In recent decades, Hong Kong witnessed a number of protest movements that drew high levels of participation, most of which revolved around political issues. Why did ordinary citizens protest? What were the underlying factors that motivated Hongkongers to protest? We argue that post-materialism and grievances toward the government increase the selective expressive benefits for individuals to participate in protests. We illustrate that the two factors contribute to the protest movements in Hong Kong in general. Using the World Values Survey data, we found that post-materialism interacted with grievances toward the political system to increase Hongkongers' propensity to protest. Our findings have important implications for the 2019 Anti-Extradition Law Movement in Hong Kong.
Purpose The increased income and modernity have greatly impacted Chinese consumers' attitudes and purchasing behavior, making them more sophisticated than ever before. The purpose of this paper is to examine the interrelationship among social stratification, materialism, post-materialism, and consumption values contributing uniquely to understanding Chinese consumers in the context of drastic economic and social changes.
Design/methodology/approach Survey method was used to test the proposed model and answer the research questions. The data were collected in Shanghai, the largest city on the eastern coast of China. A multi-stage random sampling strategy was employed to acquire a representative sample of the population in the city. A total of 2,910 completed questionnaires were used for data analysis.
Findings The results show that objective social status has a negative effect on post-materialism, whereas subjective social status has a positive effect. Social status does not seem to have a significant effect on materialism. Post-materialism also has a strong positive effect on the consumption orientations of emotional value and social value.
Practical implications China was chosen as the research context in this study. As a booming emerging market, China provides an intriguing platform to examine social stratification and materialism. At the macro level, China is developing a new social structure due to the drastic social and economic changes. At the individual consumer level, as China moves further into a market-oriented economy, traditional Chinese values have changed rapidly. Western consumption values and phenomena such as overspending and conspicuous consumption have begun to take hold in China, especially among young people. It is critical for business managers to understand the shift of consumption values among Chinese in order to successfully capture this market.
Originality/value A cursory review of past literature reveals that researchers have examined materialism primarily along two avenues: one puts materialism within a macro framework involving political interest or civic engagement (e.g. Davis et al., 1999; Inglehart, 1990); the other one takes a micro perspective exploring the impact of materialism on consumer attitudes and behavior (e.g. Park and Rabolt, 2009; Xiao and Kim, 2009). However, little research has been conducted linking the two approaches. The present study intends to examine the interrelationship among social stratification, materialism, post-materialism, and consumption values. Hopefully, it will shed some light on the connection between macro environment and micro consumer behavior. Furthermore, the current research provides evidences for the emerging transformation to a post-materialistic marketplace.
Tocqueville suggested that materialism may result in a lower level of political participation and lower support for democracy. In this study, using the joint dataset of the World Values Survey (WVS) and the European Values Study (EVS) 2017-2020, we examine the influence of materialism/post-materialism on people's support for democracy. From a hierarchical linear model, our results indicate that materialism against post-materialism is associated with a lower level of support for democracy, which supports Tocqueville's theory. Furthermore, using causal mediation analysis, we find that political participation mediates 9.92% of the effect of materialism/post-materialism on support for democracy. Our results show that materialism/post-materialism is an important determinant to people's support for democracy. Political participation is an important mechanism for the association between materialism/post-materialism and support for democracy.
The idea of a cosmopolitan Europe continues to be central to contemporary debates within post-national citizenship. However, much of the writing in this area remains disconnected from the need to reinvent European social democracy that questions the centrality of work and racist nationalism. This article argues that a revived European Left would need to move beyond specifically liberal concerns with procedure to articulate a view of European futures that both deconstructed neo-liberalism and embraced more convivial collective futures. This would entail the combination of a post-material politics that sought to critique the centrality of employment while granting citizens a basic income or forms of civic labour and a more concerted attempt to break with a racialized politics based upon the fear of the 'Other'. In conclusion, it is argued that the urgent political task of the future is to reinvent a sense of Europeaness that has both a substantive content, but that does not become mobilized by an exclusive cultural politics.
Post-materialism is a value orientation that gives priority to freedom of expression and participation in public affairs over fulfilment of material needs such as economic and physical security. Youth in Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China have significantly different levels of post-materialist values, with Hong Kongers scoring the highest and Mainlanders the lowest. These differences have led to their different political orientations.
