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Juan Diez-Medrano
In the last few years a number of publications have announced that we are in the process
of entering a phase beyond Modernity. Some label this new era Postmodernity whereas
others label it Late Modernity or Radical Modernity. The globalization of markets in
goods and cultural products and technological revolutions in the fields of computer
technology, biotechnology, microelectronics and communications are the root cause of
renewed interest in the principles of Modernity. The development of New Social
Movements also explains this fascination with the changes that characterize the new
millenium. The peace, environmental, antinuclear, and anti- globalization movements on
the one ha nd and identity movements on the other signal for some that we are entering a
new era. Sociologists and other social scientists who are interested in these changes have
channelled their efforts in two directions. Some have focused on the critique of
modernity and the principles on which it rests. This tendency is apparent in the
Postmodernist and Poststructuralist schools as well as in dominant trends in the sociology
of science and technology. Meanwhile, other scholars have focused on explaining the
critique of modernity itself and the social movements that carry this critique and oppose
many of the changes that we are witnessing.
Unfortunately, there has been more interest in developing theories than in testing
them empirically. It is surprising, for instance, that the latest wave of studies about
modernity have rarely cited the theses developed by one of the pioneers in this type of
reflection, Ron Inglehart. While the majority of social scientists explained May 68 from
a Marxist perspective, Inglehart already saw in this movement the roots of a new valuesystem and a new type of social movement. Inglehart then expanded on this insight in his
book The Silent Revolution, published in 1977. He was thus a pioneer in detecting a
major qualitative change in advanced industrial societies and one of the few scholars to
have patiently contrasted his hypotheses and used empirical data to refute criticism to his
depiction of the cultural transformations that the world is witnessing.
In the last fifteen to twenty years three major studies about changes in the
character of Modernity have been published that, as I say above, hardly refer to
Ingleharts work, despite the fact that the changes that they are addressing are similar and
the explanations for these changes quite different. The studies to which I refer are The
Risk Society by Ulrich Beck (1986), The Condition of Modernity by Anthony Giddens
(1990) and The Information Society by Manuel Castells (1996). Each of these studies
includes a complex explanation of the changes that we are witnessing and hypotheses that
can be contrasted with empirical data. In this paper I make these studies hypotheses
explicit and test them with empirical data gathered in Spain.
Three Theories about the Consequences of Late Modernity on Attitudes toward
Science and Technology
Inglehart: The theory of Postmaterialism
The theory on Postmaterialism draws from Maslows hierarchy of human needs, which
Inglehart complements with a theory of socialization and value-acquisition processes.
p. 1
According to Maslow, human needs are hierarchically organized, so that the satisfaction
of primary needs, such as eating or finding shelter, leads to individuals assigning greater
value to needs located higher in a pyramid-shaped hierarchy. Inglehart adapts Maslows
theory and posits that when people satisfy material needs centered around order and
security they begin to attach more importance to postmaterialist needs. An important
dimension of postmaterialist needs is the rejection of growth as an end by itself and of
unrestrained scientific and technological progress. Inglehart complements Maslows
theory with a socialization hypothesis according to which individuals develop their most
stable values in their late adolescence. These values reflect the extent to which
individuals were able to satisfy their material needs at this key stage in their lives.
Ingleharts four basic hypotheses are that individuals with more economic
resources are more postmaterialist than are those with fewer resources, that more
developed countries show a greater proportion of individuals with postmaterialist values
than do less developed countries, that as a countrys level of economic development
increases so does the proportion of individuals with postmaterialist values, and, finally,
that in societies like Spain that have experienced rapid rates of economic development,
younger individuals are more postmaterialist than are older ones. All of these hypotheses
have been confirmed empirically.
