Abstract
There has been a general shift towards liberalism during the post World War II period. A plurality of attitude trends have moved in the liberalism direction. There is, however, some evidence that this liberal shift has weakened, but not reversed during the last decade. Topical disaggregation show that the liberal movement has not been uniform across subjects. Attitudes towards abortions, civil liberties, race relations, and religion have moved most consistently in the liberal direction while crime/violence and spending/taxation items have showed more conservative trends.
The main causes of the general liberalism trend were modernization and liberal idealism assisted by the New Deal Realignment and institutional leadership. The main countervailing forces to liberalism were found to be stagflation, taxation level, and crime. Despite the waning of liberalism in recent years there is no evidence to support the idea that most liberal advances over the past four decades will be reversed in the immediate future.
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This research was done for the General Social Survey project. The project is under the direction of James A. Davis and is supported by the National Science Foundation, SOC77-3279.
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Smith, T.W. General liberalism and social change in post World War II America: A summary of trends. Soc Indic Res 10, 1–28 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00287217
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00287217
Keywords
- Social Change
- Civil Liberty
- Race Relation
- Liberal Movement
- General Shift