Pippa Norris

McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics Pippa Norris

Ronald Inglehart

Inglehart Ronald

The twentieth century gave rise to profound changes in traditional sex roles. However, the force of this rising tide has varied among rich and poor societies around the globe, as well as among younger and older generations. Rising Tide sets out to understand how modernization has changed cultural attitudes towards gender equality and to analyze the political consequences of this process. The core argument suggests that women and men s lives have been altered in a two-stage modernization process consisting of (i) the shift from agrarian to industrialized societies and (ii) the move from industrial towards post industrial societies. This book is the first to systematically compare attitudes towards gender equality worldwide, comparing almost 70 nations that run the gamut from rich to poor, agrarian to postindustrial. Rising Tide is essential reading for those interested in understanding issues of comparative politics, public opinion, political behavior, political development, and political sociology.

Gender Equality and Cultural Change Around the World

Rising Tide

This work presents research results from a team of scholars, journalists and industry leaders who examined the influence of the press on the policy apparatus of government, and the impact of economics and changes in communications technology on news reporting.

The News Media and Their Influences

Politics and the Press

This book, first published in 2005, explains why radical right parties have advanced in a diverse array of democracies.

Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market

Radical Right

Conventional wisdom suggests that citizens in many countries have become disengaged from the traditional channels of political participation. Commentators highlight warning signs including sagging electoral turnout, rising anti-party sentiment, and the decay of civic organizations. But are these concerns justified? This book compares systematic evidence for electoral turnout, party membership, and civic activism in countries around the world and suggests good reasons to question assumptions of decline. Not only is the obituary for older forms of political activism premature, but new forms of civic engagement may have emerged in modern societies to supplement traditional modes. The process of societal modernization and rising levels of human capital are primarily responsible, although participation is also explained by the structure of the state, the role of agencies, and social inequalities.

Reinventing Political Activism

Democratic Phoenix

From Kosovo to Kabul, the last decade witnessed growing interest in ?electoral engineering?. Reformers have sought to achieve either greater government accountability through majoritarian arrangements or wider parliamentary diversity through proportional formula. Underlying the normative debates are important claims about the impact and consequences of electoral reform for political representation and voting behavior. The study compares and evaluates two broad schools of thought, each offering contracting expectations. One popular approach claims that formal rules define electoral incentives facing parties, politicians and citizens. By changing these rules, rational choice institutionalism claims that we have the capacity to shape political behavior. Alternative cultural modernization theories differ in their emphasis on the primary motors driving human behavior, their expectations about the pace of change, and also their assumptions about the ability of formal institutional rules to alter, rather than adapt to, deeply embedded and habitual social norms and patterns of human behavior.

Voting Rules and Political Behavior

Electoral Engineering

There is widespread concern that the Internet is exacerbating inequalities between the information rich and poor.

McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics Pippa Norris

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