Inglehart has focused on one dimension of peoples attitudes toward modernity,
which is their concern for the protection of the environment. He reasons that the roots of
the development of pro-environmentalist attitudes are the same as those of the
development of postmaterialist values in general: wealth and security. Therefore, he
predicts that safer and wealthier individuals oppose unrestrained economic growth more,
that is, are more postmaterialist and pro-environmentalist, than are those who are not so
wealthy or feel less safe. Moreover, in his latest book Modernization and
Postmodernization, he notes that individuals who have experienced environmental
catastrophes because of scientific and technological progress are more proenvironmentalist than are those who have not. One can thus summarize Ingleharts
predictions as follows:
1. There is a negative relationship between age and postmaterialism
2. There is a positive relationship between income/levels of education and
postmaterialism
3. There is a positive relationship between having experienced an environmental
catastrophe and 1) postmaterialist values, 2) favorable attitudes toward the protection of
the environment, and 3) unfavorable attitudes toward uncontrolled economic growth.
4. There are positive relatio nships between postmaterialism and both favorable
attitudes toward the environment and negative attitudes toward uncontrolled economic
growth.
Giddens: Ontological Insecurity in Late Modernity
The argument about science and technology (or expert systems as the author calls them)
that one finds in Giddenss The Condition of Modernity can be schematized as follows:
One of Modernitys main features is the acceleration of change. This acceleration of
change results from the development of expert systemsunderstood as technological or
knowledge systems that organize large areas of the material and social environment in
which we live. The central role of expert systems in Modernity means that the risks,
p. 2
p. 3
p. 4
The theories developed by Inglehart, Giddens, and Beck are largely complementary but
they rest on different causal mechanisms. This is especially true when one compares
Inglehart with Giddens and Beck, whose arguments overlap. In this paper I examine the
explanatory capacity of each of these three theories. I rely on data from a national
respresentative survey collected in 1992 by CIRES (a Spanish research institute), whose
goal was to obtain information on the populations attitudes toward Science and
Technology. The survey did not have a test of the theories above as its target. Therefore
it does not include all the variables that would be needed for a complete test. In
particular, it does not include Ingleharts battery of items used to measure peoples
degree of postmaterialism. Because of this, I complement the analysis with Spanish data
for 1990 from the World Values Study. The variables I will be using are not perfectly
valid and reliable measures of the concepts used by Giddens, Beck, and Inglehart. The
paper must thus be considered only as an pioneering exercise that provides useful insights
on the validity of the theories described above.
The CIRES survey included a battery of three questions that allows to measure
the respondents interest in the topics of science and technology. The questions were as
follows:
1. Generally, are you very interested, quite interested, somewhat interested, hardly
interested, or not interested at all in the following current topics:
-Discoveries in the field of medecine.
-Inventions/New technologies
-Scientific Discoveries
It also included a question that allows for an approximate measurement of the perceived
risks involved in scientific and technological progress. The question read as follows:
2. Please tell me whether you strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree with
the following sentence:
-Scientific progress will eventually lead to the destruction of the earth
3. Finally, the survey included a series of items that measured 1) pro-environmentalism,
2) critical attitudes toward science, and 3) questioning of sciences primacy over other
considerations. I have computed a pro-environmentalism index based on two subindices.
The first subindex reflects answers to the following question:
If you take into consideration the worlds situation and its problems, which are the three
objectives, based on the following list, that you consider to be of highest priority?
One of the objectives included in the list was the protection of the environment. The
subindex can have four values, from 0 to 3, depending on whether the protection of the
environment was chosen as 1st, 2nd, 3rd, most important objective or not chosen at all.
The second subindex is based on the sum of the answer values to two questions.
The first one said:
With which of the following sentences relative to nuclear energy do you agree the most?
--One should forbid nuclear energy production throughout the world.
--One should allow the production of nuclear energy, but only under very strict security
conditions in nuclear plants.
The second question said as follows:
With which of the following statements do you agree the most?
--In the future, it would be better to protect the environment, even if this means less
scientific and technical progress.
p. 5
--One must pursue scientific and technological progress even if it has negative effects on
the environment.
The item that measures critical attitudes toward science and techno logy is a
survey question that inquired about the trust that respondents feel toward scientists. The
question read as follows:
About how much (a lot, some, little, or not at all) do you trust what scientists say?
