Freedom Rising
2013 book by Christian Welzel
Freedom Rising: Human Empowerment and the Quest for Emancipation is a 2013 book by the German political scientist Christian Welzel, professor of political culture and political sociology at Leuphana University Lueneburg and vice-president of the World Values Survey.
The Title
The title, Freedom Rising, refers to the rapid expansion of universal freedoms and democracy. As the author explains at the beginning of his book, people have never voiced their desires for freedoms so frequently and powerfully as today. They do so not only inside but even outside democracies. Starting from here, Christian Welzel's book is about the human quest for freedoms and the human desire for emancipation. The result is a far-reaching theory of emancipation, which describes the human empowerment process.
Content and Structure
The book comprises twelve chapters that are organized in four parts. While the first chapter is theoretical, all subsequent chapters are empirical and test the propositions laid out in Chapter 1. The empirical research builds on cross-cultural and longitudinal evidence form the World Values Surveys and European Values Study.
Part A: Understanding Emancipative Values
(Chapter 1: A Theory of Emancipation;
Chapter 2: Mapping Differences;
Chapter 3: Multilevel Drivers;
Chapter 4: Tracing Change)
The first part provides a basic understanding of emancipative values.
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