A Time Machine: New Evidence of Post-Materialist Value Change
| Published date | 01 October 2006 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0192512106067362 |
| Author | Masaki Taniguchi |
| Date | 01 October 2006 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
A Time Machine: New Evidence of Post-Materialist
Value Change
MASAKI TANIGUCHI
ABSTRACT. The voluminous literature generated by Ronald Inglehart’s
thesis that a shift in values from materialist to post-materialist occurs
among citizens as societies modernize indicates the seminal nature of the
theory. The predictive power of the theory has become more reliable
with the continuation of surveys over the decades since the theory’s
inception. Nevertheless, one problem remains unsolved using con-
ventional methodology: how to determine the extent to which the
proportion of post-materialists was already increasing during the years
preceding the first survey in 1970. This article contributes to the solution
of that problem by analyzing the values contained in 33,479 Japanese
newspaper editorials from 1945 to 2000. By reflecting the public’s values,
Japanese newspapers are able to maintain the largest circulations in the
world. Moreover, the lifetime employment system in Japan enables us to
“control for” life-cycle effects on value change, because the age of
editorial board members has been constant during the postwar period.
Using qualitative and quantitative techniques, I confirm the thesis that
value change occurs during the process of economic development. My
findings support the socialization hypothesis of the original theory, that
is, that the basic values of a person reflect the socioeconomic conditions
that prevailed during his or her pre-adult years.
Keywords: • Japan • Materialism • Newspapers • Post-materialism
• Value
In 1971, Ronald Inglehart proposed that a transformation was taking place in the
political culture of advanced industrial societies (Inglehart, 1971, 1977). Since
then, he and his colleagues have continued their study of political culture,
broadening their geographical scope to include non-western societies ( Abramson
and Inglehart, 1995; Inglehart, 1990, 1995, 1997, 1998; Inglehart and Abramson,
1994). The four waves of the World Values Survey now stretch from 1981 to 2000
and were conducted in 78 countries, containing more than 80 percent of the
world’s population. Surveys of regional values in non-western societies are also
International Political Science Review (2006), Vol 27, No. 4, 405–425
DOI: 10.1177/0192512106067362 © 2006 International Political Science Association
SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
notable, such as the East Asia Barometer, the AsiaBarometer, and the Afro-
Barometer (Bratton et al., 2004; Chu, 2003; Inoguchi, 2004, 2005).
The voluminous literature generated by the thesis indicates the seminal nature
of the theory and its predictive power has become more reliable with the contin-
uation of surveys over the decades since the theory’s inception. Nevertheless, one
problem remains unsolved using conventional methodology: Inglehart proposes a
socialization hypothesis of value formation, that is, that the basic values of a person
reflect the socioeconomic conditions that prevailed during his or her pre-adult
years. If this hypothesis is true, the young generations who grew up during the
period of high economic growth after World War II should have already
constituted a considerable proportion of the populace in western societies by the
1970s and the proportion of post-materialists was already increasing in the years
preceding the first survey. Although the cross-sectional analyses and time-series
evidence after the 1970s fit well with the concept of post-materialist value shift, a
time machine would ultimately be needed in order to go back and test the
proposition directly (Inglehart, 1990: 71). Since it is hardly probable that such a
dream machine will be invented during our lifetime, an alternative is to obtain
information about values by analyzing documents (Krippendorff, 1970;
Namenwirth, 1973). In this article I offer information missing from the theory by
analyzing 33,479 Japanese newspaper editorials from 1945 to 2000.
Why Japan?
This article traces the rise of post-materialism in postwar Japan. Mohler (1989)
investigated the postwar value shift in West Germany by analyzing editorials in the
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.1An approach using editorials from Japanese
newspapers, however, has a further methodological advantage in the following
sense. First, Japanese newspapers have enormous circulations. Some 664 copies
per 1000 people are printed in Japan, which surpasses the rate in other advanced
or populous societies.2As indicated in Table 1, while the daily circulation of the
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is no more than 380,000, the Asahi Shimbun has a
circulation of more than 8 million in Japan.
406 International Political Science Review 27(4)
TABLE 1. The Daily Circulations of the World’s Major Newspapers
Newspaper Daily circulation (1000s)
Japan Yomiuri 10,118
Asahi 8,250
USA USA Today 2,310
New York Times 1,121
Washington Post 708
UK The Times 485
The Guardian 288
Germany Suddeutsche Zeitung 442
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 380
France Le Monde 381
Le Figaro 346
China People’s Daily 2,509
Russia komsomolskaya Pravda 817
Source: World Association of Newspapers (2005).
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