The Impact of Postmaterialist Values on Political Apathy: a Comparative Analysis of Democratic Societies in the Period of 2004-2014

Impossibility of full-fledged democracy and recent findings on voter participation decline set a discussion on rising political apathy in the society. Building on Inglehart’s emancipatory theory of democratization, this study offers an insight that political apathy is the result of changing values. Thus, the goal of the research is to ascertain a relationship between political apathy and postmaterial values in terms of participatory nature of 36 democracies. Hypotheses were tested using data from the World Values Survey. Multilevel logistic regression analysis revealed that political apathy is lower among postmaterialists in comparison to materialists. Nevertheless, the study finds that institutional environment makes the difference. For example, in democracies with compulsory voting the apathy is higher among postmaterialists, rather than materialists. The results of this research can contribute to determining the impact of values on political apathy in the context of various polities.