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The concepts of social capital and postmaterialist values both have respectable genealogies in the social sciences. They are often seen to covary in particular ways, but these relationships are generally considered spurious, attributable to various intervening or antecedent variables. This paper seeks to specify an independent and direct relationship between generalized trust (akin to "bridging" social capital) and postmaterialism on the one hand, and particularized trust (akin to "bonding" social capital) and materialism on the other. In order to test these claims and properly control for rival hypotheses, a hierarchical generalized linear model is employed using data from the fourth wave of the World Values Survey (released May 2004). The data provide strong support for both posited relationships. In light of these results, opportunities for future research are enumerated and discussed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a research design that traces siblings' preferences for postmaterialistic values in Germany over two decades, this paper provides new evidence on the origins of value preferences. Focusing on Inglehart's thesis of value change, we test the socialization and the scarcity hypotheses against rivalling accounts of value preference formation. Hierarchical regression models show that the shared preadult environment indeed exerts lasting effects on the permanent component of preferences for postmaterialistic policies. Beyond shared experiences of socioeconomic scarcity, however, we find that the intergenerational transmission of post-materialism--disregarded by Inglehart's original thesis--does play a significant role in the similarity in siblings' value preferences. Considering the importance of the intergenerational persistence of post-materialistic values, our findings suggest a decelerated value change by cohort replacement, in contrast to Inglehart's original claim. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental issues appear to be poised to become a major political issue in the coming years, especially as the United States moves to become a post-material society. How will such issues influence the voting behavior of Americans? We explore citizen attitudes on environmentalism to determine the correlates of differences in opinions on such issues and whether the environment currently influences voting in presidential elections. Finally, we test the theory of Judis and Teixeira (2002) that the emergence of issues such as the environment will attract professionals to become one of the core constituencies of the Democratic Party. We find that partisanship and ideology are becoming increasingly linked to voter attitudes towards the environment, but that at current, environmentalism has little impact on presidential voting. We test the Judis and Teixeira thesis by looking specifically at professionals who can correctly place the candidates on environmental issues. We find some evidence that their theory is correct. Highly educated professionals who are either Democrats or independents and who can correctly place the candidates on environmental issues in 2000 and 2004 were significantly more likely to vote Democratic. In contrast, however, under the same specification, Republicans are much more likely to remain with their party's candidate even when they hold moderate views on the environment. These finding suggest that the rise of environmentalism may lead to continued polarization between the parties even as a new issue rises to prominence. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our study critically re-examines the claims advanced by the extant postmaterialism literature. Specifically, we suggest that, in transition polities, economic conditions and education levels might work in an opposite direction than expected. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]