The ties that bind: values and polarisation
The latter half of the twentieth century saw widespread social and political change across the globe. In the Global North, the importance of traditional institutions such as religion and the family declined, as well as old forms of social class structures. These gave way to new social movements based around feminism, environmentalism, and the promotion of human rights.
At the same time, decolonisation accelerated throughout Africa and Asia, giving rise to new regimes and ethnic and political tensions. In Latin America, the push towards more “neoliberal” economic models was accompanied by a “third wave” of democratising processes.
The first two decades of the twenty-first century have shown that change marches on. On a global level, disturbances in geo-political arrangements have created tensions between “the West” and the Middle East, and more recently with Russia and China, while Brexit and the rise of Euroscepticism has called into question the strength of cohesion within the European Union. The bonds between peoples across nation-states are seemingly fragmenting.
Global economic shocks have also tested the viability of our economic systems and the ability of governments to effectively govern, while the Occupy Movement and the May Day protests called into question the fairness of increasing economic inequalities.
The Arab spring and the Hong Kong protests remind us that the fight and protection of basic democratic rights is often a bloody one, while the nationalist struggles within countries like the UK and Spain remind us that who constitutes a “people" cannot always be taken for granted.
Populations across the globe, then, have experienced huge changes to their societies and the challenges that face them. This has had profound effects on how people make sense of who they are, what they value, and the types of regimes and policy programmes they are willing to support.
The emergence of newer social and political identities puts pressure on the ties that bind communities. Commentators and political elites often exaggerate these differences, rather than reflecting them, creating a fertile ground for polarisation. This “populist turn” has breathed fresh political life into cultural differences.
With social and political identities at the forefront of debates across the globe, it is more important now than ever to understand value structures within different parts of the globe. To this end, the World Values Survey (WVS) offers a vital resource through which to make sense of ongoing social and political changes.
We therefore embark on analysing a new wave of WVS data with a certain level of concern but also with a sense of intrigue. While globalisation brought the world closer together economically, are we now really drifting apart as peoples? If so, what does the nature of these differences tell us about the future of our respective societies and cooperation between them? And what can policymakers learn from answering such questions?
