Postmaterialism in a Social Democratic State

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to establish empirically the status of Ronald Inglehart's postmaterialist syndrome in Norway. As a prototypical social democratic state, and one of the only European countries yet to be adequately tested for postmaterialism, Norway represents a particularly interesting case for the Inglehart thesis. On the basis of a national sample survey carried out in 1981 (N = 1, 170), the analysis focuses on two major questions: the distinctness of postmaterialism in a left-right context, and the congruity between different value domains. Of particular importance is the finding that there exists a postmaterialist profile for democratic values that is much more distinct than the literature has allowed for up to now.