1 - Inglehart (1971)

The Silent Revolution in Europe: Intergenerational Change in Post-Industrial Societies
Author(s): Ronald Inglehart

Source: The American Political Science Review, Vol. 65, No. 4 (Dec., 1971), pp. 991-1017
Published by: American Political Science Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1953494
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The Silent Revolution in Europe:
IntergenerationalChange in Post-IndustrialSocieties*
RONALD INGLEHART
University of Michigan and Universityof Geneva
Economic Scarcity and Political Priorities: Importantgroups among the populations of

An Analytic Framework Western societies have passed beyond these
A transformation may be taking place in the
stages, we believe, and today are acting in pur-
political cultures of advanced industrial soci-
suit of goals which (unlike symbols of afflu-
eties. This transformation seems to be altering
ence) no longer have a direct relationship to
the basic value priorities of given generations,
the imperatives of economic security.2 These
individuals-drawn largely from the younger
as a result of changing conditions influencing
cohorts of the modernmiddle class-have been
their basic socialization. The changes seem to
socialized during an unprecedentedlylong pe-
affect the stand one takes on current political
riod of unprecedentedly high affluence. For
issues and may have a long-term tendency to
them, economic security may be taken for
alter existing patterns of political partisanship.
In this article, I will present evidence based on
granted, as the supply of water or the air we
surveys from six countries concerning these
breatheonce could.
processes.
If this hypothesis is correct, it suggests that
The findings seem to support a specific inter-
intergenerationalpolitical conflict is likely. We
would expect to find such conflict if it is true
pretation of the causes of value change in post-
industrial societies; let me first outline this in-
that individuals have a tendency to retain a
given value hierarchy throughout adult life,
terpretation. My basic hypothesis is that given
individuals pursue various goals in hierarchical
once a basic characterhas been formed during
order-giving maximum attention to the things
childhood and youth. An illustrationwould be
they sense to be the most important unsatisfied
the miser who experienced economic hardship
needs at a given time.' A man lost in a desert,
during his childhood, saw hard work and fru-
for example, may be obsessed by his need for
gality as a way out, and continued accumulat-
water, devoting virtually all his attention to the ing frantically long after his economic needs
search for it. When a supply of water is readily had been assured, This is, no doubt, an ex-
available but food is scarce, he may take the
treme case, but considerableevidence suggests
former need for granted (having achieved bio-
that people do tend to retain early-instilled
logical homeostasis in that respect) and may preferences.Drawing on the work of Abraham
devote himself to gathering food. Once his food Maslow,3 we reason that the age cohorts who
supply has reached a subsistence level, an indi-
had experiencedthe wars and scarcities of the
vidual may continue striving in order to pile up
era preceding the West European economic
a comfortable margin of economic security;
miracleswould accord a relativelyhigh priority
later, he may gradually shift his focus, coming
to economic security and to what Maslow
to desire worldly goods as symbols of affluence
terms the safety needs. For the younger co-
-more in order to enhance his status among
horts, a set of "post-bourgeois"values, relating
less affluent acquaintances than for the utility
to the need for belonging and to asthetic and
of the goods themselves. In a sense, however,
the pursuit of symbols of affluence could be re-
garded as derivative from the search for sus- 2An example of induced reversion to biological
tenance. priorities, under starvation conditions, is described in
Yames C. Davies, Human Nature and Politics (New
* The author is indebted to Samuel Barnes, Karl York: Wiley, 1963), p. 13. A conscientious objector
Deutsch, Kent Jennings, Warren Miller, Robert Put- taking part in an experiment progressively lost his in-
nam, and Donald Stokes for comments and criticism terest in social welfare work after a number of weeks
of an earlier draft of this article. on a semistarvation diet.
1 For a more complete presentation of this hypothe- 3See Abraham H. Maslow, Motivation and Person-
sis, see Ronald Inglehart, "Rdvolutionnarisme Post- ality (New York: Harper, 1954). An excellent discus-
Bourgeois en France, en Allemagne et aux ttats-Unis," sion of value hierarchies and their political implica-
II Politico, 36, 2 (1971) 209-238; and Ronald Inglehart tions appears in Robert E. Lane, Political Thinking
and Leon Lindberg, "Political Cleavages in Post-Indus- and Consciousness (Chicago: Markham, 1970), Chap-
trial Society: the May Revolt in France" (forthcoming). ter 2.
991
992 The American Political Science Review Vol. 65
intellectual needs, would be more likely to take In short, the "middle majority"8 hypothesis
top priorities.4 may have been correct, as far as it went: in-
Probably the best documented evidence of creasing affluence would make the working
the persistence of early-instilled political pref- class feel they had a stake in the system. By
erences is found in the area of political party comparison with the emerging post-bourgeois
identifications5 But it is precisely in this area group, both the proletariat and bourgeoisie of
that our hypotheses have another interesting industrial society shared certain acquisitive val-
implication-they suggest the presence of a ues; their conflicts were not due to differences
long-term pressure acting to reshape previous in basic value priorities, but to the fact that one
relationships between social class and political party had, and was overwhelmingly eager to
party preference. If the shift to a new set of keep, what the other party wanted above all. If
value priorities results from attainment of a sat- this were, indeed, the case, an increasing degree
uration level in regard to needs previously of property ownership might well "embourgeoi-
given top priority, we would expect a new or- sify" the workers, lessening the intensity of class
dering of values to manifest itself first and most conflict. Nevertheless, Western societies do not
fully among those groups that have attained the seem to have reached a new era of consensual
highest levels of affluence. In other words, we politics: the emergence of "post-bourgeois"
would expect to find it appearing first among value priorities among a small but critical sec-
the upper middle class, and among working tor of these societies may lead to a phase dur-
class or farm groups only after a considerable ing which political cleavages will no longer be
delay. But despite the fact that middle-class sta- based primarily on the familiar economic con-
tus has generally tended to be associated with a flicts-but will, increasingly, be polarized ac-
preference for relatively conservative political cording to differences in underlying value pri-
parties, the newly emerging type of value prior- orities.7 This new axis of political cleavage
ities seems likely to be linked with support for would, initially, oppose one section of the mid-
radical social change. Under given conditions, dle class to the remainder of society. Assuming
we believe, this can lead to massive shifts to the continued prosperity, however, our analysis
political parties of the Left on the part of youn- suggests that this deviant group would grow in
ger middle-class groups. Conversely, working- relative size.
class respondents would be relatively likely to In a recent article,8 the outcome of the
have underlying value preferences which make French 1968 uprising and elections was inter-
them potential recruits for conservative parties preted on the basis of the foregoing conceptual
-despite their traditional association with par- scheme. The May Revolt, we argued, was an
ties of the Left. These individuals have attained event which had an exceptionally powerful im-
a certain level of prosperity relatively recently, pact on the French electorate, causing many
and apparently continue to place a compara- voters to re-examine their habitual party prefer-
tively high value on defending and extending ences in the light of underlying values-and to
their recent gains. Paradoxically, although they realign themselves accordingly. Although the
have working-class occupations, they may man- prevailing rhetoric of the May Revolt cast it as
ifest what is sometimes regarded as a "bour- the movement of an exploited proletariat rising
geois" mentality. against bourgeois Gaullist oppression, in the
subsequent elections the French working class
4Supporting evidence might be drawn from Richard
Flacks' study of political activists and nonactivists showed a net shift which favored the Gaullists
among University of Chicago students. His findings -while the modem middle class9 (especially
indicate that students from relatively affluent homes
tend to place greater emphasis on involvement in in- 6 This line of reasoning is presented in Ralf Dahren-
tellectual and esthetic pursuits, humanitarian consider- dorf, "Recent Changes in the Class Structure of Euro-
ations, and opportunities for self-expression, and they pean Societies"; and in Seymour Lipset, "The Chang-
tend to de-emphasize material success, personal ing Class Structure and Contemporary European
achievement, conventional morality, and religiosity; Politics," both in A New Europe, ed., Stephen Grau-
moreover, they are much more likely to become acti- bard (Boston: Beacon, 1967).
vists than students from less affluent backgrounds. See "Joseph Schumpeter reasoned along somewhat simi-
Richard Flacks, "The Revolt of the Advantaged: An lar lines in Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (New
Exploration of the Roots of Student Protest," Jour- York: Harper, 1942).
nal of Social Issues, 23 (1967). 8 See Inglehart, op. cit.
5 See, among others, Angus Campbell, Philip Con- 9 We distinguish between the modern middle class
verse, Warren Miller and Donald Stokes, The Ameri- and the traditional middle class on the basis of occu-
can Voter (New York: Wiley, 1960). Cf. Philip Con- pation: the latter group consists of self-employed small
verse and Georges Dupeux, "Politicization of the businessmen and artisans; the former group comprises
Electorate in France and the U.S.," in Angus Camp- people with nonmanual occupations in the modern
bell et al., Elections and the Political Order (New sector of the economy, and tends to be characterized
York: Wiley, 1966), Chapter 14. by a higher level of economic security (and a lower
1971 The Silent Revolution in Europe 993
its younger members) showed a net shift to the ence for change-oriented political parties-in
Left, by comparison with the way these groups terms of traditional concepts, the parties of the
had voted in 1967. They apparently did so, in Left. This tendency would be resisted, however,
part, because the younger middle class tended by another aspect of the presumed persistence
to place a lower value on economic security of early political learning-the tendency to-
and domestic order than did the workers. The ward persistence of early-instilled political
disorders of 1968-particularly insofar as they party identification. To the extent that given in-
entailed destruction of property-seem to have dividuals have acquired a sense of identification
had a negative impact on the working class, with the (traditionally middle-class) parties of
driving many of them from their traditionally the Right and Center, they would be slow to
Leftist political loyalties toward support of shift their support to a party of the Left, even
General De Gaulle-who was widely seen as assuming the presence of favorable underlying
the guarantor of order. value preferences. The converse should also
Thanks to an ongoing program of public hold true; respondents who were raised in a
opinion research sponsored by the European Left-oriented political tradition would normally
Community, it was possible to take a set of pre- be somewhat inhibited from shifting to parties
dictions based on this interpretation of the of the Right, even assuming the presence of rel-
1968 French data and subject them to a more atively conservative value preferences.
exhaustive cross-national test. Working in col-
laboration with the European Community In- An Empirically-based Typology of Value Pri-
formation Service, I took part in the design of orities and Its Expected Relationship to
a six-nation survey of political change in West- Economic History
ern Europe, which went into the field in 1970.10 These hypotheses concern changes in value
Items included in these surveys were de- priorities over long periods of time. Very little
signed to tap politically relevant aspects of an relevant time-series data is available, and conse-
individual's basic value hierarchy. We wanted quently one cannot test this interpretation di-
to know which values a respondent would rank rectly. To do so conclusively would require a
highest when he was forced to choose on the large-scale research program continuing over
one hand between such things as economic se- several decades. In the meantime, however, one
curity and domestic order (which we regarded as can subject these hypotheses to a variety of indi-
indicating instrumental or "acquisitive" val- rect tests. While these tests cannot provide a
ues), and on the other items relating to expres- definitive validation or falsification, they may
sive, or "post-bourgeois" value priorities. Our aid the reader in forming a judgment concern-
expectation was that those who had been so- ing the relative plausibility of this interpreta-
cialized under conditions of relatively high and tion, in the light of the total configuration of
stable affluence should show a relative prefer- evidence.
ence for such values as free speech and politi- The first type of indirect evidence is drawn
cal participation. In the current social context, from cross-sectional age-cohort analysis. This
it was hypothesized, these values should be approach involves substantial methodological
linked with a relatively change-oriented stand problems. Can one, in fact, draw conclusions
on current political issues. And if, as hypothe- about change over time from cross-sectional
sized, we are dealing with a basic, rather than a data? Under some conditions the answer, rather
peripheral, aspect of the individual's socializa- clearly, is yes: it depends on how much confi-
tion, we should find indications that these pref- dence one has that the cross-sectional data
erences influence a broad range of his political measure relatively stable characteristics of a
opinions. given age cohort." To take an obvious exam-
We might expect the emergence of value ple, you can project how many 21-year-olds
preferences which do not conform to those of there will be in the U.S. ten years from now
society as a whole to be linked with a prefer-
"'For a sophisticated discussion and application of
likelihood of being attracted to extreme-Right political this type of analysis, see David Butler and Donald
movements). Our use of this distinction was suggested Stokes, Political Change in Britain: Forces Shaping
by Seymour Martin Lipset's analysis in Political Man: Electoral Choice (New York: St. Martin's 1969),
The Social Bases of Politics (Garden City: Doubleday, especially Chapters 3, 11 and 12. Butler and Stokes
1960), especially Chapter 5. find that political party affiliation is a rather stable
"'We are indebted to Jacques-Ren6 Rabier, director- characteristic of British cohorts. In the relatively large
general of the European Community Information Ser- swing from Conservative to Labour which took place
vice, for the role he has played in encouraging cross- from 1959 to 1963, they conclude, replacement of the
national collaborative research with Michigan (and a electorate (linked with differential birth and mortality
number of other universities) over the past several rates) actually played a larger role than did conver-
years. sion of voters from one party to the other.
Table1. EducationalLevel, by Age Cohort
(Percentageeducatedbeyond primaryschool)
Age range of
cohort in Neth. Beig. Italy France Germany Britain
1970
16-24 87% 87 84 77 48 47
25-34 66 69 60 62 39 37
35-44 58 67 43 50 29 26
45-54 44 50 35 39 33 24
55-64 40 35 29 33 28 19
65+ 25 17 28 30 23 13
and twenty years from now, if you have data "If you had to choose among the following
on the size of the various age-groups today. things, which are the two that seem most desir-
Your predictionmight be upset by a majorwar able to you?
or other catastrophe,but otherwise it is likely Maintaining order in the nation.
to be fairly accurate.To take anotherexample, Giving the people more say in important po-
let us look at the differencesin educationallev- litical decisions.
els among the respective age cohorts in our six Fighting rising prices.
national samples. (See Table 1.) The differ- Protecting freedom of speech."
ences are quite sizeable, reflecting the massive Two choices only were permitted; thus
expansionof secondaryand higher educationin (aside from nonresponse and partial nonre-
Western Europe during the past two genera- sponse) it was possible for a respondent to se-
tions. These figures,I would argue, reflecta rel- lect any of six possible pairs of items. In rela-
atively enduringcharacteristicof the respective tion to my hypotheses, two of the items (the
age cohorts: except among the youngest group, first and third) were regarded as indicating tra-
the level is unlikelyto rise much; nor is it likely ditional "acquisitive" value preferences: a con-
to decline for any of the cohorts. The presence cern with domestic order is presumed to relate,
of a high level of formal education may well above all, to the protection of property;'3 and
have importanteffects on the political behavior
of a given group. To the extent that such rela- from the other countries, the crucial intra-sample dif-
tionships can be demonstrated, longitudinal ferences discussed in this article are sufficiently large
projections derived from the age-cohort differ- as to minimize the likelihood that they simply reflect
sampling error. On the other hand, cross-national com-
ences are likely to be reasonablyreliable. parisons based on the Dutch marginals should be
With these remarksin mind, let us examine viewed with reservations. The surveys in the European
the pattern of responses to a series of items Community countries were sponsored by the European
which were designedto measurean individual's. Community Information Service; research in Great
Britain was supported by funds from the University
hierarchy of politically relevant values. Repre- of Michigan.
sentative national samples of the population From the viewpoint of most of our respondents,
over 15 years of age in Great Britain, Ger- that is: in extreme situations, threats to domestic order
many, Belgium, The Netherlands, France and can, of course, involve danger to one's life. To the
extent that a concern with one's personal safety is
Italy were asked the question:l2 involved, the item taps the need which Maslow places
immediately below the economic needs in his hierarchy.
I Fieldwork was carried out in February and
March, Post-bourgeois responses, then, are seen as reflecting
1970, by Louis Farris Research, Ltd. (London), In- security in respect to both the economic and safety
stitut fuir Demoskopie (Allensbach), International Re- needs. There is reason to expect that the intergener-
search Associates (Brussels), Netherlands Institut voor ational pattern of priorities would be similar for the
do Publieke Opinie (Amsterdam), Institut frangais two types of needs: older cohorts are more likely to
d'opinion publique (Paris), and Institut per le Ri- have experienced threats to their physical security, as
cerche Statische e l'Analisi der'opinione Pubblica (Mi- well as to their economic security, during formative
lan). The respective samples had N's of: 1975 (Brit- years. The persisting effect of the former experience
ain), 2021 (Germany), 1298 (Belgium), 1230 (Nether- is suggested by the, fact that older Germans are more
lands), 2046 (France), and 1822 (Italy). likely to express a fear of World War than are the
The survey also included Luxembourg, but the num- post-war cohorts: see Peter Merkl, "Politico-Cultural
ber of respondents from that country (335) was con- Restraints on West-German Foreign Policy," Com-
sidered too small for use in the present analysis. The parative Political Studies, 3 (January, 1971). We
Dutch sample has been weighed to correct for sam- doubt that many of our respondents felt physically
pling deficiencies, and the weighted N appears in the threatened in 1970, however; for most, this item prob-
following tables; while the data from, The. Netherlands ably evokes nothing more than thoughts of property
are, in the author's opinion, less reliable than those damage.
Table 2. "Pure" Value Pairs, by Nation
(Percentage choosing each pair within given national sample)
Pair chosen: Nether. Belgium Italy France Germany Britain
Acquisitive 30% 32 35 38 43 36
Post-bourgeois 17 14 13 11 10 8
the relevance of rising prices to acquisitive mo- respondents into value-priority groups, ranging
tivations is fairly self-evident. The other two from a "pure" acquisitive type to a "pure" post-
items in this set were regarded as indicating a bourgeois type, with several intermediate cate-
preference for "post-bourgeois" values. I use gories. Use of this typology provides a simple,
the latter term with an awareness that political straightforward and intuitively meaningful basis
liberties were among the things traditionally for analysis. I should emphasize, however, that
valued by the bourgeoisie-but with the con- the use of these categories does not rest exclu-
viction that this group was characterized even sively on an individual's choices among the four
more distinctively by a predominant concern goals listed above. On the contrary, these four
for acquiring and retaining economic goods. It were selected as the basis of our typology because
is not a question of valuing one thing posi- they seem to constitute a particularly sensitive
tively and the other negatively: other items in indicator of a broad range of other political
our data indicate that most people place a posi- preferences-some of which have a fairly obvi-
tive value on all four of the above goals. But in ous relationship to the four basic items, and
politics it is sometimes impossible to maximize some of which appear to be quite distinct, in
one good without detriment to another. In such terms of face content. For example, on the basis
cases, the relative priority among valued objec- of the value pair chosen by a given individual,
tives becomes a vital consideration. Our ques- one can make a fairly accurate prediction of his
tions, therefore, were cast in the form of response to the following item:
forced-choice items in an attempt to measure "Within the last couple of years, there have
these priorities. Empirically, it appears that al- been large-scale student demonstrations in (Brit-
though nearly everyone strongly favors free- ain) and other countries. In general, how do
dom of speech (for example), there are strik- you view these? Are you:
ing differences in the priority given to it by var- -very favorable
ious social groups. -rather favorable
The choice of one "post-bourgeois" item -rather unfavorable
showed a relatively strong positive correlation -very unfavorable"
with the choice of the other "post-bourgeois" Table 3 shows the respective levels of sup-
item, in each national sample; the same was port for student demonstrations in each of the
true of the two "acquisitive" items. Thus, ap- six countries. While the majority is unfavorable
proximately half of the respondents in each in each country, there is a wide variation in
sample chose one of the two "pure" pairs of support levels according to the pair of value
value preferences, with the other half spread choices made: a mean difference of fully fifty-
over the four remaining "mixed" (or ambiva- five percentage points separates the "acqui-
lent) pairs, plus nonresponse. (See Table 2.) sitive" and "post-bourgeois" types of respon-
Note that the pure "acquisitive" pair predomi- dents. In every country, respondents choos-
nates across the six samples by a ratio of at ing the pure "post-bourgeois" pair are the
least 3:1. group most favorable to student demonstra-
On the basis of the choices made among tions, giving a heavy majority in support. Over-
these four items, it is possible to classify our all, they are more than four times as likely to
favor the demonstrations as are the "acquisi-
We follow the Marxist tradition in according an tive" respondents. With only one exception
important role to economic determination-although among the 36 value pairs shown, respondents
only within certain thresholds. Both before industrial- choosing the pure "acquisitive" value pair are
ization and after an industrial society reaches a
threshold of general economic security, we believe that least favorable to the student demonstrations
other values are likely to prevail more widely. The (in the one exceptional case, the "acquisitive"
concept of discretionary income is analogous to our respondents are within three percentage points
interpretation of the second threshold: as an economy of the least favorable group).
rises well above the subsistence level, even specifically
economic behavior can be explained by economic van- Factor analyses of the respective national
ables to a progressively diminishing extent. samples consistently showed these value choices
Table 3. Attitude Toward Student Demonstrations, by Value Pairs Chosen

