The Human Empowerment Sequence and the Development of Libertarian Values: A Theoretical and Empirical Adjustment to the Human Empowerment Sequence

Building on the work of Inglehart and colleagues (e.g., Inglehart, 1971; Inglehart & Welzel, 2005), Welzel (2013) sets out a step-by-step theory explaining how democracies arise from processes of modernization. The intermediary stages in the causal chain he sets out explain the connection between action resources and emancipatory values. In short, Welzel provides strong evidence that people must first have the material, intellectual, and connective resources to exercise certain freedoms before they develop values that will motivate them to seek out those freedoms. While we are convinced by much of Welzel’s argument, we also note a substantial overlap between these intermediary stages of Welzel’s theory and the individual-level authoritarianism literature. Integrating current theory on authoritarianism into Welzel’s thesis at the point of overlap provides for a distinct set of hypotheses and a more nuanced understanding of how individual differences work in Welzel’s theory. Analyses of data from wave 5 of the World Values Survey and Vanhanen (2003) provide some initial evidence in support of our amended view of the intermediary stages of Welzel’s modernization thesis.