WORLDVIEWS

To make sense of the world, we all create patterns of meaning.In my youth it was a tripartite division – conservatives, socialists and liberals. Not for me the Manichean approach of left/right or insider/outsider - there was always a third way. It was only in 2000, however, that I became aware of the four dimensions of grid-group theory which anthropologist Mary Douglas introduced - consisting of four very different “world views” (what she calls hierarchist, egalitarian, individualist and fatalist) which came to be known as “Cultural Theory”. I came across Mary Douglas’ theory thanks to public admin theorist Chris Hood’s “The Art of the State” (2000)

Another approach was that of cultural values – the work of people such as de Hofstede; Ronald Inglehart; Frans Trompenaars; Richard Lewis (of When Cultures Collide fame) and Richard Nesbitt a body of writing which emphasises the distinctiveness of national values most graphically illustrated in the Inglehart cultural map of the world and best explained in this brochure. Multinational companies were funding a lot of this work as they tried to understand how they could weld different nationalities into coherent and effective teams. Other companies had also been funding a lot of this work to try to get into the minds of their consumers - but international charities suddenly realised a decade or so ago could also be used to prise money out of all of us for their more altruistic purposes (see below) – a politicisation of which Adam Curtis' documentaries have made us much more aware

Those were the days when a body of literature called “path dependency ” was raising important questions about how “sticky” cultural values were…viz how difficult national behavioural traits are to change. And, just the other day, I discovered Betti’s argument that there were actually twelve ways of seeing the world (see list below)

Psychologists, sociologists, political scientists and anthropologists have approached this question of perceptions and values completely separately and at different times - making few attempts to engage one another in discussion It's such a critical issue that it's time they reached out to one another - and made the connection with the developing literature on world views

Recommended Reading

BOOKS

- Management development through cultural diversity Ronnie Lessem (1995) 
Lessem is a south african who uses the four lens of the compass to show how the 

environment governs our ways of thinking.
- When Cultures Collide – leading across cultures; Richard Lewis (1996) The book 

which introduced us to the field – and gave us marvellous vignettes of the strange 

habits of almost all countries of the world

- Spiral Dynamics – mastering values, leadership, change; Don Beck and Chris Cowan

 (1996)  with crucial explorations of the very different levels of explanation needed 

for discussions of behaviour and the values which underpin it.

- Riding the Waves of Culture – understanding cultural diversity in business Frans 

Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner (1997) the Dutchman who took on de 

Hofstede’s mantle
 “The Art of the State” Chris Hood (2000)  uses Mary Douglas’ grid-group typology 

brilliantly to help us understand the strengths, weaknesses and risks of these 

various world views.
- The Geography of Thought – how westerners and asians think differently and why; 

Richard Nesbitt (2003) An American social psychologist gives a thought-provoking book
- “Way of life theory – the underlying structure of world views, social relations and lifestyles” 

– a rather disjointed and abstract dissertation by Michael Edward Pepperday (2009) an 

introduction to which is here

- Consumer Shift - how changing values are reshaping the consumer landscape (2011) 

actually much more about values and world views than it is about consumers….
-The Patterning Instinct; Jeremy Lent (2017) how worldviews develop and can change 

history 

- Cultural Evolution – people’s motivations are changing, and reshaping the world ;

 Ronald Inglehart (2018)  a political scientist who has been at the heart of discussion 

about cultural values for the past 50 years – and the book and this article summarised 

that work.
- Twelve Ways of Seeing the World  M Betti (2019 Eng – original German 2001) a 

curious book based on the work of Rudolf Steiner
- The Web of Meaning ; Jeremy Lent (2021) an important follow up to his 2017 book
- Theories of International Relations ed R Devetak and J True (6th ed 2022)
- Foundations of International Relations ed S McGlinchey et al 2022
- The Battle for Britain – crises, conflicts and the conjunctures  John Clarke 2023


ARTICLES
- Wicked Problems and Clumsy Solutions ; Keith Grint (2008) a short very useful article 

by an academic
- Common Cause – the case for working with our cultural values  (2010) 

a useful little manual for charities
- Finding Frames – new ways to engage the UK public (2010) ditto
- A Cultural Theory of Politics ” (2011) a short article which shows how the 

grid-group approach has been used in a range of disciplines
- Grid, group and grade – challenges in operationalising cultural theory for 

cross-national research (2014) is a very academic article although its comparative 

diagrams are instructive

- Britain’s Choice – common ground and divisions in 2020s Britain (More in Common

 2020) a detailed picture of the british people and their values these days

Ways of Seeing

Each of us has a particular lens through which we look when we’re trying to make sense of the world. The International Relations people have it down to a fine art – with their classification of the subject into no fewer than 8 schools – realism, liberalism, marxism, structuralism, feminism, postcolonialism etc. (Chapter 7 of the link gives the lowdown on the various schools)   

In my youth, I was aware of a tripartite division – conservatives, socialists 

and liberals. I didn’t like the Manichean approach of left/right - there was 

always a third way, be it green or ecological. 
It was only in the new millennium, however, that I became aware of the 

four dimensions of grid-group theory which anthropologist Mary Douglas 

introduced - consisting of four very different “world views” (what she calls

 hierarchist, egalitarian, individualist and fatalist) which came to be known 

as “Cultural Theory”. I first came across Mary Douglas’ theory in 1998, thanks 

to public admin theorist Chris Hood’s “The Art of the State” which uses her 

typology brilliantly to help us understand the strengths, weaknesses and risks 

of these various world views. 