(Percentage favorable to student, demonstrations)
Order Order & Order & Prices & Prices & Free Speech
Nation & Free Partici- Free Partici- & Partici- Overall
Prices* Speech pation Speech pation pation*
Neth. 21% 33 42 37 47 70 39%

Italy 19 29 36 42 54 77 36
Belg. 18 29 36 32 60 65 35
Germ. 14 35 29 35 46 83 32
France 12 18 23 38 41 66 27
Brit. 12 22 9 22 60 65 17
mean: 16% 28 29 35 51 71
* Indicates the two "pure" value pairs, on the basis of our hypothesis-representing, respectively, "acquisitive"
and "post-bourgeois" values.
to be among the high-loading items (in a set of Once again, we find the two theoretically
25 variables) on what I interpret as an "acquis- "'pure" sets of value priorities occupying the
itive/post-bourgeois values" factor.'4 In every opposite poles of the continuum-with post-
case, the choice of "order" and "prices" had bourgeois respondents markedly more Euro-
relatively high negative loadings on this factor, pean in outlook than the acquisitive-type re-
while the choice of "free speech"' and "'partici- spondents. There are only two mild exceptions
pation" had relatively high positive loadings. to the rule that the respondents choosing the
In view of the face content of the items, it is theoretically "ambivalent" value pairs are more
not particularly surprising that we find a strong European than the theoretically pure acquisi-
relationship between these value choices and tives types, and less European than the post-
the respondents' support of or opposition to bourgeois types. The ordering within the "am-
student demonstrations. But these same value bivalent" pairs changes somewhat from the pat-
choices also show significant relationships with tern we found in Table 3, with a concern for
other political preferences which have no obvi- rising prices now showing a stronger associa-
ous similarity in terms of face content. For ex- tion with the negative end of the scale than the
ample, they serve as good predictors of atti- preoccupation with domestic order which for-
tudes toward supranational European integra- merly held that place; in other respects, the
tion. Table 4 shows the relationship between ranking of value pairs remains the same. Over-
value choices and responses to a three-item in- all, the post-bourgeois respondents are more
dex of support for European integration.'5 than twice as likely to be classified as "clearly
14 Other high-loading items on this factor related

to: expectations of a higher standard of living, sup- --Would you be in favor of, or against, the elec-
port for student demonstrations, support for radical tion of a European parliament by direct universal
social change, and support for a variety of proposals suffrage; that is, a parliament elected by all the
for European integration (all of which had positive voters in the member countries?
polarity); and emphasis on job security, pride in one's -Would you be willing to accept, over and above
own nationality, and support for a strong national the (British) government, a European government
army (which had negative polarity). Because of limited responsible for a common policy in foreign affairs,
funds, the British questionnaire was shorter than the defense and the economy?
one used in the European Community countries, and -If a President of a United States of Europe
the factor analysis for that sample omits some of the were being elected by popular vote, would you be
items available in the larger data sets. Apart from willing to vote for a candidate not of your own
these omissions, the British response pattern seems to country, if his personality and programme corre-
parallel that found on the Continent. The fact that ex- sponded more closely to your ideas than those of
pectations of a higher future standard of living seem the candidates from your own country?"
to go with giving a relatively low priority to economic
security is interesting: it tends to confirm our inter- A respondent was categorized as "clearly for" Euro-
pretation that, for the post-bourgeois group, economic pean integration if he gave favorable responses to all
values are relatively unimportant because they are three of these items; or to at least two of them pro-
taken for granted. vided that his response to the third item was "don't
15This index was based on responses to the follow- know," rather than "against." For a much more de-
ing items: "Supposing the people of Britain and the tailed exploration of this topic, see my article "Chang-
Common Market were asked to decide on the following Value Priorities and European Integration," Journal
ing questions. How would you vote . . .? of Common Market Studies, September, 1971.
Table 4. Support for European Integration, by Value Pairs Chosen
(Percentage scored as "Clearly For" on European Integration Index)
Prices Prices & Prices & Order & Order & Free Speech
Nation & Free Partici- Free Partici- & Partici- Overall
Order* Speech pation Speech patio pation*
Italy 48% 53 63 65 73 69 57%

