The Silent Revolution

Ronald Inglehart, here, raises the contention that a dramatic change in political culture was taking place. As abundance replaced scarcity in many advanced countries, politics was less focuses on people getting thew necessities of life--and more on people gaining what Abraham Maslow would nterm "self-actualization." People focusing on survival needs held a cultural view, according to the author, of "materialism." The political implications were a desire for government to maintain order and ensure survibal needs being met. However, for those who grew up secure in their needs having been met, they were more apt to be "post-material" in orientation." With that view, people were more likely to want government to allow them greater freedom and exporession of their views.
The argument was that the divide between these two cultural views was beginning to restructure political debate and conflict in advanced countries. There have been many critics of this perspective, but this work (and publications in professional journals) generated a substantial debate that assisted in a new focus on political culture and its implictions.