The World Values Survey provides data on social, cultural and political change worldwide. The WVS consists of national sample surveys in over 90 countries, using a common questionnaire with variables on beliefs, values, economic development, democratisation, religion, gender equality, social capital and subjective well-being. The survey has been coordinated by the World Values Survey Association (Stockholm) since 1981. - European University Institute
The World Value Survey (WVS) has recently completed its seventh wave of data collection, covering 58 countries over the period of 2017-2022. This series of posts will highlight some of the findings. I’ll use the same subset of countries in each post. In this post, I’ll focus on what the WVS calls “emancipative” values, as in emancipation from authority. Emancipative values emphasize freedom of choice and "involve priorities for lifestyle liberty, gender equality, personal autonomy and the voice of the people." (World Values Survey).
When Chinese officials call “the very notion of universal values a Western imposition”, akin to “the house rules of a few countries”, they are specifically thinking of the idea of fundamental human rights as conceived in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). In its own words, the UDHR “sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected”, which are “inalienable rights of all members of the human family”, including ”freedom of speech and belief”. No fan of the UDHR, the Chinese government would rather establish an international norm that “no sovereign government need bow to anyone else’s definition of human rights” (The Economist, October 15, 2022). So was the UN simply doing the West’s bidding when it drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
One way to explore this question is to ask people in other countries how much they care about human rights as articulated by the UDHR. And that is one thing the WVS has been doing for decades. If we take “emancipative values” as a proxy for the belief in basic human rights such as freedom of speech and belief, it turns out that most people in most countries do care. Take a look:
Of course, some people value human rights less than others. Often that’s because they’re just trying to survive in a harsh world where economic and physical security take precedence. But they still care about human rights and when conditions in their country improve, they tend to care even more. That’s not a Western thing - it’s human.