Germany 45 57 64 67 59 76 55
France 36 38 48 48 61 69 44
Belgium 31 39 43 46 50 64 42
Netherlands 28 31 34 43 52 62 39
Britain 13 16 16 36 20 32 17
mean: 30% 36 41 47 49 61
* Indicates the two "pure" value pairs.
for" supranational European integration as are would expect to find on the basis of our ana-
the acquisitive respondents.'6 lytic framework.
As we shall see presently, these value choices In the first place, the most recently formed
also show a rather striking set of relationships cohorts should show the highest proportion of
with social structure and political party prefer- post-bourgeois responses and the lowest pro-
ences. This is scarcely the sort of pattern which portion of acquisitive responses, in every na-
would emerge from random answering or from tional sample. The respondents born after 1945
a superficial response to transient stimuli. It ap- constitute the only group which (as far back as
pears that these items tap a relatively well inte- their memory reaches) has been socialized en-
grated and deep-rooted aspect of the respon- tirely under conditions of rising affluence, unin-
dents' political orientations. terrupted by major economic dislocations. As
If these items do tap attitudes that are early a first approximation, therefore, we would pre-
established and relatively persistent, responses dict that: (1) the distribution of attitudes
to them should show distinctive patterns, re- should resemble an L-shaped curve, with a very
flecting distinctive conditions which prevailed low proportion of post-bourgeois attitudes be-
during the formative years of the respective age ing found among respondents born before
cohorts. Our next step, therefore, is to examine 1945, and a sharp rise in the prevalence of
variations in response according to age group. post-bourgeois values among those born after
Before doing so, let us attempt to specify, as that date; conversely, the occurrence of acquisi-
precisely as possible, what sort of pattern we tive values should be uniformly high among all
16 There is a certain similarity between the configura- (Stouffer, however, reported evidence of sizeable age-
tion of "post-bourgeois" preferences and the well- group differences among adult groups in degree of
known concept of "authoritarianism." Both concepts "Tolerance for Non-Conformity," with young adults
relate to the priorities one gives to liberty, as opposed far more tolerant than older adults; he sees the evi-
to order. And-as we have just seen-the libertarian dence as reflecting both life-cycle and intergenerational
position seems linked with internationalism. This fol- effects. See Samuel Stouffer, Communism, Conformity
lows from the fact that, according to our analysis, the and Civil Liberties [New York: Doubleday, 1955],
post-bourgeois groups have attained security in regard p. 89). In any event, neither previous explorations nor
to both the safety and sustenance needs; insofar as the present surveys revealed reasonably strong or con-
the nation-state is seen as a bulwark protecting the sistent relationships between standardized F-scale items
individual against foreign threats, it is less important to and the attitudes reported here. The two concepts seem
post-bourgeois respondents. They have, moreover, a related, but items which served as indicators of au-
larger amount of "venture capital," psychically speak- thoritarianism in earlier research appear to have
ing, available to invest in projects having an intel- limited applicability in the Europe of the 1970's. For
lectual and esthetic appeal-such as European unifica- a report of an earlier cross-national exploration of
tion. There are both theoretical and empirical differ- authoritarianism and internationalism, see Ronald
ences between our position and that prevailing in the Inglehart, "The New Europeans: Inward or Outward
authoritarianism literature. We emphasize a process of Looking?" International Organization, Vol. 24, No. 1
historically-shaped causation which is not necessarily (Winter, 1970), pp. 129-139. The literature on au-
incompatible with, but certainly takes a different focus thoritarianism is immense; the classic work is Theodor
from, the psychodynamics of authoritarianism. Em- W. Adorno, et al., The Authoritarian Personality (New
pirically, authoritarianism, like acquisitive value pri- York: Harper, 1950); Cf. Richard Christie and Marie
orities, tends to be linked with lower economic status. Jahoda, eds., Studies in the Scope and Method of
By contrast, there are indications that children and "The Authoritarian Personality" (Glencoe: Free Press,
youth tend to be more authoritarian than adults. 1954).
1900 1920 1938 1950 1960 1970

U.s. U.S. 9u.s. u.s. U.s. Xu.s.
9Brit. tBrit. Brit. Swe. Swe. Swe.
9Brit. jSwitz. 9Ger.
Den. 9Switz.
9Brit. Fr.
I Den.
INor.
Belg.
I Neth
I Brit.
Figure 1. The decline in Britain's relative economic position. The U.S. and major European countries
ranked according to per capita Gross National Product, 1900 to 1970. (Source: "The Economist," Sep-
tember 5, 1970, p. 69.)
cohorts born before 1945, with a precipitate able to give top priority to nonacquisitiveval-
drop as we reach the postwar cohorts. This pat- ues. But this stratumshould be smallest among
tern can only serve as a first approximation of the oldest cohorts if, indeed, it tends to reflect
course. It would be ridiculous to argue that no the level of affluenceprevailingwithin a given
change in basic values can occur during adult society during a given cohort's pre-adultyears.
life; our point is simply that the probability of By the same token the distributionof these
such change becomes much lower after one value preferences should vary cross-nationally
reaches adulthood, and probably continues to in a predictable fashion-reflecting the eco-
decline thereafter. To the extent that adult re- nomic history of the given nation. Fortunately
learning takes place, it would tend to smooth for our analysis, there are substantial differ-
out the basic L-shaped curve. The fact that ences in the 20th-centuryeconomic experiences
value preferences probably crystallize in differ- of the nations in our sample. These variations
ent individuals at somewhat different ages, enable us to make predictions about the rela-
would also tend to have this effect. tive level and steepnessof the value-distribution
We would not expect to find a zero incidence curves for given nations. To put it briefly, high
of post-bourgeois values even among the oldest absolute levels of wealth in a given nation at a
cohorts: there has always been at least a small given time would predict relatively high pro-
stratum of economically secure individuals, portions of post-bourgeoisrespondentsamong
the cohorts socialized under those conditions; 320 /Italy
high rates of growth for a given country would
predict relatively large increases in the propor- 300 -
tion of post-bourgeois respondents, across that
nation's age-groups. The economic progress of 280 _
Great Britain, in particular, shows a sharp con- Germany
260 /,Netherlands
trast with that of the other five nations.
Throughout the first four decades of the 20th 240 - / /1
century, Britain-the home of the first Indus-
trial Revolution-was by far the wealthiest -s
220~~
220- ~ / /// 7France
country in Europe, and in world wide compari-
sons it ranked second only to the U.S. (and, 200
sometimes, Canada) in per capita income. Dur-
ing the decade before World War II, among the 180 / /Belgium
nations in our sample, The Netherlands ranked
closest to Britain (with a per capita income 71 160 >- United
per cent as high as the British) followed by
France, Belgium and Germany, with Italy far 140 / ~~~~~~~Kingdom
behind (having only 27 per cent the per capita
income of Britain). In the postwar era, the eco- 120
nomically privileged position which Britain had
100
long enjoyed began to deteriorate rapidly (see 1953 1958 1963 1968
Figure 1). Although her absolute level of income
rose gradually (interrupted by periods of stag- Figure 2. Economic growth, 1953-68. Based on
indices of industrial production (1953 = 1.00).
nation), Britain was overtaken by one after an-
Source: "U.N. Statistical Yearbook, 1969."
other of her European neighbors-nearly all of
The year 1953 is taken as our base line to avoid giving
which experienced much more rapid and con- undue prominence to recovery from the devastation of
tinuous economic growth; these growth rates World War II: using 1948 or 1945 as a base would
were particularly steep in the case of Germany tend to exaggerate the disparity between Germany and
and Italy (see Figure 2). By 1970, Britain had Italy (on one hand) and Great Britain (on the other
hand).
been outstripped by five of the six European
Community countries, with the sixth (Italy)
not far behind. nity countries except Italy. (5) Among these
On the basis of these historical data, we can six nations, Germany and Italy-the two coun-
make four predictions about the expected tries experiencing the most rapid economic
value-distribution curves in addition to the L- change during the post-war era-should show
shaped curve posited earlier in our first predic- the greatest amount of intergenerational change
tion. (2) Among those respondents who in basic value priorities.17
reached adulthood before World War II, the With these five predictions in mind, let us ex-
size of the stratum which had known economic amine the empirical relationship between value
security during its formative years would be preferences and age cohort, within each na-
small-but its relative size should be greater in tional sample. (See Table 5.) Our basic predic-
the British sample than in the other national tion-that the younger cohorts will be less
samples. Translated into expected survey re- likely to show acquisitive value priorities and
sults, this means that the British cohorts now in more likely to show post-bourgeois values-is
their mid-SO's or older should show the highest confirmed strikingly. Among the oldest cohort,
frequency of post-bourgeois values. (3) The the disproportionate preference for the pure
rate of value change found in Britain, however,
should be much lower than that in the other 1It is difficultto interpretthe cross-nationalpattern
five countries. Her economic growth rate since as a reaction to current events within the respective
nations. There is considerable evidence of a recent
World War II has been approximately half that law-and-order reaction in the face of student disorders
of the average among the European Community in each of these countries. But if the cross-national
countries; as a first approximation, we might differences were largely the result of such a reaction,
we would expect to find the emphasis on order to be
expect the rate of increase in post-bourgeois greatest in France (where the recent upheaval was
values found among Britain's younger cohorts greatest) and weakest in Britain (which has had the
to be half as great as that within the EEC. (4) smallest amount of domestic disorder). The data mani-
In prevalence of post-bourgeois values among festly fail to fit this pattern; we must explain them in
terms of predispositions anterior to, rather than result-
the younger cohorts, we might expect Britain to ing from, the recent domestic disorders these countries
be outstripped by all of the European Commu- have experienced.
Table 5. "Pure" Value Preferences, by Age Cohort
(Percentage choosing each pair)*
Age Range Netherlands Belgium Italy France Germany Britain

of cohort in
1970 Acq. P-B N Acq. P-B N Acq. P-B N Acq. P-B N Acq. P-B N Acq. P-B N
16-24 20% 29 (442) 19 26 (227) 18 28 (335) 21 20 (365) 21 23 (317) 25 14 (254)
25-34 27 16 (408) 35 13 (211) 30 15 (256) 35 11 (369) 35 15 (409) 29 9 (340)
35-44 36 14 (406) 28 19 (234) 36 11 (397) 36 14 (347) 46 8 (372) 29 8 (278)
45-54 29 15 (285) 29 13 (188) 37 8 (310) 39 10 (319) 47 7 (326) 37 5 (398)
55-64 37 7 (223) 37 8 (201) 42 7 (315) 48 6 (280) 60 4 (325) 41 8 (331)
65+ 44 5 (138) 45 2 (235) 54 4 (193) 50 2 (366) 56 2 (265) 50 5 (374)
Difference between 48 50 60 47 56 34
oldest & youngest
cohorts: -24 +24 -26 +24 -36 +24 -29 +18 -35 +21 -25 +- 9
* Number in parenthesesis base on which percentages are calculated.
"acquisitive" pair is overwhelming: half or cohorts, no transition is as sharp as the one as-
nearly half of the entire cohort choose that one sociated with socialization in the postwar era.
pair, out of six possibilities. Most of the re- Moving to cross-national comparisons, we
maining respondents in this cohort are ambiva- note that our second prediction is also con-
lent; a relative handful-in no case more than firmed: Although the British sample as a whole
five per cent-chooses the post-bourgeois set of has the smallest proportion of post-bourgeois
priorities. Overall, acquisitive types outnumber types, among the cohorts who reached adult-
post-bourgeois types by a ratio of better than hood before World War II (those now more
15:1 in this cohort. As we move up the table than 54 years of age), Britain shows the high-
from the oldest to the youngest cohort, the pro- est proportion of post-bourgeois respondents.
portion choosing the pure "acquisitive" pair She is very closely followed by the Dutch in
falls off markedly, diminishing by considerably this respect (the nationality which came closest
more than one-half in every sample except the to the British level of affluence in the prewar
British; even in the latter case, the decline is period).
just equal to 50 per cent. As we move from Our third prediction also seems to be con-
oldest to youngest, the increase in the propor- firmed by the data: the rate of change across
tion choosing the post-bourgeois priorities is the British cohorts is much smaller than that
proportionately even greater: even in the Brit- found in any other country. The total number
ish sample, where the indications of change of points separating the oldest British cohort
over time are weakest, the post-bourgeois pro- from the youngest is not much more than half
portion nearly triples. as large as the range found in the German and
Moreover, we do find something resembling Italian samples-where apparent intergenera-
a modified L-shaped curve in the distribution of tional change is strongest (in keeping with our
these responses: across the six national sam- fifth prediction).
ples, by far the biggest discontinuity occurs as Our fourth prediction was that among the
we move from the second-youngest to the youngest cohorts, Britain should rank behind
youngest cohort. Even among the 25-34 year- every country except Italy in her proportion of
old cohort, there is still a heavy plurality of ac- post-bourgeois respondents. This expectation is
quisitive types over post-bourgeois types. A ma- amply borne out: the British sample ranks far
jor shift occurs as we move to the one age behind all the other samples-including the
cohort that has been socialized entirely in the Italian, which seems to be a good deal more
postwar era::8 the post-bourgeois group almost post-bourgeois than it should be on the basis of
doubles in size (among the Continental sam- economic expectations. We will not attempt to
ples), while the acquisitive group declines provide an ad hoc explanation for this anom-
sharply. Within the youngest cohort, the post- aly: It is puzzling, but on the whole the empiri-
bourgeois group has either reached approxi- cal findings seem to correspond to expectations
mate parity or moved ahead of the acquisitive drawn from economic history remarkably well.
group-except in Britain. Although value
change occurs across the whole range of age Generational or Life-Cycle Interpretation?
18 Interestingly, this shift corresponds to the
At this point we should consider the possibil-
transition ity that the observed age-group differences re-
from the purportedly apolitical youth of the 1950's-
the "Skeptical Generation" or "Uncommitted Youth," flect life-cycle factors, rather than intergenera-
as they were called-to the relatively radical youth of tional change. The large shift in value prefer-
the 1960's. ences which we find as we move from the sec-
ond youngest to the youngest cohort is, indeed, one's parents also tends to be correlated with
what we would expect to find, on the basis of the individual's own economic status. To the
the conditions which governed the formative extent that this association holds, our data on
years of the respective cohorts. But the phenom- the individual's own education, current occupa-
enon might also be interpreted in life-cycle tion, and income should also serve as a rough
terms: the cutting point between the two age indicator of the degree to which he was eco-
groups corresponds roughly to the age at which nomically secure during his formative years.
the average individual marries and starts a fam- (Most of the women in our sample do not have
ily. It could be argued, therefore, that the independent occupations: for them, our indica-
youngest cohort shows a tendency toward post- tors are their own education and the occupa-
bourgeois values merely because these individu- tion of head of family.)
als are young and lack family responsibilities; In terms of the indicators available to us,
when they get older, they will have the same then, our prediction is that post-bourgeois val-
value priorities as the older cohorts have now. ues should be most prevalent among those who
Since responses to these items seem to be rela- currently enjoy a relatively high socioeconomic
tively well integrated into the individual's atti- status-although this indicator is understood to
tudinal structure-a fact which suggests attitu- be important chiefly insofar as it reflects afflu-
dinal stability-such an interpretation seems ence during one's formative years. Let us test
rather unlikely. The finding that the age-cohort this hypothesis. Table 6 shows the distribution
differences seem to reflect the economic history of value preferences according to socioeco-
of the given nation makes the life-cycle inter- nomic status (ranked on the basis of a scale
pretation still less satisfactory. And when we combining occupation and education). Table 6
examine the data from still another perspective, summarizes the relationship between value pri-
any simple life-cycle interpretation becomes orities and socioeconomic status within the six
quite implausible. national samples. As predicted, the lower socio-
As we recall, my basic hypotheses predicted economic groups are much more likely to select
two sorts of effects associated with an ongoing acquisitive value priorities than are the up-
transformation of value priorities. The first, per socioeconomic groups: overall, about 42
which we have just examined, relates to age-co- per cent of the lower socioeconomic category
hort differences; the second relates to differing chooses the theoretically "pure" acquisitive value
degrees of affluence. The hypotheses suggest pair-more than double the proportion which
that the degree of economic security an individ- makes that choice among the two highest
ual felt during his formative years may play a socioeconomic categories. Conversely, the up-
key role in shaping his later political behavior. per socioeconomic categories are much more
For most of our sample, it is impossible (at this likely to choose the post-bourgeois set of value
late date) to obtain a direct measure of this priorities. Once again, Britain tends to be a de-
variable. We do have some indirect indicators, viant case: her social class differences (like her
however. Perhaps the most accurate one is the age-cohort differences) are smaller than those
respondents' level of formal education: in in the other countries.
Western Europe (even more than in the U.S.) On the whole, the relationship between age
one's likelihood of obtaining a secondary or cohort and value priorities persists when we
university education is very closely related to control for socioeconomic status (see Table 7).
the socioeconomic status of one's family of ori- Despite the presence of some anomalies (espe-
gin. Insofar as it influences levels of education cially in the Dutch sample), the predominant
and career aspirations, the relative affluence of pattern is that the percentage choosing acquisi-
Table 6. Value Preferences by Socioeconomic Status

