Adherence to post-materialist values in the regions of Brazil

Abstract

The main objective of this research is to investigate the adherence to post-materialist values and their relationship with democracy in different regions of Brazil. This study is guided by the following research question: Can the Brazilian social context, characterized by deep socioeconomic inequalities, hinder adherence to democracy in different regions of Brazil? To this end, we rely on the culturalist theory of democracy and its correlations with Ronald Inglehart’s theory of human development and the social inequalities in Brazil and its regions. The methodology used is quantitative in nature, utilizing data provided by the Brazilian Electoral Study (ESEB) conducted in 2022. We cross-referenced the selected variables by region using PSPP Software and performed a Chi-square (x²) test on all selected variables. The main findings suggest that regions facing greater scarcity encounter more complexities in the internalizatio and defense of issues such as democracy, LGBT community issues, and gender-related topics.