Inglehart, Ronald

Ronald Inglehart (1934-2021) was an American political scientist who profoundly influenced the study of cultural change and its relationship to religious beliefs. As director of the World Values Survey, he collected data from over 100 societies spanning four decades. His modernization theory posited that economic development leads to predictable shifts from traditional religious values toward secular-rational values, though he later refined this to acknowledge persistent cross-cultural variations. In "Human Beliefs and Values" and related works, Inglehart demonstrated how post-industrial societies experience declining religiosity and changing conceptions of the sacred, while developing societies often maintain strong religious commitments. His empirical approach to studying religious change challenged purely philosophical treatments of secularization, providing extensive data on how beliefs about God, meaning, and morality transform across cultures and generations. His work remains essential for understanding contemporary patterns of religious belief and disbelief globally.