(Percentage choosing respective "pure" value pairs)
Socioeconomic Netherlands Belgium Italy France Germany Britain

Status* Acq. P-B N Acq. P-B N Acq. P-B N Acq. P-B N Acq. P-B N Acq. P-B N
Lower S.E.S. 40% 7 (551) 38 6 (486) 38 10 (995) 47 4 (908) 49 7 (1319) 37 6 (1179)

Middle S.E.S. 29 20 (526) 33 15 (353) 30 14 (331) 35 11 (626) 38 11 (510) 40 8 (459)
Upper Middle S.E.S. 16 30 (365) 24 20 (86) 18 32 (105) 29 15 (369) 23 26 (139) 28 10 (261)
Upper S.E.S. 11 52 (66) 17 35 (95) 18 27 (135) 14 42 (143) 16 44 (44) 25 15 (73)
1 "Upper" S.E.S. Group includes respondents

from "Modern Middle" class backgrounds having university educations (seefootnote 9 for
our definition of the "Modern Middle Class"); "Upper Middle" S.E.S. includes members of that class, having a secondary level of educa-
tion; "Middle" S.E.S. includes respondents from other occupational backgrounds (including traditional middle class) educated beyond
the primary level.
tive priorities declines sharply, and the percent- On the basis of value priorities, a working-class
age choosing post-bourgeois priorities rises Frenchman 20 years old corresponds to a mid-
sharply, as we move from oldest to youngest dle-class Frenchman in his 50's. More or less
cohorts. Perhaps the most significant aspect of the same thing can be said in regard to the
Table 7 is the extent to which it tends to refute other samples from the countries of the Euro-
a life-cycle interpretation of the observed age- pean Community.
group differences; to uphold such an interpreta- The age-cohort variations shown in Table 7,
tion, we would have to posit the existence of then, can scarcely be explained as a result of
totally different life cycles for working-class the aging process alone. An explanation in
and middle-class respondents. To be sure, terms of economic and physical security during
working-class youth tend to enter the work a formative period accounts for the observed
force and marry earlier than their middle-class pattern of both age cohort and socioeconomic
peers-but in terms of value priorities, the two status differences in a parsimonious fashion.
classes are out of phase not just by four or five For this interpretation to be applicable, how-
years, but by nearly a generation. Within the ever, we must accept the hypothesis that these
youngest Dutch cohort, for example, the upper value priorities reflect an aspect of the individu-
socioeconomic categories choose post-bourgeois al's orientation which tends to persist over time.
priorities over acquisitive priorities by a ratio Substantial age-cohort differences also persist
of 50:6, while 43 per cent of their lower socio- when we apply finer controls for education by
economic peers choose acquisitive values-with itself (see Table 8). Thus, although formal ed-
none making post-bourgeois choices. In the ucation seems to have a strong influence on the
Belgian sample, the corresponding ratios are value priorities held by an individual, the age-
35:12 within the upper middle and upper so- cohort differences, are not simply due to the
cioeconomic categories, as contrasted with 14: different levels of education characterizing
24 within the lower socioeconomic category. given age cohorts (as shown in Table 1). Mul-
Table 7. Value Preferences by Age Cohort, Controlling for SocioeconomiC Status

(Percentagechoosing respective"pure"value pairs)
Britain
"Acquisitive"value preferences "Post-Bourgeois"value preferences

Age range
of cohort Lower Middle Upper-Mid. & Lower Middle Upper-Mid.&
in 1970 S.E.S. S.E.S. Upper S.E.S. S.E.S. S.E.S. Upper S.E.S.
(N = 1179) (N= 459) (N=334) (N =1179) (N=459) (N = 334)
16-24 26% 31 19 10% 19 16
25-34 24 35 34 10 7 8
35-44 25 43 29 7 7 10
45-54 38 43 25 4 8 4
55-64 44 40 33 6 8 14
65+ 50 54 (34)* 5 3 (14)
Germany
Age range
of cohort Lower Middle Upper-Mid.& Lower Middle Upper-Mid.&
(N = 1319) (N==510) (N=183) (N= 1319) (N = 510) (N=183)
16-24 25% 20 10 15% 19 49
25-34 40 29 19 10 17 35
35-54 48 48 23 6 8 20
45-54 52 41 33 6 7 14
55-64 64 54 (32)* 3 6 (16)
65+ 59 49 (33) 2 0 (11)
* Percentagesbased on fewerthan 30 cases are enclosed in parentheses.
Table 7.-.(Continued)
France

Age range
of cohort Lower Middle Upper-Mid.& Lower Middle Upper-Mid. &
(N= 908) (N= 626) (N= 512) (N=908) (N=626) (N= 512)
16-24 30% zo 17 8% 18 31
25-34 41 41 26 2 6 23
35-44 45 36 24 6 17 17
45-54 49 26 32 4 10 24
55-64 53 40 36 5 9 8
65+ 49 56 31 1 4 5
Italy

Age range
(N=995) (N=331) (N = 240) (N=995) (N=331) (N= 240)
16-24 23% 17 9 23% 25 40

25-34 31 26 13 11 7 37
35-44 36 30 25 9 15 23
45-54 38 39 24 8 7 19
55-64 46 44 (12)* 7 13 (5)
65+ 53 (46) (83) 4 (9) (0)
Belgium

Age range
(N=486) (N = 353) (N=181) (N=486) (N = 353) (N=181)
16-24 24% 24 12 14% 20 35
25-34 35 38 30 4 12 30
35-44 32 33 20 11 16 36
45-54 37 23 20 10 19 9
55-64 42 34 26 3 18 18
65+ 41 58 (50)* 3 0 (0)
Netherlands

Age range
(N=551) (N=526) (N=431) (N=551) (N=526) (N=431)
16-24 43% 23 6 0% 28 50
25-34 36 29 12 11 15 28
35-44 43 32 20 8 16 28
45-54 36 18 25 5 25 25
55-64 46 49 24 10 6 19
65+ 40 (61)* (13) 7 (0) (13)
* Percentagesbased on fewerthan 30 cases are enclosedin parentheses.
Table 8. Value Choices by Age Cohort, Controlling for Education

(Percentage choosing acquisitive or post-bourgeois pairs)
Primary Secondary University

