Testing the Internal Validity of the Inglehart Thesis by Means of a Latent Class Choice Model

Abstract

Inglehart's short postmaterialism index uses partial ranking of four items to classify respondents within three classes, i.e. a materialist, a postmaterialist and a mixed category. An appropriate technique for validating this index is a latent class choice model. Analysing data from the Eurobarometer surveys with this approach confirms the existence of a postmaterialist class. However, a materialist class cannot be identified irrevocably. Rather, an `authoritarian' or `conservative' latent class has to be distinguished from an `economic materialist' latent class. As such, there is empirical evidence for theoretical arguments that have been raised in the past, even within the restricted framework of the Inglehart thesis. Furthermore, I demonstrate that the cohort variable is unrelated to the `economic materialist' latent class, putting strain on adherents of the scarcity hypothesis. Education proves to be the key covariate of `economic' materialism, whereas cohort differences are pronounced in the case of `maintaining order in the nation'. Country differences also shift depending on the latent class model that is selected.