ABSTRACT
Theories of universal values raise the interesting question of whether one really can find common values across countries. The analysis of universal values presents somewhat different methodological problems than the inquiry into ethnicity and religion. Trust theory was partly inspired by Putnam's analysis of regions in Italian politics from 1993. To Putnam, a civic community is a society where there are numerous associations, people read many newspapers and election turnout is high. The theme of postmaterialism is a theory about values tapped more by means of attitudes and less through behaviour interpretation. Ronald Inglehart has argued in favour of postmaterialism as a new dimension in mass politics since 1971. New Cultural Theory (NCT) displays a quasi-deductive structure, as it employs a few basic assumptions about two fundamental dimensions of social reality in order to derive its four or five cultural types. Values may be researched for their consequences for micro outcomes.