Age in 1970
Acq. P-B N Acq. P-B N Acq. P-B N
Britain
16-24 26% 12 (121) 25% 16 (73) 21% 19 (48)
25-34 27 9 (216) 34 5 (89) 21 21 (19)
35-44 28 6 (205) 33 12 (57) 38 13 ( 8)
45-54 40 5 (299) 30 6 (67) 18 0 (11)
55-64 42 6 (267) 40 9 (45) 33 22 ( 9)
65+ 50 4 (315) 48 4 (23) 31 23 (13)
Spread, from youngest to oldest cohort: +24 - 8 +23 -12 +10 + 4
Germany
25% 15 (235) 11% 36 (47) 7% 61 (28)
36 12 (353) 28 31 (36) 18 47 (17)
49 6 (330) 29 21 (28) 17 33 ( 6)
50 7 (278) 31 3 (29) 18 27 (11)
63 4 (278) 35 7 (29) 25 25 (8)
59 2 (213) 44 0 (27) 20 20 (5)
Spread: +34 -13 +33 -36 +13 -41
France
30% 11 ( 84) 21% 17 (224) 6% 48 (52)
39 2 (145) 40 9 (172) 6 48 (50)
46 8 (170) 27 14 (139) 22 39 (36)
45 4 (188) 32 17 (112) 15 39 (13)
52 5 (184) 41 8 ( 74) 35 10 (20)
49 1 (249) 55 3 ( 88) 35 5 (20)
Spread: +19 -10 +34 -14 +29 -43
Italy
23% 23 (199) 18% 25 (44) 7% 39 (87)
33 9 (183) 29 21 (24) 14 40 (35)
37 10 (326) 28 17 (18) 24 24 (41)
38 7 (264) 43 14 (14) 15 15 (20)
44 7 (278) 17 17 (12) 20 0 (15)
53 4 (168) 60 20 (5) 75 0 (8)
Spread: +30 -19 +42 - 5 +67 -39
Belgium
26% 19 ( 27) 19% 23 (147) 14% 41 (44)
41 3 ( 63) 31 14 (117) 32 36 (25)
29 9 ( 98) 30 21 (106) 17 50 (24)
33 8 ( 89) 28 21 ( 80) 8 0 (12)
43 4 (126) 23 15 ( 60) 50 20 (10)
43 3 (179) 52 0 ( 29) 40 0 (10)
Spread: +17 -16 +33 -23 +26 -41
Netherlands
35% 0 ( 40) 16% 36 (258) 0% 58 (19)
35 10 (100) 19 19 (173) 10 52 (21)
41 7 (122) 27 21 (146) 19 48 (21)
32 8 (113) 23 24 (79) 11 56 (9)
42 7 ( 82) 35 13 (48) 13 25 (9)
42 6 ( 81) 52 0 (21) 33 17 (6)
Spread: + 7 + 6 +36 -36 +33 -41
tiple classification analyses1 indicate that edu- Table 9. Percentage Choosing "Freedom of Speech"
cation is among the strongest predictors of by Age Group: Germany, 1962*
value priorities. It ranks with occupation, reli-
gion, income levels, and age cohort as an im- Age in 1962
portant influence on basic values (although all
four of the latter variables also seem to have 16-25 58 K not included in 1949 sample
25-30 52 f
substantial independent effects on value priori-
30-50 50
ties, when we control for the effects of each of 50-65 40
the other variables). Our own interpretation 65+ 34
would emphasize that this is the case because
education is our most accurate indicator of pa- * Source: EMNID Pressedienst (Gallup-Institut,
rental affluence during the respondent's forma- Bielefeld), cited in Encounter, Vol. 22, No. 4 (April,
tive years. It might very plausibly be argued, 1964), p. 53. Age groupings are those given in this
however, that this relatively strong relationship source.
exists because of something based on education
itself: for example, that under present circum- place the older groups in the adult electorate.
stances, the process of formal education assimi- Ultimately, of course, our thesis can be
lates the individual into an elite political culture proved or disproved only with the aid of longi-
which stresses expressive values.20 Indeed, we tudinal data-and, as we noted earlier, very lit-
suspect that there may be some truth in the lat- tle is available at present. A small body of rele-
ter interpretation; but we regard it as a comple- vant time-series data is available, however, and
mentary rather than an alternative explanation. it seems worth examining. The EMNID insti-
Our data do not contain a direct measure of tute of West Germany employed an item con-
economic security during one's formative years, cerning value priorities in a series of surveys of
so we cannot separate the two effects. But re- German public opinion from 1949 through
gardless of whether we regard the impact of ed- 1963; the question was, "Which of the Four
ucation as being largely due to education per Freedoms do you personally consider most im-
se, or a reflection of parental affluence, two important?" Like the items used to measure value
portant facts seem fairly clear: (1) the age-co- priorities in our own survey, this was a forced-
hort differences are not due to educational dif- choice question, requiring the individual to
ferences alone-ven the less educated mem- make a selection among positively valued
bers of the younger cohorts show a marked ten- items, according to his personal priorities. And
dency to be less acquisitive and more post- because the two leading choices by far were
bourgeois than the older cohorts (which may "Freedom from Want" and "Freedom of
reflect the fact that in the postwar era, even Speech," the choice an individual made proba-
the less educated have known relative afflu- bly tends to tap the dimension central to this
ence). (2) Even if the socioeconomic class dif- inquiry-acquisitive versus post-bourgeois val-
ferences are largely due to education per se ues. In 1962, for example, nearly half of the
rather than to affluence during formative years, German sample ranked "Freedom of Speech"
we would expect them to persist over time: rel- as the most important freedom. Let us look in
atively high levels of formal education are a Table 9 at the relationship between age and
stable characteristic of the younger cohorts, preference for that value in 1962 (unfortu-
which is not likely to disappear as the individu- nately, the only year for which an age break-
als age. In either case, we may be justified, down is available).
therefore, in projecting changes over time as The pattern of age differences shown in Ta-
the younger (and more educated) cohorts re- ble 9, is similar to what we found in our own
19 This analysis is similar to a multiple regression an-
data: the young are much more likely to place
alysis, using dummy variables. For an explanation of a high priority on free speech than are the old.
the technique, see John A. Sonquist, Multivariate Prima facie, this age-relationship could be in-
Model Building: the Validation of a Search Strategy terpreted as reflecting either a life-cycle effect
(Ann Arbor: Institute for Social Research, 1970). or intergenerational change.21
20 Granting that this is the process at work, we must
ask why this elite political culture gives relatively "I Other possibilities also exist:
high priority to expressive values; one is tempted to (1) It could be due to sampling error. We believe
draw on relative economic security to supply at least the latter possibility can be excluded, however: we
part of the answer. As is pointed out later in this have found a similar age-group pattern in all seven of
section, however, higher education does not seem to the European surveys cited thus far; moreover, we
be inherently linked with a libertarian political po- have examined responses to items from a large number
sition; at other points in history, it has been associated of American surveys which, implicitly or openly, ask
with relatively authoritarian and conservative positions. the individual to choose between political liberties and
The former interpretationhas a certain ap- Table 10. Changing Value Priorities:
peal: it is linked with the seeminglyparsimoni- Germany, 1949-1963
ous assumptionthat nothing is really changing "Which of the Four Freedoms do you
-young people will be like their parentswhen personally consider most important?"
(Percentage choosing given item)*
they get older. When examined a little more
closely, it becomes apparentthat the life-cycle
1949 1954 1958 1962 1963
interpretationis in no sense more parsimonious
than the generationalinterpretation;indeed, it Freedom from Want 35% 35 28 17 15
could be consideredless so: though it assumes Freedom of Speech 26 32 44 47 56
that the preferencesof a nation as a whole will Freedom from Fear 17 17 10 8 10
show no change, this result can be obtained Freedom of Worship 12 16 16 13 14
only if each of the age-groupswithin the nation N.A.,D.K. 10 - 2 15 5
does change. Furthermore, it assumes-often
* Source: EMNID Pressedienst, cited in Table 9.
without even considering the alternative-that
the direction of any shift in preferencescan be
taken for granted: they must move in the direc- special case of adult attitude change, which as-
tion which tends to erase the age-groupdiffer- sumes (in this case) that individuals will be-
ences. We agree it would be unrealistic to as- come less libertarian and more economically-
sume that individuals'value prioritieswill show motivatedas they grow older.
no change over their adult lives-but it is con- The data from Tables 9 and 10 enable us to
ceivable that, as they age, they might move in estimate parameters for the two processes.
the directionof giving a higherpriorityto liber- While rough calculations indicate that only
tarian values (for example), rather than a about one-third of the observed shift in value
lower priority. Fortunately,we are able to ex- priorities from 1949 to 1962 might be attrib-
amine trends in the percentagesgiving top pri- uted to the recruitment/mortalityprocess, the
ority to the item cited in Table 9. The EMNID direction of the remainingadult attitudechange
institute's responses to the "Four Freedoms" runs directly counter to that predicted by the
item over the period 1949-1963 are reported life-cycle interpretation.It seems clear that, in-
in Table 10. The changes over time are impres- sofar as a shift in prioritiesoccurredamong in-
sive in size. These shifts might be attributedto dividualswho were in the samplinguniverse in
two types of causes: 1) The mechanics of in- both 1949 and 1962, they tended to move in
tergenerationalchange. This process has two the "post-bourgeois"direction as they aged-
aspects: (a) the recruitmentof new (younger) not the reverse.
membersinto the samplinguniverse from 1949 The time-series data reported in Table 10,
to 1963; and (b) mortalityamong membersof moreover, has an excellent fit with recent Ger-
the 1949 sample-most of the group aged 65+ man economic history. In the Germany of
in that year would have died off (its youngest 1949, "Freedom from Want" was by far the
memberswould be 79 in 1963). 2) Adult atti- leading choice. Germany's recovery from the
tude change. The life-cycle effect constitutes a devastationof World War II had just begun to
threats to order or national security. A similar age-
get under way, and economic needs were ex-
group pattern occurs in virtually all of them. See, for tremely pressing for most of the population.
example, Hazel Gaudet, "The Polls: Freedom of Even under conditions of poverty, however,
Speech," Public Opinion Quarterly, 34 (Fall, 1970). freedom of speech was the second-ranking
The same pattern occurs in responses to comparable choice. The fourteen years that followed were
items in the S.R.C. 1968 presidential election survey.
The likelihood of finding such a pattern in so many the years of the Wirtschaftswunder. Germany
surveys from post-industrial societies as a result of sam- rose from poverty to plenty with almost incred-
pling error appears negligible. ible speed, and the two leading choices ex-
(2) The age-group pattern might be due to differ- changedplaces: the percentagechoosing "Free-
ential birth rates or life-expectancies among social
groups having distinctive value priorities. These would dom of Speech" more than doubled, while the
tend to give the group having the higher birth rate (or percentagechoosing "Freedomfrom Want"fell
shorter life expectancy) a disproportionately strong to less than half its former level (choice of the
representation among the younger cohorts. Empiric- other two alternativesremainingrelatively con-
ally, lower income groups tend to have had higher
birth rates and shorter life expectancies than upper stant). These data suggest that a society may,
income groups over recent decades (For example, see indeed, show a shift in value priorities in re-
Butler and Stokes, op. cit., pp. 265-270). But lower sponse to changing conditions of scarcity. Ad-
income groups are relatively likely to express ac- mittedly, this must be regarded as an excep-
quisitive value priorities. Despite this fact, post-
bourgeois values are relatively widespread among the tional case: only rarely does so great a change
younger cohorts! in the average individual'seconomic situation
Table 11. The University Crisis: Value Climates in Student Milieu v. Administrative Milieu
(Percentage choosing the respective "pure" value pairs within the 16-24 year-old
cohort ["students"] and the 45-54 year-old cohort ["administrators"] of the
upper-middle/upper S.E.S. category)
Britain Germany France Italy Belgium Netherlands
Acq. P-B Acq. P-B Acq. P-B Acq. P-B Acq. P-B Acq. P-B
Students' Milieu 19 16 10 49 17% 31 9 40 12 35 6% 50

