Building on this work, he subsequently developed a revised version of Modernization theory, Evolutionary Modernization Theory, which argues that economic development, welfare state institutions and the long peace between major powers since 1945, are reshaping human motivations in ways that have important implications concerning gender roles, sexual norms, the role of religion, economic behavior and the spread of democracy.
[4] Ronald Inglehart's numerous writings have become extremely influential, with translations published in German, Italian, Spanish, French, Swedish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Polish, Croatian, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Persian, Urdu and Indonesian.
Brief descriptions of some of his most influential works include: In The Silent Revolution (1977) Inglehart discovered a major intergenerational shift in the values of the populations of advanced industrial societies.
Economic, technological, and sociopolitical changes have been transforming the cultures of advanced industrial societies in profoundly important ways during the past few decades.
Ronald Inglehart's earlier book, The Silent Revolution (Princeton, 1977), broke new ground by discovering a major intergenerational shift in the values of the populations of advanced industrial societies.
This new volume demonstrates that this value shift is part of a much broader process of cultural change that is gradually transforming political, economic, and social life in these societies.
Inglehart uses a massive body of time-series survey data from twenty-six nations, gathered from 1970 through 1988, to analyze the cultural changes that are occurring as younger generations gradually replace older ones in the adult population.
Conversely, a systematic erosion of traditional religious practices, values and beliefs may have occurred among the more prosperous strata in rich nations.
For more than half a century, conventional interpretations, Norris and Inglehart argue, have commonly exaggerated the potential threats arising from this process.
The book Cultural Evolution: People's Motivations Are Changing, and Reshaping the World (Cambridge University Press, 2018) updates the results and theories published in Inglehart's previous books,[5] presenting the first full statement of Inglehart's Evolutionary Modernization theory, describing how social values and human priorities have evolved through history as a consequence of rising existential security.
The book culminates with an explanation of the recent rise of xenophobic authoritarian populist parties, driven by rapid cultural change, large-scale immigration and rapidly-rising economic inequality due to an inherent tendency for knowledge societies to have winner-takes-all economies.
Inglehart states that the economic gains of the last 3 decades have gone almost entirely to those at the top, whilst those lower down the ladder have instead dealt with declining real wages as well as cutting costs decreasing the security of their jobs.