The study of the determinants of entrepreneurship at the country level has been dominated by economic influences. The relative stability of differences in levels of entrepreneurship across coun-tries suggests that other forces such as certain institutional and/or cultural factors are at play. The objective of this paper is to explore how post-materialism explains differences in entrepreneurial activity across countries. Entrepreneurial activity is defined as the percent of a country?s popula-tion that is self-employed, using a broad definition that also includes CEOs of both unincorporated and legally incorporated establishments. The measure for post-materialism is based upon Ingle-hart?s four-item post-materialism index. Because of the known interactions between economic and cultural factors found in previous research, a set of economic and cultural factors is included to provide a clearer picture of the independent role post-materialism plays in prediction of self-employment levels. In particular, education, life satisfaction, church attendance and political (left or right) extremism are used as control variables in our analyses using data of 14 OECD countries over in recent period. Findings confirm the significance of post-materialism in predicting self-employment even when controlling for economic and cultural factors. However, strong covariation between post-materialism and other cultural factors makes it difficult to clearly discriminate be-tween the effects.
The paper analyzes the political consequences of religiosity, post-materialism and nationalist attitudes. According to modernization and secularization theses, ideological orientations such as religiosity and (ethno)nationalism are supposed to decline in political relevance as modernizations progresses. On the other side, in the era of political de-alignment and re-alignment, political space is supposed to be determined by the 'new politics' ideological dimensions, of which post-materialist orientation is the most familiar. In order to examine the implications of these theoretical perspectives, this paper analyzes the ability of the aforementioned orientations to explain various aspects of political attitudes and behavior, such as the support for democracy, party preference, or ideological identification. The outlined problems are examined using data the Dutch Parliamentary Election Studies (DPES). Several features make the Netherlands an appropriate case to address these problems. These include the sharp trend of secularization, but accompanied by the persisting religious political cleavage. More recent trends of post-materialist and anti-immigrant politics have also been early and vividly expressed in the Netherlands. The main findings show that ideological orientations such as post-materialism, religiosity, and ethnocentrism, continue to be important for explaining various aspects of political attitudes and behavior in the Netherlands. The results also indicate that modernization and 'post-modernization' theories are imperfect explanations for the observed trends.
The paper analyzes the political consequences of religiosity, post-materialism and nationalist attitudes. According to modernization and secularization theses, ideological orientations such as religiosity and (ethno)nationalism are supposed to decline in political relevance as modernizations progresses. On the other side, in the era of political de-alignment and re-alignment, political space is supposed to be determined by the 'new politics' ideological dimensions, of which post-materialist orientation is the most familiar. In order to examine the implications of these theoretical perspectives, this paper analyzes the ability of the aforementioned orientations to explain various aspects of political attitudes and behavior, such as the support for democracy, party preference, or ideological identification. The outlined problems are examined using data the Dutch Parliamentary Election Studies (DPES). Several features make the Netherlands an appropriate case to address these problems. These include the sharp trend of secularization, but accompanied by the persisting religious political cleavage. More recent trends of post-materialist and anti-immigrant politics have also been early and vividly expressed in the Netherlands. The main findings show that ideological orientations such as post-materialism, religiosity, and ethnocentrism, continue to be important for explaining various aspects of political attitudes and behavior in the Netherlands. The results also indicate that modernization and 'post-modernization' theories are imperfect explanations for the observed trends.