Administrators' Milieu 25 4 33 14 32 24 24 19 20 9 25 25
occur within so short a space of time. But the III"). My conclusions diverge from those of
direction of movement clearly conforms to the Reich chiefly in the extent to which I would
expectations generated by our hypotheses. generalizethese changes. The present data sug-
Some fragmentary but interesting time-senes gest that although post-industrialsocieties may
evidence from the other side of the Atlantic indeed be undergoing a transformationsimilar
might be drawn from two excellent studies of to the emergence of "ConsciousnessIII," the
the political consciousness of Yale students. process of transformationis decidedly uneven,
Each seems to be the result of penetrating ob- and the earlier types of consciousnesscontinue
servation: Robert Lane's Political Thinking and to be predominanteven among youth-except
Consciousness;22 and Kenneth Keniston's in certain sectors: above all, the universities.
Young Radicals.28 The former study is based A life-cycle interpretationtends to write off
on material gathered in the 1950's and early such evidence of intergenerationaldifferences
1960's; the latter study is based on observations as due to youthful rebelliousnessor high spirits,
made about ten years later. Being drawn from often without considering the type of values
the same milieu with a decade's time-lag, they motivating radical youth. Although I am not
provide an impressionistic sort of time-series aware of a body of micro-analyticdata from
data. And the picture which emerges is one of Europe comparable to the Yale studies just
profound change. Again and again in Lane's cited, observation of political activity on a
material one is made aware of the pressures to- gross level suggests a significantchange in the
ward conformity with a conservative norm: to values espoused by European student activists
be socially acceptable in the Yale of the late during the past generation or so. One need
50's, one felt obliged to identify with the Re- scarcely dwell on the Rightist and authoritarian
publican Party and to support the policies of aspects of student movements in Germany and
the Establishment. The situation a decade later Italy of the 1930's. What is perhapsless widely
shows a fascinating contrast. As Keniston recognized is that the predominant thrust of
makes clear, the "Young Radicals" who had political activism among French studentsin the
then become a salient part of the Yale scene 1930's also had a markedlyconservativechar-
were not acting out of youthful rebellion: they acter: their most critical interventionin French
were advocating policies which seemed to them politics undoubtedlytook place in early 1934,
a more faithful implementation of the values when Monarchist and quasi-Fascist youth
that had been inculcated in their homes. Yet (mostly upper middle-class,and many of them
their views sharply conflicted with the social from the universities) played a prominentrole
and foreign policies of the popularly elected in a series of riots which very nearly overthrew
governments, whether Democratic or Republi- the Third Republic.25Then, as now, Britishstu-
can. In another book which was shaped by ob- dents seem to have been a deviant case: rela-
servation of Yale students, Charles Reich gives tively liberal in the 1930's and relatively con-
an insightful interpretation of this complex pro- /servative in 1970.
cess of change.24 His analysis, in part, is similar / The wave of intense studentpolitical activity
to our own: a younger generation has emerged which swept both Europe and North America
which has a basically different perspective from in the late 1960's seems to have diminishedto-
earlier generations (Reich refers to the younger day.25Was it a campus fad or does it represent
generation's value system as "Consciousness
25See, for example, William L. Shirer, The Collapse
22 (Chcago-.Markham Publishing Company, 1969). of the Third Republic (New York: Simon & Schuster,
23 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1968). 1969), pp. 201-223.
24The Greening of America (New York: Random "Among the reasons for this decline in activity,
House, 1970). the fact that some concessions were made to some of
a manifestation of broader changes in post-in- nant acquisitive types in the student milieu of
dustrial society? I believe that the present data five of our six national samples. While they
and analytic framework provide a useful per- may not yet constitute an absolute majority
spective from which to interpret its implica- even in this setting, their preponderance over
tions. the acquisitive types may enable the post-bour-
To illustrate, let us look at Table 11 (which geois group to act as the leading influence on
is simply a subset of Table 7). University stu- many of their "ambivalent" peers. By contrast
dents in these countries tend to be drawn over- with the student milieu, the value climate from
whelmingly from the upper and upper-middle which the administrators are drawn tends to
socioeconomic strata. If we take the youngest contain a plurality of acquisitive over post-
cohort of these strata as roughly indicative of bourgeois types. The administrators, moreover,
the value climate in the student milieu in each are subject to relatively strong pressures from
country-and if we regard the 45-54 year-old society as a whole-which tends to be far more
cohort of the same socioeconomic category as conservative in its value priorities than are the
indicative of the milieu from which the univer- administrators themselves. The result (rather
sity administrators are drawn-we can form an frequently) is not simply disagreement, but
idea of the contrasting value climates within conflicts which seem unamenable to compro-
the two milieux.27 Our data suggest that there mise-because they are based on fundamen-
have always been a certain number of people tally different value priorities. (An incidental
with the value priorities which we call post- outcome seems to be the frequent rotation of
bourgeois, but that until recently they were a university administrators.)
relatively small minority. Within the last de- A notable exception to the foregoing pattern
cade they seem to have become relatively nu- appears in the British sample, where there still
merous-constituting a major political bloc in seems to be a narrow plurality choosing acquis-
themselves; furthermore, they tend to be itive value priorities, even within the student
brought together as a group capable of setting milieu-a finding which may go far to explain
the prevailing tone in an important institutional the relative tranquility of the university scene
context-the universities. As Table 11 indi- in that country. While there have been a few
cates, post-bourgeois types now seem to hold a relatively subdued uprisings at British universi-
heavy plurality over the traditionally predomi- ties in recent years, one can point to student
explosions which dwarf them in every one of
the five other countries.
the student demands is probably the most obvious According to our data, West Germany seems
factor, but I suspect that its importance is overrated.
Another reason is that major political confrontations to be the country which has the greatest degree
along the acquisitive/post-bourgeois dimension are of intergenerational strain in her universities,
likely to be counterproductive for the latter group un- with a 3:1 predominance of acquisitive values
der current conditions: the acquisitives still seem to in the "administrative" milieu and a 5:1 pre-
hold a heavy numerical predominance-as became in-
creasingly apparent on both sides of the Atlantic by the dominance of post-bourgeois value choices in
end of the 1960's. Still another factor seems pertinent the "student" milieu. This may seem momenta-
in America: the economic recession of 1970 may have rily surprising, since France is clearly the coun-
drawn greater attention to economic considerations on try in which the most resounding student upris-
the part of groups which had previously given them
little notice. The conventional wisdom holds that eco- ing to date has taken place. To be sure, our
nomic troubles tend to help the traditional Left; data indicate considerable intergenerational
paradoxically (but in keeping with our analysis of strain in France, as well, but it seems to be less
intergenerational change) we would expect them to extreme than in the German case. These facts
tend to undermine the New Left.
27Except among the youngest cohort, we do not have serve to remind us that survey data cannot be
a large enough number of university-educated re- interpreted without reference to the institu-
spondents to permit reliable estimates of the responses tional and geographical context from which
of those who actually have university educations.
Within the youngest cohort, we do have at least 30 they are drawn. We would attribute the differ-
student respondents from four of our six countries; ing outcomes to structural factors: important
they tend to be somewhat more post-bourgeois than manifestations of student discontent took place
other members of their age group and socioeconomic at a number of locations in Germany well be-
stratum, but only moderately so: they are, on the fore they occurred in France. But the high de-
average, four percentage points less acquisitive and
seven points more post-bourgeois than their peers in gree of educational and administrative central-
Table 11. This suggests that it is not principally the ization in France meant that when an explosion
university milieu which accounts for their value pri- did take place in Paris, it was a crisis that en-
orities (although this seems to play a part) but the
fact that the students are from the youngest and most gulfed the whole country.
affluent social categories. The hypothesis of intergenerational change
in value priorities (based on different levels of compatible with parties of movement than with
economic scarcity during a cohort's formative parties of order. Do we find any relationship
years) seems to have a good fit with a wide va- between political party choice and our indica-
riety of evidence: with the attitudinal patterns tors of underlying value preferences? The re-
of the respective age cohorts, and with those of spondents in each of our samples were asked:
given socioeconomic strata in samples from six "If there were a General Election tomorrow, for
nations; with the economic history of given na- which party would you be most likely to vote?"
tions and with cross-national differences in eco-
nomic experience; and with what time-series Responses to this question are cross-tabulated
data are available. It would be foolish to deny with the two "pure" value pairs in Table 12;
that individuals can and do change during their the parties are ordered according to the con-
adult years. But if one's malleability is rela- ventional notion of a Left-Right continuum.
tively great during preadult years and tends to In the British sample, the differences we find
decline thereafter, we would expect to find resi- are of moderate size, but they are in the ex-
dues from formative experiences in the re- pected direction: respondents choosing post-
sponse patterns of the various adult cohorts.28 bourgeois values are more likely to support the
Weighing the evidence as a whole, it seems to Labour Party than are acquisitive-type respon-
me that our data do give a rather strong sugges- dents; the intergroup differences amounts to
tion of intergenerational change. eight percentage points. The post-bourgeois
group is also relatively likely to support the
Value Priorities and Political Partisanship
Liberal Party, and the relative gains for both
The patterns of value preferences outlined other parties come at the expense of the Con-
above may represent a potential force for long- servatives-who are supported by a solid ma-
term political change. They might encourage jority of the acquisitives, but by a minority of
the development of new political parties, rela- the post-bourgeois group. A somewhat similar
tively responsive to emerging value cleavages. pattern appears in the Belgian data.
Or they might lead to a realignment of the so- In all four of the other countries we find
cial bases of existing political parties, making quite sizeable differences in the partisan prefer-
age an increasingly important basis of cleavage ences of the two groups, and the differences are
(during a transitional period) and eventually, consistently in the expected direction: within
perhaps, tending to reverse the traditional the Dutch sample, for example, post-bourgeois
alignment of the working class with the Left, respondents are more likely to support the par-
and the middle class with the Right. For, in ties of the Left by a margin of 23 percentage
terms of the value priorities discussed in this points; they give heavier support to the parties
article, upper status respondents are far likelier traditionally considered to be of the Left by a
than lower status respondents to support a set spread of 26 points in Italy; and by a spread of
of post-bourgeois principles which seem more 15 points in Germany (22 points if we view to-
' In their analysis of British panel survey data day's F.D.P. as a party of the Left, which in
gathered in 1963, 1964 and 1965, Butler and Stokes, some respects seems to be the case).
op. cit., pp. 58-59, comment: In France, the differences are the most im-
A theory of political 'senescence' as it is some- pressive of all: post-bourgeois respondents are
times called, fits comfortably the more general be- more likely to support parties usually consid-
lief that the attitudes of youth are naturally liberal
or radical, while those of age are conservative.... ered Leftist by a margin of 36 percentage
In the 1960's Conservative strength tended to be points over the acquisitives. A solid majority
weakest among those born in the 1920's and just (56 per cent) of the latter group supports the
before. Electors younger than this tended actually Gaullist U.D.R. and their allies, the R.I.; while,
to be a little more Conservative than those who lay
within the precincts of early middle age. This ir- by contrast, a bare 16 per cent of the post-
regularity, although an embarrassment to any simple bourgeois group supports the Gaullist coalition!
theory of conservatism increasing with age, can Although it enjoys a wide plurality in the na-
readily be reconciled with the concept that the con- tion as a whole, the Gaullist coalition draws an
servation of established political tendencies is what
increases with age . . . we must ask not how old almost insignificant minority of support from
the elector is but when it was that he was young. the group holding post-bourgeois value priori-
For an excellent example of age-cohort analysis based ties. This finding tends to'confirm our interpre-
on data at the elite level, see Robert D. Putnam, tation of the May Revolt mentioned earlier-
"Studying Elite Political Culture: the Case of 'Ideol- that France's crisis of 1968 brought about a
ogy,'" American Political Science Review, 65 (Sep-
tember, 1971). Putnam finds evidence of significant partial repolarization of the electorate accord-
intergenerational changes in basic political style among ing to underlying value preferences (with many
British and Italian politicians, working-class respondents shifting to the Gaul-
Table12. Political Party Choiceby ValuePreferences
(Percentagechoosing given political party)
Britain Germany
Value Pref:
Labour Liberal Conserv. N SPD FDP CDU/CSU NPD N
Acquisitive 37%7 7 57 (570) 48% 5 46 2 (648)
Post-Bourg. 45 9 46 (126) 63 12 23 2 (164)
Difference: + 8 + 2 -11 +15 + 7 - 23
France Italy
UDR, DC, Extreme
Left Center RI N Left PRI Liberal Right N
Acquisitive 34% 10 56 (533) 28% 56 8 9 (398)
Post-Bourg. 70 15 16 (170) 54 38 8 1 (168)
Difference: +36 + 5 -40 +26 -18 - 8
Belgium Netherlands
Liberal Christian Socialist, Confes-
Socialist (PLP) Social N Dem. '66 Liberal sional N
Acquisitive 31% 13 56 (253) 46% 12 43 (315)

