Ronald Inglehart was Professor of Political Science and Research Professor at the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan. He helped found the 1970-1996 Euro-Barometer surveys and directed the World Values Survey, a worldwide investigation of sociocultural and political change. It has carried out representative national surveys of the basic values and beliefs of the public in more than 65 societies on all six inhabited continents, containing almost 80 percent of the world’s population. His research dealt with changing belief systems and their impact on social and political change, and he was widely cited in both academic journals and popular media.
His books included (with Pippa Norris) Rising Tide: Gender Equality in Global Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2003); and (with Pippa Norris) Sacred and Secular: The Secularization Thesis Revisited (Cambridge University Press, 2004); and (with Christian Welzel) Modernization, Cultural Change and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence (Cambridge University Press, 2005). The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles among Western Publics(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977); Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990); and Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic and Political Change in 43 Societies(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997). In 2009, Inglehart served as editor, along with Christian Haerpfer, Patrick Bernhagen, and Christian Welzer, for the textbook Democratization, which focuses on the global wave of democratization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
He also edited Mass Values and Social Change: Findings from the Values Surveys (Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2003) and Human Beliefs and Values: A Cross-Cultural Sourcebook Based on the 1999-2001 Values Surveys (Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 2004). He served on several editorial boards, had been a visiting professor or visiting scholar in France, Germany, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Brazil and Nigeria, and served as a consultant to the U.S. State Department and the European Union. In 2006, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Uppsala, Sweden.
