PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS
◗ Environmentalism as postmaterialism?
This explanation for the rise of green parties focuses on changes in the polit-
ical culture and values of industrialised countries. Inglehart ( 1977 , 1990)is
theleading exponent of the postmaterialist thesis. He claims that there
has been a ‘silent revolution’ involving ‘the basic value priorities of West-
ernpublics...shiftingfromaMaterialist emphasis toward a Postmaterialist
one – from giving top priority to physical sustenance and safety toward heav-
ier emphasis on belonging, self-expression and the quality of life’ (Inglehart
1990 : 66). This argument contains two core components: the scarcity hypoth-
esis and the socialisation hypothesis. Thescarcityhypothesis, modelled on
Maslow’s ( 1954 )psychological theory of human motivation, claims that peo-
ple place a higher priority on things that are in short supply. Inglehart
argues that the post-war era of steady economic growth and unparalleled
affluence produced a generation of young people who took their economic
well-being for granted. When the lower-order needs of economic and physical
security are satisfied, people direct attention to higher-order ‘quality of life’,
or postmaterial, needs, such as the environment. According to Inglehart,
theascendancy of postmaterial values does not arise from individuals actu-
ally changing their values, but through thesocialisationof a new generation
that lives its formative, pre-adult, years in affluent times. Inglehart initially
developed this theory to account for the student unrest that swept across the
Western world in the late 1960s. Subsequently, it has been used to explain
thedealignment of traditional partisan voting patterns, the involvement of
this postmaterial generation in NSMs and the emergence of green parties:
‘TheriseoftheWestGermanGreens...reflects both the emergence of
aPostmaterialist constituency whose outlook is not captured by the exist-
ing political parties and the emergence of a growing pool of voters who
are politicized but do not feel tied to established parties’ (Inglehart 1990 :
369).
Although Inglehart’s theory has gained many adherents, it has also been
subjected to a barrage of criticisms, particularly aimed at the two hypothe-
ses underpinning the model, and the methodology he devised to measure
postmaterialism (see Box4.2).^2 The scarcity hypothesis assumes that the
satisfaction of material needs encourages individuals to shift attention to
postmaterial values. Yet the hierarchy of needs adopts a static definition of
those material needs – a roof over our heads, food on our plates, money
in our pockets, the protection of law and order – when, in the modern
consumer society, with greater affluence and an ever increasing range of
available goods, our appetite for more and more material goods may be
insatiable. Our definition of basic needs is steadily broadening: a washing
machine was a luxury item in the 1960s, but many would now consider it
abasic item – along with the dishwasher, computer and mobile phone. In
short, greater affluence may simply encourage further materialism rather
than nurture postmaterial values.