Post-Bourg. 38 26 37 (117) 69 14 17 (216)
Difference: + 7 +13 -19 +23 + 2 - 26
list side, while post-bourgeois elements from cording to value priorities, although its magni-
the middle class shifted to the Left). This sud- tude remains smaller than what we find in
den shift in vote from 1967 to 1968 does not France. By contrast, Great Britain (apart from
seem to have been simply a temporary reaction ethnic conflicts in Northern Ireland) has prob-
to the 1968 crisis, with the voters returning to ably had the greatest measure of domestic tran-
their normal partisan allegiance after the emer- quility among these countries in recent years-
gency had faded away. On the contrary, the and shows a relatively weak relationship be-
French electorate still seems to retain an un- tween value priorities and political party
equalled degree of political polarization accord- choice.
ing to value preferences in 1970, nearly two Admittedly, we have not mapped out in
years after the May Revolt. This interpretation any precise fashion the differences between
tends to be supported by data from a panel sur- the political goals of the acquisitive and
vey reported elsewhere.29 The apparently en- post-bourgeois groups: the latter group may
during nature of this redistribution of political still be in the process of defining a program.
positions, once it has taken place, suggests that Moreover, there is at least an equal lack of
it may, indeed, correspond to relatively deep- precision in the party labels which we have
seated values. In this connection, it seems sig- just employed: we regard "Left" and
nificant that the other two countries in our sur- "Right" as merely convenient shorthand
vey which have experienced the most massive terms under which to group (for cross-na-
New Left upheavals (Germany and Italy) also tional comparisons) two sets of parties
show relatively high degrees of polarization ac- which tend to differ in being relatively con-
servative or relatively change-oriented, but
29Philip Converse and Roy Pierce noted a sizeable which otherwise vary a good deal from
shift to the Right from 1967 to 1968, within a panel country to country. To be sure, the acquisi-
of respondents asked to rank themselves on a Left-
Right continuum in both years. After re-interviewing tive and post-bourgeois types of respondents
these respondent a third time, they report that more do seem to react quite differently to these
than 99 per cent of the change from 1967 to 1968 was two sets of parties, and the pattern is fairly
preserved in 1969. See Converse and Pierce, "Basic consistent cross-nationally. But the cleavage
Cleavages in French Politics and the Disorders of
May and June, 1968," paper presented at the 7th is not one which runs neatly along the tradi-
World Congress of Sociology, Varna, Bulgaria, Sep- tional Left-Right dimension. Perhaps for this
tember, 1970. reason political polarization according to un-
derlying value preferences seems much more When we turn to the Belgian case, we find a
pronounced in relation to what might be rather surprising phenomenon. In traditional
called New Left parties (in countries where terms, we probably would not view the Belgian
they exist) than in relation to what might be separatist parties as characteristically of the
called the Traditional Left. To illustrate, let Left at all. But in their basis of recruitment,
us take a closer look at the vote for certain these parties (both Flemish and Walloon, but
small parties which seem to have a distinc- predominately the former) play a role compa-
tive appeal for the post-bourgeois constitu- rable to that played by the PSU in France:
ency (see Table 13). they draw their strength very disproportion-
In the French case, the PSU emerged ately from the post-bourgeois types, rather than
from the crisis of May and Jnue, 1968, as the from the acquisitives. In France, the ratio is
political embodiment of the New Left, the nearly 15:1; in Belgium there is nearly a 4:1
only significant party which had unambigu- over-representation of post-bourgeois as com-
ously endorsed the May Revolt. Although it pared with acquisitive types. Indeed, when we
polled only 4 per cent of the vote nationally, include the separatist parties in our analysis,
and is supported by only 2 per cent of the the Belgian Socialists actually show a slight def-
acquisitives in our sample, it draws far more icit among the post-bourgeois group, when
than this share of support among the post- compared with the acquisitives (in Table 13).
bourgeois constituency-getting fully 29 per The "New Left" parties and the Belgian sep-
cent of this group's preferences. By aratists might seem to have little in common,
comparison, the other parties of the French other than a radical opposition to fundamental
Left enjoy only a relatively small advantage aspects of the established social system. But this
among the post-bourgeois group-getting 9 disparity of political goals, juxtaposed with an
percentage points more support there than apparent similarity in social bases and underly-
among the acquisitive constituency. A simi- ing value preferences, leads us back to a sug-
lar pattern applies to support for two other gestion about the nature of post-bourgeois poli-
parties which might be said to have a more tics which was mentioned earlier: an important
or less New Left coloring: Demokraten '66 in latent function may be to satisfy the need for
The Netherlands and the P.S.LU.P. in Italy. belongingness. According to Maslow, this need
The post-bourgeois group shows a marked comes next on the individual-level hierarchy,
preference for these parties, over the other after needs related to sustenance and safety
parties conventionally regarded as of the have been fulfilled. I would acknowledge and
Left.80 emphasize the importance of the manifest goals
'In the Italian case, however, the Communist party of a given movement in a given context; but it
also seems to enjoy a relative preference within the
post-bourgeois constituency: the PCI and PSIUP that membersof our Italian sample react to the PCI
combined are supported by seven per cent of the almost as if it were a New Left party-an interesting
acquisitives and by 30 per cent of the post-bourgeois finding,in view of the fact that supportfor the French
group (leaving the two Socialist parties only a slightly Communistparty does not show a similar pattern;
greater proportion of support from the post-bourgeois one wonders if the PCF cut itself off from post-
group than from the acquisitives). It appears, then, bourgeoissupport in repudiatingthe May Revolt.
Table 13. Political Party Choice by Value Preferences: Effect of the New
Left and Belgian Separatist Parties
(Percentage choosing given political party)
France Italy
Value
Pref: Other UDR, Other Extreme
PSU Left Center RI N PSIUP Left DC, PRI Liberal Right N
Acquisitive 2% 32 10 56 (533) 1% 26 56 8 9 (398)
Post-Bourg. 29 41 15 16 (170) 7 47 38 8 1 (168)
Difference: +27 + 9 + 5 -40 +6 +21 -18 -8
Netherlands Belgium
Value Pref:
Confes- Sep- Christian
Dem. '66 Socialist Lib. sional N aratist Socialist Liberal Social N
Acquisitive 13% 32 11 43 (315) 10% 28 12 50 (271)
Post-Bourg. 38 31 14 17 (216) 36 24 16 23 (128)
Difference: +25 - 1 + 3 -26 +26 - 4 + 4 -27
also seems likely that protest movements which We find a quite interesting relationship be-
are in radical conflict with their environment tween value priorities and political party choice
provide their members with a sense of belong- in our data. I have spoken of this phenomenon
ingness. In the midst of large, anonymous, bu- as reflecting a tendency toward reordering po-
reaucratically-organized societies, these move- litical party choices to bring them into har-
ments may become tight little communities mony with underlying values. But this line of
which are bound together all the more closely reasoning assumes a causal relationship, in
because they have a sense of radical opposition which the value preference is an independent
to, and isolation from, the surrounding society. variable capable of influencing current party
Insofar as the drive for belongingness is an im- choice. To what extent is this assumption justi-
portant component of these movements, their fied? It could be argued that the association be-
ideological content can be quite flexible. If we tween value priorities and party choice is spuri-
view the underlying dimension as based in part ous-that it results from the fact that given in-
on this motivation, there is common ground be- dividuals have been raised in relatively conser-
tween the Belgian Separatists and the New Left vative (or relatively Left-oriented) back-
groups. grounds, shaping them in a way which accounts
The similarity goes beyond this. The Flemish for the presence of both the value preferences
separatists clearly are not seeking economic and the political party choice currently ex-
gains. Indeed, they seem prepared to sacrifice pressed.
them for what they regard as cultural and hu- It is difficult to provide a conclusive demon-
manitarian gains. In this respect also, they stration of what caused what, but we can sub-
might be grouped with the New Left. After the ject the foregoing interpretation to an interest-
need for belongingness, the next priorities (ac- ing test. Our respondents were asked a series of
cording to Maslow) are for self-esteem and questions to ascertain what had been their par-
self-actualization, and for fulfillment of one's ents' political party preference or (failing this)
intellectual and esthetic potential. In a some- their general Left-Right tendance. Let us exam-
what chaotic way, most of these (postacquisi- ine the relationship between value priorities
tive) values seem to be reflected in the issues and current party choice, controlling for the
espoused by the New Left: the movement re- political background in which the respondent
flects a broad shift in emphasis from economic was raised (see Table 14). A comparison of
issues to life-style issues.3' the N's given for each group in Table 14 indi-
cates that there is, indeed, some tendency for
" This ordering of priorities is, of course, not new
the children of Left-affiliated parents to show a
in itself. Weber and Veblen, among others, called
attention to the disdain for economic striving and an relative preference for post-bourgeois values;
emphasis on distinctive life styles among economically the strength of this tendency varies considera-
secure strata throughout history. Veblen interprets the bly from country to country. But for present
anti-acquisitive life style of past leisure classes as an purposes, the crucial finding which emerges
attempt to protect their superior status by excluding
individuals rising from lower economic levels. See from Table 14 is that, even when we control
Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class for this source of variation, quite substantial
(New York: Modern Library, 1934). It is highly differences persist between the political party
dubious whether this interpretation applies to the preferences of acquisitive-oriented respondents
contemporary post-bourgeois group as a whole. Its
members appear universalistic in outlook and some- and those of post-bourgeois respondents. In
times seem to imitate the life-style of lower strata. many cases, these differences become even
Conspicuous consumption seems to play a relatively larger than they were in Table 12. Table 14
small role in their behavior-unless we interpret going shows the flow of voters from the party in
barefoot as a devious variation on conspicuous con-
sumption. We would view needs for intellectual and which they were raised, to other parties-and
esthetic self-realization as political motivations in them- the flow certainly does seem to be influenced by
selves. Concern for pollution of the environment and the value priorities of the individual. In the
the despoiling of its natural beauty-issues which British sample, evidence of
played a minor political role until quite recently-
intergenerational
have suddenly become prominent, with the emergence defection from the two major parties is rela-
into political relevance of the current youth cohorts. tively weak, and we find two mildly anomalous
These concerns may be justified in terms of self- cases (in which post-bourgeois respondents are
preservation ("We are about to suffocate beneath an a trifle less likely to
avalanche of garbage") but this argument may be
support the Labour Party
somewhat hyperbolic: I suspect that behind this new than are the acquisitive respondents). Even in
wave of protest, there may be a heightened sensitivity the British sample, however, the net tendency is
to the esthetic defects of industrial society. It seems for Labour to be relatively strong and the Con-
clear that other factors are also involved in the emerg- servatives
ence of a New Left: situational factors unique to a relatively weak among the post-bour-
given movement in a given society. I will not attempt geois group, holding parental background con-
to deal with them in this cross-national analysis. stant. In our Dutch sample, among those raised
by parents who supported one of the confes- parties of the Right, those with acquisitive
sional parties, 78 per cent of the group showing value priorities are very likely to continue in
acquisitive values remain faithful to those par- that tradition: 91 per cent support the Gaullist
ties; by contrast, among those indicating post- coalition. There seems to be an astoundingly
bourgeois values only 44 per cent have stayed high rate of defection among the post-bour-
with the church-linked parties-while an equal geois group, however; 70 per cent of them indi-
number have shifted their support to the parties cate that they would vote for one of the parties
of the Left (the Socialists; or Demokraten '66). of the Left! Conversely, among those raised in
Among Dutch respondents who were raised by a family which preferred the Left, there is little
supporters of the Socialist party, there seems to defection to the Gaullist coalition. Among the
be greater continuity; fully 92 per cent of the acquisitive value group, the rate of defection to
post-bourgeois group say that they, too, would the Gaullists is nearly five times as high: a
vote for the Left; among the acquisitive-ori- substantial 29 per cent say that they would vote
ented group, however, we find a rate of defec- for one of the governing parties.
tion which is twice this high. A number of the cells in Table 14 contain
Quite sizeable differences appear in the Ital- too few cases to be significant by themselves,33
ian sample; most notably, among those raised but the overall pattern is clear: the presence of
in a Christian Democratic or Centrist back- post-bourgeois values is linked consistently with
ground, only 4 per cent of the acquisitive- a relative tendency to remain loyal to the Left,
type respondents defect to the Left-as com- among those who were brought up in that tra-
pared with 33 per cent among the post-bour- dition, and with a tendency to shift to the Left
geois respondents. In the German sample, among those who were raised in other political
somewhat similarly, post-bourgeois respondents climates. Jennings and Niemi have found evi-
from Christian Democratic backgrounds show dence that recall data (such as ours) tends to
a relatively strong tendency to defect from this exaggerate the degree of consistency between
political affiliation: while 63 per cent of the political party preferences of parent and child
"acquisitive" respondents remain in the Chris- (perhaps as a result of the respondent's ten-
tian Democratic fold, only 46 per cent of the dency to reduce cognitive dissonance).3A This
post-bourgeois respondents do so. The partisan finding implies that, if anything, our data prob-
shift seems to reflect a relative drawing away ably understate the degree to which intergener-
from the church-linked parties on the part of ational party shift is taking place.
the post-bourgeois group:32 it continues the
trend toward secularism traditionally associated Implications of Intergenerational Change
with the Left. Indeed, the post-bourgeois group Our conclusion, then, is that the transforma-
seems noticeably more sensitive to the suppos- tion of value priorities which our data seem to
edly outworn religious/secular cleavage than to indicate does imply a change in the social basis
the socioeconomic one: consistently, across our of political partisanship in most, if not all, of
samples, the Christian Democratic parties show these countries. This change may already have
a heavy relative loss among this constituency, been under way for some time. To illustrate: In
while the Liberal parties-which emphasize the first elections of the Fifth Republic, the
freedom of expression but often are more con- French electorate apparently voted along class
servative on socioeconomic issues than the lines to a very considerable extent. Lipset, for
Christian Democrats-show a relative gain. example, provides a table showing that work-
The shift, indeed, seems more responsive to ing-class voters were 29 per cent more likely to
life-style values than to economic ones. support the parties of the Left than were mem-
The most dramatic evidence of intergenera- bers of the modern middle class, in 1958.35 Our
tional change in political party loyalties is "The reduced number of cases is due to the fact
found in the French sample. Among the group that here we are dealing only with those respondents:
raised within families which supported political 1. Who have a political party preference-which
they are willing to disclose; and
"The linkage between church and party is most ex- 2. Whose parents had a political party preference-
plicit on the Continent, but the British Conservative which was known by the respondent.
Party is no exception to this pattern: affiliation with 34See M. Kent Jennings and Richard G. Niemi, "The
the Established Church of England is strongly linked Transmission of Political Values from Parent to
with preference for the Conservative Party. Even when Child,"' The American Political Science Review, 62
we control for social class, the Anglicans in our (March, 1968), pp. 169-184.
sample are more likely to favor the Conservative 15Calculated from Seymour M. Lipset, op. cit.,
Party than are members of minority faiths or non- Chapter V, Table IV. Our comparison focuses on the
religious respondents, by a margin of nearly 20 per- two more dynamic groups of industrial society-the
centage points. The more frequently one attends the workers, on one hand, and the modem middle class
Anglican Church, moveover, the more likely one is on the other hand. Although the principle is similar,
to support the Conservatives. our measure of class voting, therefore, is not identical
Table 14. Intergenerational Party Shifts: Political Party Choice by
Value Preferences, Controlling for Parents' Political Party
(Percentage choosing given party)
Britain
Parents preferredLabour Parents preferred Liberals Parents preferredConservatives
Value Pref:
Respondent would vote:
Lab. Lib. Cons. N Lab. Lib. Cons. N Lab. Lib. Cons. N
Acquisitive 64% 5 31 (185) 23% 17 61 (64) 12% 3 85 (171)
Post-Bourg. 72 7 21 (47) 22 34 44 ( 9) 10 13 77 (31)
Difference: + 8 +2 -10 - 1 +17 -17 -2 +10 -8
Germany
Parents preferredSocialists Parents preferredLiberals, FDP Parents preferredChristian Democrats
Value Pref:
Respondent would vote:
Chr. Chr. Chr.
Soc. FDP Dems. N Soc. FDP Dems. N Soc FDP Dems. N
Acquisitive 87% 4 9 (78) 13% 63 13 (8) 35% 2 63 (115)
Post-Bourg. 87 8 6 (36) 40 60 0 (5) 45 7 46 ( 41)
Difference: +4 -3 +10 +5 -17
France
Parents preferred"Left," Comm., Soc. Parents preferredCenter, MRP Parents preferred "Right," Indep., Gaullist
Value Pref: Respondent would vote:
Other UDR, Other UDR, Other UDR,
PSU Left Center RI N PSU Left Center RI N PSU Left Center RI N
Acquisitive 6% 60 5 29 (106) 0% 8 69 23 (13) 0% 4 5 91 (118)
Post-Bourg. 25 52 8 6 ( 52) 35 26 39 0 (23) 35 35 0 29 ( 34)
Difference: +19 - 8 +3 -23 +35 +18 -30 -23 +35 +31 -5 -62
Italy
Parents preferred"Left," Com., Soc. Parentspreferred"Center,"Chr. Dems. Parents preferredLiberals, Extr. Right
DC, Extr. DC, Extr. DC, Extr.
Left PRI Lib. Right N Left PRI Lib. Right N Left PRI Lib. Right N
Acquisitive 81% 13 4 2 (53) 4% 92 2 3 (119) 33% 7 60 0 (15)
Post-Bourg. 92 5 3 0 (38) 33 64 4 0 (55) 75 0 25 0 ( 8)
Difference: +11 - 8 -1 -2 +29 -28 +2 -3 +42 -7 -35
Belgium
Parents preferredSocialists Parents preferredCatholic tendance Parents preferredLiberals
Liberal Chr. Lib- Chr. Lib- Chr.
Sep. Soc. (PLP) Soc. N Sep. Soc. eral Soc. N Sep. Soc. eral Soc. N
Acquisitive - 83% 10 8 (40) 9 10 5 76 (101) - 18 59 24 (17)
Post-Bourg. 11 78 11 - (18) 38 3 11 49 ( 37) 40 - 60 - (10)
Difference: +11 - 5 + 1 -8 +29 -7 + 6 -27 +40 -18 + 1 -24
Netherlands
Parents preferred Socialists Parents preferredconfessional party Parents preferredLiberals
(KVP, ARP, CHU)
KVP, KVP, KVP,
Soc., Liberal ARP, Soc., Liberal ARP, Soc., Liberal ARP,
D'66 CHU N D'66 CHU N D'66 CHU N
Acquisitive 86% 4 11 (57) 16% 6 79 (102) 23% 73 5 (22)

