Understanding shifting values in the UK and the world
The World Values Survey (WVS) is the largest and most widely used academic social survey in the world. Since 1981, it has captured the views of over 450,000 respondents in 120 countries, covering topics including national identity, trust in others, confidence in institutions, support for democracy, ratings of the political system, attitudes to immigration, climate change, gender equality and much more.
We are delighted that the Policy Institute at King’s, in partnership with City St George’s, University of London, and the Social Change Initiative, has received a £1m grant from the Economic and Social Research Council to conduct the next wave of the study in 2026, using high-quality random probability methods. The ESRC has, for the first time, included WVS in its data infrastructure investments, alongside other major studies like Understanding Society, the British Election Study and our world-leading cohort studies.
So much of the UK’s social science draws on insights from this world-class infrastructure – and it is only going to become more important to understand our shifting attitudes, beliefs and values as national and global disruption grows.
We last conducted the study in 2022, in the immediate aftermath of Covid-19, which we released as individual reports on social attitudes, democracy, immigration, religion, confidence in institutions, the world of work and more, resulting in over 2,000 pieces of media coverage and helping shape thinking in a number of key policy areas.
In 2022, additional sponsorship from the Cabinet Office, Barrow Cadbury Trust, British Academy, Northern Ireland Office and others allowed us to boost the sample sizes in the home nations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland so we could look at each separately, and we hope to do that again.
If you have an interest in supporting that, or other aspects of the study, do just get in touch at bobby.duffy@kcl.ac.uk.
📅 Anti-democratic parties and popular support for democracy
The Ronald F. Inglehart Honorary Lecture
Wednesday 21 May, 13:00 BST
Online/Central London
One of the world’s most cited political scientists, Professor Ronald F Inglehart (1934–2021) founded the World Values Survey and led its development into the most encompassing, widely referenced and comprehensive survey database to monitor social and cultural change globally, thereby developing the concepts and infrastructure for a major field of comparative politics.
To commemorate Professor Inglehart and his scientific legacy, in 2022 the World Values Survey Association introduced The Ronald F. Inglehart Honorary Lecture, a keynote presentation held on an annual basis.
The Policy Institute will be hosting this year’s lecture, which will be delivered by Robert Mattes, Professor of Government and Public Policy at the University of Strathclyde.
Mattes will discuss how the emergence and influence of anti-democratic political parties are shaping popular attitudes toward democratic governance, including whether such parties serve primarily to attract existing authoritarian-minded voters (a “cueing effect”), or whether they actively persuade their supporters to adopt more authoritarian attitudes (a “persuasion effect”) – and what these dynamics mean for the health and resilience of democratic institutions worldwide.