Today, I have submitted my Bachelor Thesis, my final written work for my studies of Integrated Social Sciences at Jacobs University Bremen. 

This thesis provides a critical account of Inglehart’s and Welzel’s (2005) concept of the self-expression syndrome. In their variant of Modernization Theory, this increasing orientation to a broadening of human choice is the driving force for democratization. A massive body of cross-national evidence has been provided, linking high levels of these emancipative values with democratic performance. It is argued here that the explanatory power of self-expression values may be a catch-up effect and that an ever more emancipative culture may eventually become  detrimental to (representative) democratic performance. Congruency theory is invoked to investigate how the self-expression syndrome corresponds to the input and output aspects of representative polities. 

Some tentative empirical findings from the World Values Surveys indicate that highly self-expressive individuals are more likely to participate in unconventional activities as well as in voluntary associations than others and that they are not substantially less likely than others to endorse political trade-offs. They are furthermore found to be somewhat more likely to engage in some forms of civic defection. Methodological issues, suggestions for further research and policy implications are discussed. 

Not only for this thesis, but indeed for much of what I have learned about value research and quantitative methodology during my past three years of study at Jacobs University, I owe a great debt to my academic advisor Prof. Dr. Chris Welzel and my supervisor Franziska Deutsch. I was fortunate to work for them on the DFG-funded project “Dynamics, Causes and Consequences of Postindustrial Value Change – Germany in International Comparison” (DFG-Nr. WE 2266/6-1), an experience that has deepened my understanding of value research and has greatly inspired this thesis. In many respects, I have benefited from the open and controversial discussions on theory, methodology and quantitative analysis.  

I would like to thank Franziska Deutsch for her feedback on this thesis. 

Moreover, I am grateful to Laura Dannenberg and Max Palm for their valuable remarks on previous manuscripts. 

This thesis is in part based on a group project submitted for the seminar “Secondary Data Analysis”, held by Prof. Dr. Petra Lietz at Jacobs University Bremen in Spring 2006. For their openness to debate and their tremendous perseverance I am indebted to Lisa Heindl, Anja Jungermann and Henrik Mädler. 

Please find attached the complete thesis available for download.