But it appears we have yet another way of understanding the world – viz 

“conjunctural analysis”. I agree it’s a bit of a mouthful but it basically denies 

the bias in the various schools and argues that we need to recognise the complexity 

of the world and to accept there are different levels of explanation for the 

way things are. John Clarke sets out the argument in The Battle for Britain – crises, 

conflicts and the conjunctures which, I have to confess, I found very hard going.

Further Reading about “World Views”

- The Battle for Britain – crises, conflicts and the conjunctures John Clarke 2023

- Theories of International Relations ed R Devetak and J True (6^th ed 2022)

- Foundations of International Relations l ed S McGlinchey et al 2022

- Britain’s Choice – common ground and divisions in 2020s Britain (More in Common 

2020) a detailed picture of the british people and their values these days

- Twelve Ways of Seeing the World M Betti (2019 Eng – original German 2001) 

based on Rudolf Steiner's thinking, this offers a curious typology

- Cultural Evolution – people’s motivations are changing, and reshaping the world; 

Ronald Inglehart (2018) a political scientist,who has been at the heart of discussion 

about cultural values for the past 50 years – and the book and this article summarises 

that work.
- Grid, group and grade – challenges in operationalising cultural theory for cross-national 

research (2014) is a very academic article although its comparative diagrams are instructive
- “A Cultural Theory of Politics” (2011) a short article which shows how the grid-group 

approach has been used in a range of disciplines
-  Consumer Shift - how changing values are reshaping the consumer landscape Any 

Hines (2011) actually much more about values and world views than it is about consumers….

- Common Cause – the case for working with our cultural values (2010) a useful little 

manual for charities
- Finding Frames – new ways to engage the UK public (2010) ditto
- “Way of life theory – the underlying structure of world views, social relations and

 lifestyles” (2009) – a rather disjointed dissertation by Michael Edward Pepperday 

and introduction to which is here.

- Wicked Problems and Clumsy Solutions; Keith Grint (2008) a short very useful 

article by an academic

- The Geography of Thought – how westerners and asians think differently and why; 

Richard Nesbitt (2003) An American social psychologist gives a thought-provoking book

- “The Art of the State” Christopher Hood (1998) A brilliant essay on the usefulness 

of grid-group analysis

- Riding the Waves of Culture – understanding cultural diversity in business; Frans 

Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner (1997) the Dutchman who took on de Hofstede’s 

mantle
-When Cultures Collide – leading across cultures; Richard Lewis (1996) The book which 

introduced us to the field – and gave us marvellous vignettes of the strange habits of 

almost all countries of the world
- Management development through cultural diversity Ronnie Lessem (1995) 

Lessem is a south african who uses the four lens of the compass to show how the 

environment governs our ways of thinking.

Confused about Political Cultures?

It’s more than 40 years since I noticed that concepts have different meanings in other languages. It’s as if each nation carries its distinctive baggage in its collective heads – for example “Chancellor”, “policy” and “accountability”. And the image conjured up by the word “councillor” very much depends on the country’s electoral system and the relative financial power of the municipal system.

When the Wall fell, central and south-east Europeans had to learn what such previously reviled concepts as capitalism and democracy meant – both in practice and in theory. Thirty years on, it’s assumed they know – although political cultures in countries such as Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Romania – let alone Italy – do not operate in quite the way of those in NE Europe.

It’s Bulgaria and Romania I know best – from living in them for some 15 years and have tried during that period to convey to my readers a sense of their political culture.

Since 1990 I have lived in about a dozen countries and have tried to keep up with the literature on cultural differences. Indeed earlier this year I did a series of posts on this which I have this week reviewed – resulting in a short (10,000 word) paper which you find here and which I hve tried to summarise thus -

1. The words and concepts we use have different meanings in different cultural contexts – some subtle, some profound

2. Until recently, the western interpretation was accepted as the holy grail

3. The origins of the field can be traced back to Almond and Verba’s “The Civic Culture” of 1963 which looked at various democratic societies.

4. The subsequent literature uses a variety of terms – political culture, national culture, world values, world views and cultural theory – which may or may not refer to the same phenomenon.

5. De Hofstede used his base in IBM to carry out survey work on its plants in various parts of the world and popularised in the 1980s a series of measures showing the power of distinctive national contexts

6. This work was taken up by a variety of consultants to multinational business such as Richard Lewis, Frans Trompenaars, Charles Hampden-Turner and Erin Meyer to reinforce the argument about national traits

7. Something seemed to happen at the turn of the new millennium. Anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists and political scientists somehow started to feel that discussions about cultural differences are no longer politically acceptable.

8. Indeed the World Values Surveys take great care to create clusters which blur national divisions and focus instead on such things as tradition and self-expression

9. And yet we persist as citizens in maintaining – and arguably accentuating – our cultural identities – see the section on the Scots