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Ronald Inglehart’s ‘value change’ theory states that as countries develop and meet the material needs of their citizens, the views of their voters should increasingly come to be shaped by ‘postmaterial’ concerns. Using manifesto data from 1990 to 2019,
Federico Trastulli
tests whether this principle also holds for the platforms of political parties. He finds that with the exception of green parties, western European parties still place substantially more emphasis on material issues in their manifestos.
One of the many contributions of Ronald Inglehart, who passed away on 8 May, was the theory of ‘value change’. This posits that as advanced industrial societies increasingly meet the material needs of their citizens, the values, attitudes, and political opinions of these citizens will come to be shaped more prominently by non-material questions.