Finally the index that measures the questioning of the primacy of technological
and scientific progress over other considerations is based on adding the answer values to
two questions. The questions were similarly worded and read as follows:
To what extent do you think that it is legitimate to experiment with live animals?
Would you say that it is very legitimate, legitimate, somewhat legitimate, or not at all
legitimate?
To what extent do you consider it legitimate to experiment with human beings? Would
you say that it is very legitimate, legitimate, somewhat legitimate, or not at all
legitimate?
In order to further assess the validity of Giddenss and Becks theories and also to test
Ingleharts Postmaterialism thesis I used data for Spain from the 1990 World Values
Study. The postmaterialism index is built based on the answers to two batteries of items.
Respondents were provided with two lists of goal priorities and for each one they were
asked to choose the one that they considered the most important and the second most
important. The choices in the first list were:
-Maintaining order in the nation
-Giving people more say in important government decisions
-Fighting rising prices
-Protecting freedom of speech
The choices in the second list were:
-A stable economy
-Progress toward a less impersonal and more humane society
-Progress toward a society in which ideas count more than money
-The fight against crime.
Another independent variable in the model is an item that to some extent
measures the level of risk that respondents perceive as associated to scientific and
technological progress. The question reads as follows:
In the long run, do you think the scientific advances we are making will help or harm
mankind? The three possible answers were will help, will harm, and some of each.
Finally, the model includes two indices of environmentalism. The first one was
obtained after adding answer- values to the following questions:
Now I am going to read a few sentences about the environment. Please tell me for each
of them whether you strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree?
-I would give part of my income if I were certain that the money would be used to
prevent environmental pollution
-I would agree to an increase in taxes if the extra money is used to prevent environmental
pollution.
-The government has to reduce environmental pollution, but it should not cost me any
money.
-All the talk about pollution makes people too anxious
p. 6
-If we want to combat unemployment in this country, we shall just have to accept
environmental problems.
The second environmentalism index is based on the sum of the answer-values to two
items:
There are groups and movements that seek public assistance. For each of the following
movements, could you please indicate whether you strongly approve, approve,
disapprove, or strongly disapprove:
-The ecology movement or nature protection
-The anti- nuclear energy movement.
Results
1. CIRES survey
The results obtained from the CIRES survey show that Spaniards express a moderately
high interest in medecine and other scientific topics. The level of interest in these topics
appears to be even higher than that for current sport and political events (see Table 1).
Men and younger and more educated respondents are those who express more interest in
these topics (see Table 2).
The descriptive analysis of the CIRES survey results also shows that Spaniards
have a pessimistic view of the effects of scientific and technological progress. Forty- four
percent of the respondents agree that technological progress will eventually destroy the
earth compared with 43% who do not agree. Older people, as well as individuals with
less education and more conservative views are those who agree most with this
pessimistic vision (see Table 3). These results contradict Becks and Giddenss theories,
since these authors predict that it is those individuals with more cognitive resources who
perceive to a greater extent the risks of late modernity.
The descriptive analysis of the endogenous variables in the predictive models
estimated below shows that more than a third of the respondents believe that nuclear
energy should be forbidden throughtout the world. Older people and individuals with
less education are those who favor the most this measure (Table 4). Also, there is
unanimity and little sociodemographic variation with respect to the desire to give priority
to the protection of the environment over scientific and technological progress (Table 5).
Nevertheless, the protection of the environment is one of the three most important
objectives only for 20% of the respondents. It thus seems that, in general, Spaniards are
skeptical about scientific and technological progress but they are not strong proenvironmentalists.
The answers to the question about peoples trust on what scientists say reveals
that Spaniards indeed trust scientists. Compared to other social groups, only medical
doctors are more trusted than scientists (Table 6). The level of trust on scientists is
greatest among younger respondents (Table 7).
Finally, the CIRES 1992 survey shows that Spaniards are split on the issue of
experiments with animals and decidedly opposed to experiments with human beings.