Post-Bourg. 92 8 0 (73) 44 11 44 ( 72) 41 59 0 (18)
Difference: + 6 +4 -11 +28 + 5 -35 +18 -14 -5
1968 survey indicated that the percentage tion, with Germany and Italy ranking at inter-
spread between social classes was only about mediate levels.37
half this size in 1967 and that it dropped sev- There may be still another reason why Britain
eral points from 1967 to 1968. Our 1970 data continues to maintain the traditional class-vot-
indicate little tendency for the French elector- See Dennis and McCrone, Preadult Development
ate to return to the 1967 level of class voting. of Political Party Identification in Western Democ-
Paul Abramson, moreover, has recently re- racies," Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2
ported evidence of a decline in the social class (July, 1970), pp. 243-263. This evidence confirms
basis of political partisanship in France, Ger- earlier findings: see Philip E. Converse and Georges
Dupeux in Campbell et al., Elections and the Political
many, and Italy-although not in Great Brit- Order; cf. Philip E. Converse, "Of Time and Partisan
ain.36 Our own data suggest a pressure that Stability," Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 2, No.
should tend to reduce the incidence of class 2 (July, 1969), pp. 139-171. In the latter two articles,
Converse (and Dupeux) report that individuals who
voting in Britain, but this pressure seems to be knew their father's party affiliation are more likely
a good deal weaker there than in the Continen- to identify with a party themselves than are those
tal countries. We would expect the extent to whose fathers did not transmit a cue concerning party
which partisan repolarization actually takes identification. If citizens with a clear political party
identification are relatively unlikely to shift their vote
place to be limited by the relative strength of according to underlying values, Table 14 may give
existing political party identification in given a conservative estimate of the impact of value priori-
countries; the comparatively high degree of re- ties on party choice: the table deals exclusively with
polarization apparent in France may have been those who report a definite party choice themselves
and received party preference cues from their parents.
facilitated by the relatively weak sense of politi- In addition, however, Converse finds (in "Of Time and
cal party identification which characterized the Partisan Stability") that older cohorts tend to have
electorate of that country until very recently. relatively strong attachments to given political parties,
Conversely, the relatively small amount of re- as a function of the number of years they have been
eligible to vote for the political party of their choice
polarization indicated in our British sample in free elections. This suggests the possibility that at
may reflect the presence of comparatively least part of the relationship between value preference
strong political party loyalties in Britain. A re- and party shift may be due to the greater liklihood of
cent analysis of socialization data by Jack Den- older respondents having "acquisitive" values and
relatively strong party loyalties. This hypothesis might
nis and Donald McCrone, for example, sug- be tested by controlling for age, in addition to the
gests that feelings of identification with a politi- other controls in Table 14. When we do so, the rela-
cal party were less widespread and less intense in tionship between value preferences and party shift does
France than in any of five other Western de- not seem to disappear, but the highly skewed relation-
ship between age and values reduces the number of
mocracies studied (although Dennis and Mc- cases in some of the cells to the vanishing point. We
Crone find evidence of an increase over time in can apply another sort of test, however, based on
political party identifiers in France, a finding cross-national comparisons. Our 1968 data from
which our own data support). According to Britain, France and Germany contain information
about the strength of party identification. The pattern
Dennis and McCrone, the publics of Great varies a good deal from country to country. In the
Britain and the U.S. apparently rank highest in British sample (where the present party system has
extent and intensity of political party identifica- been established for nearly half a century) intense
partisan identification falls off regularly and sharply,
as we move from oldest to youngest age group. The
with that used by Robert R. Alford in Party and So- oldest British group contains four times as many
ciety (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1962). The traditional strong partisan identifiers as does the youngest group.
middle class, as a stagnant or declining element in Intense partisanship falls off regularly but less steeply
the economy, has not shown a change comparable to in the German sample (strong identifiers occurring
that which apparently has taken place among the twice as frequently among the oldest group as among
modern middle class; combining these two groups (as the youngest group). So far, this is entirely consistent
Alford does) dampens the effect we are describing. with the pattern reported by Converse. The French
36See Paul R. Abramson, "The Changing Role of data, however, fit Converse's model only if we regard
Social Class in Western European Politics," Compara- the present French party system as newly established:
tive Political Studies (July, 1971). Seymour M. Lipset partisanship decreases only very slightly in the French
and Stein Rokkan argue that "the party systems of sample, as we move from old to young. French teen-
the 1960's reflect, with but few significant exceptions, agers are almost as likely to declare themselves strong
the cleavage structures of the 1920's"; see Lipset and partisans as are the 60-year-olds! While at other age
Rokkan, Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross- levels the French are least likely of the three nationali-
National Perspectives (New York: The Free Press, ties to express a strong sense of party identification,
1967), p. 50. On the other hand, Lipset reports some among this youngest group they show the highest
data which seem to indicate a decline in class voting proportion. The relationship between intergenerational
among the American electorate from 1936 to 1968: party shift and underlying value priorities noted in our
see Lipset, Revolution and Counter-Revolution: Change French sample cannot readily be attributed to the
and Persistence in Social Structure (New York: Basic older cohorts' relatively strong attachment to existing
Books, 1968), Table 8-2, pp. 274-275. A change in political parties-yet value-linked intergenerational
degree, if not in type of cleavage, seems to be taking party shift seems to occur to a greater extent in
place. France than in any of the other national samples.
ing pattern of industrial society: the British La- to which-under crisis conditions-a similar
bour Party has never been a party of the Left repolarization might take place in the other
in the same sense as the Marxist parties on the countries at the present time. But this process
Continent. From the start, it has been a party can, of course, be influenced by situational fac-
of moderate reform, rather than one of revolu- tors, such as political leadership in the given
tion. Thus, there is less contrast between La- countries. The levels of support for the SPD in-
bour and Conservative in Britain than between dicated in our 1970 survey suggest that Willy
Left and Right on the Continent; an embour- Brandt, for example, has succeeded in doing
geoisified worker can continue to feel comfort- what the French Left notably failed to do in
able in voting for the Labour Party38 while, 1968-to attract the post-bourgeois group with-
conversely, a post-bourgeois Englishman has out alienating the acquisitive types.
less incentive to switch from Conservative to In Western Europe as a whole, the pro-
Labour. spective social base for movements of radical so-
For the time being (as Table 2 indicates), cial change appears likely to increase sharply
the acquisitive group is much larger than during the next two decades. But in order to be
the post-bourgeois group in all of these effective, movements seeking radical change
countries: in case anyone doubted it, the must shape their tactics with an awareness of
squares outnumber the swingers. In practical current realities. In view of the wide prepon-
terms, this suggests that the potential reser- derance which the acquisitives seem to hold
voir of voters who might shift to the Right is over post-bourgeois respondents in Western
larger than the potential base for the New electorates, a Weatherman-type strategy (for
Left. But if our cross-temporal interpretation example) not only seems likely to be counter-
is correct, this situation is in a process productive in the short run; to the extent that it
of rapid change. Assuming intracohort sta- had any real impact on the economy, it appar-
bility in value priorities,39 a projection of ently would tend to be self-defeating in the long
changes due to recruitment and mortality based run as well.
on Table 5 suggests that the two pure groups The new Left-Right continuum resembles the
might reach numerical parity-on the Conti- old in that it pits forces of change against
nent-within the next 20 years. Given the fact those of the status quo-but the values moti-
that the post-bourgeois types tend to be highly vating change relate to life styles rather than
educated, they are likely to be better organized acquisition, and the social bases supporting
and politically more active than the acquisitive- change show a corresponding shift. For the
oriented group. In terms of political effective- time being, the potential social base for the
ness, the two groups might reach parity within, New Left may be a distinct minority. The older
say, the next 15 years (these projections apply value groups are still split, however, and a New
to the European Community countries; Britain Left could be politically effective through alli-
appears to lag behind them by about ten ances with the Old Left which emphasize eco-
years). nomic issues-even, to some extent, at the
The size of the partisan redistribution in price of playing down some of the expressive
France in 1968 may give an idea of the extent issues which are most appealing to the New
Left constituency. Conversely, when partisans
asEven relatively affluent English workers are likely
to remain staunch supporters of the Labour Party, ac- of the New Left appear to threaten the basic
cording to John H. Goldthorpe, David Lockwood, social order (as in France, in May, 1968), they
Frank Beckhofer and Jennifer Platt: see The Affluent emphasize a cleavage which isolates them from
Worker: Political Attitudes and Behavior (Cambridge: both factions of the acquisitive-oriented popu-
Cambridge University Press. 1968). Richard F. Ham-
ilton argues that the same was true of French workers lation: they threaten to upset an apple cart
during the Fourth Republic; he may be correct in re- which has for twenty years provided an unprec-
gard to that period, but our data indicate that the pat- edented supply of apples. The post-bourgeois
tern has changed significantly during the Fifth Re- group may contend that the apples are sour.
public. See Hamilton, Affluence and the French Work-
er in the Fourth Republic (Princeton: Princeton Uni- They may be right. But the difference in opin-
versity Press, 1967). ion springs from an ingrained difference in
a9 At first glance, the assumption of intracohort tastes.
stability may seem unrealistic: adult change does take
place. But, for reasons indicated above, it would
The present essay has, no doubt, only
probably be rash to assume that the adult cohorts scratched the surface in the analysis of inter-
will necessarily become more acquisitive as they age. generational value changes within advanced in-
In view of the uncertainty of the direction of possible dustrial societies. Further efforts are needed in
shifts within adult cohorts, the assumption of intra-
cohort stability may provide at least a useful first developing more accurate and more exhaustive
approx nation. measurements of such changes, and in applying
these measurements to a longitudinal data base. 40These findings seem to contradict some key pro-
In this early exploration, we find a fair amount jections in the literature which focuses on analysis of
the future. Herman Kahn and Anthony Wiener, for
of evidence that our indicators of value pri- example, contend that:
orities tap basic aspects of an individual's belief There is a basic, long-term multifold trend toward:
system: a number of other attitudinal items
show relatively great constraint in relation to 1. Increasingly sensate (empirical, this-worldly, sec-
these value indicators, and the response pattern ular, humanistic, pragmatic, utilitarian, contract-
ual, epicurean or hedonistic) cultures.
seems integrated into the social structure in a 2. Bourgeois, bureaucratic, "meritocratic," demo-
way which suggests that these values are early- cratic (and nationalistic) elites. . . .
established and relatively stable. Moreover,
cross-national differences in value choices have My reading of the data implies that, while these trends
a fit with the economic history of these coun- may have prevailed until recently, certain aspects may
tries, over the past two generations, which fur- be undergoing a reversal in post-industrial societies.
Specifically, I doubt that the elites of these societies
ther seems to support this interpretation. It will become increasingly bourgeois, meritocratic or
seems at least plausible to conclude that inter- nationalistic; or that these cultures are likely to become
generational change is taking place in the value increasingly pragmatic or utilitarian. Kahn and Wiener
priorities of West European populations-and make a number of additional projections which do
strike me as likely to hold true; see The Year 2000:
that this change may have a significant long- A Framework for Speculation on the Next Thirty-
term impact on their political behavior.40 Three Years (New York: Macmillan, 1967), p. 7.

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The Silent Revolution in Europe: Intergenerational Change in Post-Industrial Societies

Author(s): Ronald Inglehart

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Economic Scarcity and Political Priorities: Importantgroups among the populations of

Pair chosen: Nether. Belgium Italy France Germany Britain

Table 3. Attitude Toward Student Demonstrations, by Value Pairs Chosen

Neth. 21% 33 42 37 47 70 39%

14 Other high-loading items on this factor related

Italy 48% 53 63 65 73 69 57%

* Indicates the two "pure" value pairs.

1900 1920 1938 1950 1960 1970

9Brit. tBrit. Brit. Swe. Swe. Swe.

9Brit. jSwitz. 9Ger.

Age Range Netherlands Belgium Italy France Germany Britain

* Number in parenthesesis base on which percentages are calculated.

Table 6. Value Preferences by Socioeconomic Status

Socioeconomic Netherlands Belgium Italy France Germany Britain

Lower S.E.S. 40% 7 (551) 38 6 (486) 38 10 (995) 47 4 (908) 49 7 (1319) 37 6 (1179)

1 "Upper" S.E.S. Group includes respondents

Table 7. Value Preferences by Age Cohort, Controlling for SocioeconomiC Status

"Acquisitive"value preferences "Post-Bourgeois"value preferences

"Acquisitive"value preferences "Post-Bourgeois"value preferences

"Acquisitive"value preferences "Post-Bourgeois"value preferences

16-24 23% 17 9 23% 25 40

"Acquisitive"value preferences "Post-Bourgeois"value preferences

"Acquisitive"value preferences "Post-Bourgeois"value preferences

Table 8. Value Choices by Age Cohort, Controlling for Education

Primary Secondary University

Britain Germany France Italy Belgium Netherlands

Students' Milieu 19 16 10 49 17% 31 9 40 12 35 6% 50

Acquisitive 31% 13 56 (253) 46% 12 43 (315)

Acquisitive 86% 4 11 (57) 16% 6 79 (102) 23% 73 5 (22)

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