scientist from more than 100 countries. The surveys are repeated in waves with intervals of 5 to 10 years. The waves have been carried out in the years listed in this table: 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

8736-482: The old Protestant establishment was in "shambles". Key to understanding the secularization, Smith argues, was the rise of an elite intellectual class skeptical of religious orthodoxies and influenced by the European Enlightenment tradition. They consciously sought to displace a Protestant establishment they saw as standing in their way. 2000–2021 . Annual Gallup polls from 2008 through 2015 showed that

8848-416: The original monolithic institutions break up. This is a devolution from single, less differentiated institutions to an increasingly differentiated subset of institutions. Following Parsons, this concept of differentiation has been widely applied. As phrased by José Casanova , this "core and the central thesis of the theory of secularization is the conceptualization of the process of societal modernization as

8960-571: The origins of the modern understanding of secularization from the 19th century can be revealed. [9] 1870–1930 . Christian Smith examined the secularization of American public life between 1870 and 1930. He noted that in 1870 a Protestant establishment thoroughly dominated American culture and its public institutions. By the turn of the 20th century, however, positivism had displaced the Baconian method (which had hitherto bolstered natural theology ) and higher education had been thoroughly secularized. In

9072-411: The outlook and beliefs of people in a wide range of societies. The study draws on evidence from the World Values Survey, covering 90 societies in all major regions worldwide from 1981 to 2007. The conclusion considers the implications of their findings for cultural policies. The book Cultural Evolution: People's Motivations Are Changing, and Reshaping the World (Cambridge University Press, 2018) updates

9184-481: 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. 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. The World Values Survey

9296-405: 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. 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

9408-416: The potential threats arising from this process. A series of fire-walls protect national cultures. This book develops a new theoretical framework for understanding cosmopolitan communications and uses it to identify the conditions under which global communications are most likely to endanger cultural diversity. The authors analyze empirical evidence from both the societal level and the individual level, examining

9520-499: The prevalence of religious belief throughout the West, particularly in Europe. Some scholars (e.g.,  Rodney Stark , Peter Berger ) have argued that levels of religiosity are not declining, while other scholars (e.g., Mark Chaves, N. J. Demerath) have countered by introducing the idea of 'neo-secularization', which broadens the definition of secularization to include the decline of religious authority and its ability to influence society. In other words, rather than using

9632-421: The process of change from the so-called primitive societies to increasingly advanced societies. In the United States, the emphasis was initially on change as an aspect of progress, but Talcott Parsons refocused on society as a system immersed in a constant process of increased differentiation, which he saw as a process in which new institutions take over the tasks necessary in a society to guarantee its survival as

9744-477: The project's website. Secularization In sociology , secularization ( British English : secularisation ) is a multilayered concept that generally denotes "a transition from a religious to a more worldly level." There are many types of secularization and most do not lead to atheism, irreligion, nor are they automatically antithetical to religion. Secularization has different connotations such as implying differentiation of secular from religious domains,

9856-436: The proportion of irreligious apostates as the sole measure of secularity, 'neo-secularization' argues that individuals increasingly look outside of religion for authoritative positions. 'Neo-secularizationists' would argue that religion has diminishing authority on issues such as birth control , and argue that religion's authority is declining and secularization is taking place even if religious affiliation may not be declining in

9968-462: The question of secularization has generated considerable (and occasionally heated) debates in the social sciences. Today, criticism is directed against the assertion that religion has become less important in the modern age. Critics point to developments in South Korea, Russia and the USA. The combination of institutional religion with other interests, such as economic or political interests, leads to

10080-479: The religious studies scholar and intercultural theologian Michael Bergunder [5] criticizes the fact that the terms religion and esotericism [6] are tainted by a Eurocentric origin thinking. This inaccurate use of the terms hinders a constructive discussion about secularization in a global context. As an alternative, Bergunder [7] argues for a historicization from the present of these general terms according to Foucault's [8] . In this way, hitherto unseen connections and

10192-483: The resulting anti-clericalism that was one of the roots of the Spanish civil war . Notably, the dictatorship of Francisco Franco 's core ideology was national Catholicism . However, agreements linked to the constitution of 1978 separated church and state. In 2001, 82% of Spaniards identified as Catholic but only half did in 2021. Only around 20% of Spaniards go to mass regularly and only 20% of weddings are taking place in

10304-699: The results and theories published in Inglehart's previous books, presenting the first full statement of Inglehart's Evolutionary Modernization theory, describing how social values and human priorities have evolved through history as a consequence of rising existential security. The book culminates with an explanation of the recent rise of xenophobic authoritarian populist parties, driven by rapid cultural change, large-scale immigration and rapidly-rising economic inequality due to an inherent tendency for knowledge societies to have winner-takes-all economies. On December 16, 2018, Fareed Zakaria chose Cultural Evolution as his book of