Eighty-five percent of the respondents opposes the latter versus 46% who oppose the
former (see Table 8).
In sum, the 1992 survey data shows that Spaniards are interested in science and
trust what scientists say. They harbor, however, somewhat pessimistic views about the
consequences of scientific and technological progress and are split about the need to set
p. 7
limits to this progress. The latter, however, does not reflect strong pro-environmentalist
convictions.
To partially test the validity of Becks and Giddenss models, I have estimated a series of
structural models. The results of this analysis in general contradict both theorists theses,
according to whom the critique of modernity originates in sectors that are very familiar
with science and technology, whose members are more sensitive than is the rest of the
population to the risks associated to them (Figure 4). While it is true that the perception
of risks associated with science and technology is associated to pro-environment
attitudes, less trust in scientists, and a greater opposition to experimentation with humans
and animals, it is not those who are more informed about science and technology subjects
who perceive these risks the most. It is instead those who are less interested in science
and who have less education who perceive more risks in scientific and technologic
progress. Therefore, one can say that in Spain, the critique of modernity originates more
in tradition than in modernity itself. The only statistical result that supports Giddenss
and Becks thesis is the positive effect of the degree of interest in science and technology
on pro-environment attitudes. This effect is considerably stronger than the negative
indirect relationship between these two variables that is mediated by peoples perceptions
of the implicit risks in scientific and technological progress.
One must finally point out that the model explains very little variance. This may
reflect 1) that the indicators are not valid nor reliable, 2) that Spaniards do not have well
formed opinions on these topics, or 3) that Giddenss and Becks models are invalid.
2. World Values Study
From a descriptive viewpoint, one observes that in Spain there is approximately an equal
split between materialists and postmaterialists (see Table 9). Pro-environment attitudes
among Spaniards also appear to be moderate high, since in a scale from 0 to 17, the
median value for the sample is 9. On the other hand, the green and antinuclear movement
enjoy very strong support among Spaniards. The median value for the second
environmentalism index among Spaniards is 6, which is the largest possible value one
can obtain after adding the scores for the two items that form the index . Finally, the
World Values Studys results show that respondents are relatively optimistic about the
effects of science, although 32% think that on the long run scient ific progress will be
detrimental to humankind (see Table 10).
The results of the statistical model estimated to test the postmaterialist thesis
strongly support Ingleharts thesis and cast doubt on Becks and Giddenss, at least in the
Spanish case (see Figure 5). Indeed, as Inglehart predicts, postmaterialists are more proenvironmentalist than are materialists whereas, Giddenss and Becks predicted
relationships between the risks people perceive in science and environmentalist attitudes
are not statistically significant.
As in the previous model, the percentage of the variance which is explained by
the model is very small. As I say above, this may be due to poor validity and reliability
of the indicators but also to the poor explanatory value of the theories tested in this paper.
Conclusion
To conclude, one can say that in the Spanish case, Ingleharts thesis receives more
empirical support than do Giddenss and Becks. It is likely that this is because in Spain
p. 8
the debate over science is still interpreted in modernist key. That is, the rejection of
science is still greater among those segments of the population whose mentality is
traditional and materialist, whereas support of science is greater among segments of the
population with a modernizing mentality, who, once materially secure, are more
concerned about postmaterialist issues such as the protection of the environment. It is
also possible, based on the results of the first model where I show a positive direct effect
between interest in science and environmentalism, that the critique of modernity from
modernity has begun to develop in Spain, although it is not associated to a greater
sensitivity to the risks involved, as Giddens and Beck predict. There would therefore be
a potential for a move ment which is critical of modernity, formed by a coalition of
predominantly traditionalist groups and enlightened moderns.