The materialist-postmaterialist value dimension, understood as assigning priority to self-expression and quality of life as opposed to physical and economic security, has been one of the most important heuristic tools in the analysis of the changes of predominant values in cross-cultural and comparative studies in past decades. In recent elaboration of self-expression and emancipative values (in both cases, with postmaterialism as the most important component), postmaterialist values have been viewed as an essence of democratic political culture and a cultural precondition of effective democracy. This study was aimed at analysing the relation between postmaterialist values (understood as a political/thick culture variable), satisfaction with country's democracy (institutional/thin culture variable) and support for democracy. The data from the European Values Survey (EVS), conducted on the nationally representative samples in twenty East European countries on the total of twenty countries and 30,393 respondents, were used. It is shown that postmaterialism is an important aspect of democratic political culture in Eastern Europe; in general, the most supportive of democracy are postmaterialists. On the other hand, there is a mixed pattern between the postmaterialist values and satisfaction with democracy - in some countries, citizens satisfied with democracy are more prone to choose postmaterialist items compared to the dissatisfied ones, while in some other countries the reverse is true. Both are, however, important predictors of the support for democracy as well as the country's level of democracy development (measured by the EIU Democracy index). The relevance of postmaterialist values for the promotion of democratic political culture in Eastern Europe, possible alternative mechanisms of value change as well as the materialist-postmaterialist conception are discussed. (author's abstract)
The materialist-postmaterialist value dimension, understood as assigning priority to self-expression and quality of life as opposed to physical and economic security, has been one of the most important heuristic tools in the analysis of the changes of predominant values in cross-cultural and comparative studies in past decades. In recent elaboration of self-expression and emancipative values (in both cases, with postmaterialism as the most important component), postmaterialist values have been viewed as an essence of democratic political culture and a cultural precondition of effective democracy. This study was aimed at analysing the relation between postmaterialist values (understood as a political - thick culture variable), satisfaction with country's democracy (institutional - thin culture variable) and support for democracy. The data from the European Values Survey (EVS), conducted on the nationally representative samples in twenty East European countries on the total of twenty countries and 30,393 respondents, were used. It is shown that postmaterialism is an important aspect of democratic political culture in Eastern Europe; in general, the most supportive of democracy are postmaterialists. On the other hand, there is a mixed pattern between the postmaterialist values and satisfaction with democracy – in some countries, citizens satisfied with democracy are more prone to choose postmaterialist items compared to the dissatisfied ones, while in some other countries the reverse is true. Both are, however, important predictors of the support for democracy as well as the country's level of democracy development (measured by the EIU Democracy index). The relevance of postmaterialist values for the promotion of democratic political culture in Eastern Europe, possible alternative mechanisms of value change as well as the materialist-postmaterialist conception are discussed.
'Bei der Messung von materialistischen und postmaterialistischen Wertorientierungen nach Inglehart werden in der Bundesrepublik unterschiedliche Frage- und Itemformulierungen verwendet. In diesem Beitrag wird für insgesamt 35 Studien im Zeitraum von 1978-1988 die 'Standard'-Version, die im ALLBUS und anderen Umfragen enthalten ist (Version 1), verschiedenen Versionen der Euro-Barometer-Umfragen (Versionen 2-5) gegenübergestellt. Beim Vergleich der Anteilswerte der Nennungen für die 1. und 2. Priorität der vier Standarditems sowie für den Materialismus-Postmaterialismus-Index zwischen den unterschiedlichen Versionen ist kein systematischer Effekt der unterschiedlichen Frageformulierung zwischen der 'Standard'-Version und den Euro-Baromter-Versionen beobachtbar. Jedoch ist ein Effekt der Formulierung des vierten Items erkennbar sowie ein Effekt der Plazierung der vier Standarditems innerhalb der 12-Itemversion des Ingelhart-Maßes.' (Autorenreferat)
Although the post-materialist study of political motivation focuses upon affluent political actors in more developed countries, it has important implications for political motivation among the poor and in less developed countries. To date these have not been addressed by students of post-materialism. If the affluent who no longer face economic insecurity take political action for value-oriented and idealistic reasons, the implication is that the economically insecure will act politically mainly for economic reasons. In fact, data collected from the poor in Costa Rica and Nicaragua indicate that the poor are politically motivated for economic reasons primarily in conjunction with noneconomic and value-oriented reasons. The poor as well as the affluent act politically for nonmaterialist reasons such as moral notions of right and wrong, and the need for self-respect and dignity.
Although the post-materialist study of political motivation focuses upon affluent political actors in more developed countries, it has important implications for political motivation among the poor and in less developed countries. Data collected from the poor in Costa Rica and Nicaragua indicate that they are politically motivated for economic reasons primarily in conjunction with noneconomic and value-oriented reasons. (Abstract amended)