10416-423: The rules and conventions of society, sexual revolution , women's liberation , radical theology, and radical politics. A new study found evidence that a rise in secularization generally has preceded economic growth over the past century. The multilevel, time-lagged regressions also indicate that tolerance for individual rights predicted 20th century economic growth even better than secularization. Secularization

10528-564: The secularization of modern civilization partly results from our inability to adapt the broad ethical and spiritual needs of people to the increasingly fast advance of the physical sciences. In contrast to the "modernization" thesis, Christian Smith and others argue that intellectual and cultural élites promote secularization to enhance their own status and influence. Smith believes that intellectuals have an inherent tendency to be hostile to their native cultures, causing them to embrace secularism. According to Jack David Eller, secularization

10640-557: The seventies Inglehart began developing an influential theory of Generational Replacement causing intergenerational value change from materialist to post-materialist values that helped shape the Eurobarometer Surveys, the World Values Surveys and other cross-national survey projects. Building on this work, he subsequently developed a revised version of Modernization theory , Evolutionary Modernization Theory, which argues that economic development, welfare state institutions and

10752-419: The shift from Traditional values to Secular-rational and moving rightward 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

10864-414: The sixth is more of a 'clarification of use': Abdel Wahab Elmessiri (2002) outlined two meanings of the term secularization: As studied by sociologists, one of the major themes of secularization is that of "differentiation"—i.e., the tendency for areas of life to become more distinct and specialized as a society becomes modernized. European sociology, influenced by anthropology , was interested in

10976-561: The strengthening of these religions in their respective societies. However, there are also factors that lead to a diminishing importance of religion. This is the main trend in Western Europe. [1] Some scholars point to the permanent interplay between secularization and (re)sacralization in Western societies. For example, after the first democratic revolutions in the 18th and 19th centuries, religious traditions quickly regained strength. [2] It has also been denied that secularization ever took place in

11088-492: The tenth President of the European Commission , said about WVS work: 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 WVS has over the years demonstrated that people's beliefs play

11200-513: The traditional sociological theory of secularization, however, David Martin argues that the concept of social differentiation has been its "most useful element". At present, secularization as understood in the West is being debated in the sociology of religion . In his works Legitimacy of the Modern Age (1966) and The Genesis of the Copernican World (1975), Hans Blumenberg has rejected

11312-462: The traditions of the Enlightenment . 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, which supports

11424-402: The two scales from correlating with each other. The emancipative and secular values are measured in such a way as to represent the data as faithfully as possible even if this results in a correlation between the scales. The secular and emancipative values indices are positively correlated with each other. A somewhat simplified analysis is that following an increase in standards of living , and

11536-491: The unaffiliated do still hold some religious and spiritual beliefs. For example, 72% of American unaffiliated or "Nones" believe in God or a Higher Power. The "None" response is more of an indicator for lacking affiliation than an active measure for irreligiosity, and a majority of the "Nones" can either be conventionally religious or "spiritual". In Britain, secularization came much later than in most of Western Europe. It began in

11648-422: The underlying causes, a second wave of WVS surveys was carried out in 1990–91. 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 1995–97, this time in 55 societies and with increased attention being given to analysing

11760-430: 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

11872-516: The week, describing it as "really brilliant work. The presentation is based on longitudinal survey data from more than a hundred countries in the World Values Survey collected in six waves from 1981 to 2014. Evolutionary modernization theory holds that economic and physical insecurity elicits an authoritarian reflex leading to xenophobia , strong in-group solidarity , authoritarian politics and rigid adherence to traditional cultural norms. Modernization and economic development have led to

11984-469: 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

12096-498: The world average of 45% government satisfaction. 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 Moor and continues to be based in

12208-400: The world may be in decline as a percentage of the world population due to irreligious countries having subreplacement fertility rates and religious countries having higher birth rates in general. Christian sociologist Peter L. Berger coined the term desecularization to describe this phenomenon. In addition, secularization rates are stalling or reversing in some countries/regions such as

12320-407: The world's major faiths. Examining religiosity from a broader perspective and in a wider range of countries than have been done before, this book argues that religiosity persists most strongly among vulnerable populations, especially those in poorer nations and in failed states, facing personal survival-threatening risks. Exposure to physical, societal and personal risks drives religiosity. Conversely,

12432-574: The younger generation (age 18–24) that fraction was only 70% in 2011. By contrast, in 2016 these numbers had fallen to <80% (55+) and <40% (18–24). The other age groups were in between these values. In Lebanon and Morocco , the number of people listening to daily recitals of the Quran fell by half from 2011 to 2016. Some of these developments seem to be driven by need, e.g. by stagnating incomes which force women to contribute to household income and therefore to work. High living costs delay marriage and, as

12544-523: Was introduced in the Human Development Report starting from 2019. The index has four components, measuring gender attitudes in politics, education and economy as well as social norms related to domestic violence. 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

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