p. 9
Figure 1
Ronald Ingleharts Predictive Model
Age
Income
Education
Negative
Experiences
Postmaterialism
P
P
Movt. for
Sustainable
Development
p. 10
Figure 2
Trust in
Negative
Experiences
Interest in
Science
Science
Perceived
Risk in
Expert Systems
Trust in Expert
Systems
N
Ontological
Security
P
Movt. for
Sustainable
Development
p. 11
Figure 3
Ulrich Becks Predictive
Model
P
Trust
in
Science
Negative
Experiences
Interest in
Science
Perceived
Risk in
Expert Systems
Critique
Of Sciences
Claims
Movement
For sustainable
Development
p. 12
Figure 4
R-Square: Expert: 3%
Envir: 5%
Scientists: 7%
Risk: 3%; Interest: 9%
Educ
Income
0.27
Age
-0.12
-0.16
Int.Sci
-0.17
-0.10
0.11
Risk
0.09
0.13
-0.18
0.07
0.11
Against
Experiments
Envir
Scientists
0.06
-0.03
-0.14
Note: The Model is saturated. The effects reported in the Figures are those that are
statistically significant at the 0.05 level, two-tailed.
p. 13
Figure 5
R-Square: Risk=2%
Postmat=15%
Envir1=7%
Envir2=6%
Age
Educ
Income
0.19
-0.13 -0.08
-0.25
0.09
Risk
-0.10
Postmat
0.19
0.14
Envir1
Envir2
0.12
Note: The model is saturated. Only results that are significant at .05, two-tailed are
reported
p. 14
Sport
Political
Medical
Inventions/
News
News
Discoveries New
Recent
Scientific
Technologies
Discoveries
A lot
10
22
18
18
Quite
22
18
46
39
41
Some
17
19
16
20
18
Little
15
17
10
Very
28
32
Little
Not at All
DK/NA
p. 15
Table 2: Interest in Science and Technology, by Gender, Age, and Level of Education
(Index of Interest)
Medical Discoveries Inventions Scientific Discoveries
Gender:
Males
Females
Age:
18-29
30-49
50-64
65+
Education:
Low
Medium
High
170
163
168
144
167
143
173
169
166
147
175
159
152
121
172
159
148
124
161
173
180
142
177
186
141
177
182
p. 16
Table 3: Agreement with the sentence Scientific progress will eventually lead to the
destruction of the earth, by Age, Education, and Ideological Self-Placement (Index of
Agreement)
Index of Agreement
Age:
18-29
30-49
50-64
65+
Education:
Low
Medium
High
Ideological
Self-Placement:
Left
Center
Right
96
96
106
110
107
98
66
97
91
108
p. 17
Table 4: Preference for either of the sentences One should forbid nuclear energy
production throughout the world and One should allow the production of nuclear
energy, but only under very strict security conditions in nuclear plants, by Age and
Level of Education.
Total
Age:
18-29
30-49
50-64
65+
Education:
Low
Medium
High
65
60
50
40
3
6
10
19
39
35
21
49
64
78
12
1
1
p. 18
Table 5: Preference for either of the sentences In the future, it would be better to protect
the environment, even if this means less scientific and technical progress and One must
pursue scientific and technological progress even if it has negative effects on the
environment
Total
First Sentence
89%
Second Sentence
6%
DK/NA
5%
p. 19
3.3
3.2
3.1
3.0
2.7
2.6
2.6
2.6
2.3
2.2
2.1
2.1
2.1
1.9
p. 20
173
177
177
171
160
Source: CIRES 92
N=1200
Index: (% who rate them from 6 to 10-% who rate them from 0 to 5)+100
p. 21
Table 8: Belief in the legitimate character of experiments with live animals and with
human beings (%)
Experiments with Live
Animals
Very Legitimate
Legitimate
Somewhat
Legitimate
Not at all Legitimate
DK/NA
3
10
11
27
2
74
2
p. 22
21.3
25.5
28.8
17.2
7.2
p. 23
Table 10: Percentage Distribution of Answers to the question In the long run, do you
think the scientific advances we are making will help or harm mankind?
Will Help
A little of Both
Will Harm
DK
NA
38.7
14.0
31.6
15.3
0.3
p. 24