08/06/2026
The World Values Survey Association is pleased to announce the recipient of the 2025 Ronald F. Inglehart Best Book Award on Political Culture and Values, established to honor the scholarly legacy of Ronald F. Inglehart (1934–2021), founder of the World Values Survey and one of the most influential social scientists of the modern era.
The 2025 competition brought together an intellectually diverse collection of books addressing some of the most important contemporary questions in comparative social science: https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSNewsShow.jsp?ID=779
Following an extensive review process, the Jury unanimously selected Amy Adamczyk’s Fetal Positions: Understanding Cross-National Public Opinion about Abortion as the winner.
In its assessment, the Jury recognized the book as a major contribution to comparative cross-cultural research. The study offers a comprehensive comparative analysis of global abortion attitudes, demonstrating how national-level factors—including religion, social values, economic development, democracy, law, politics, gender inequality, and historical legacies—interact with individual characteristics to shape public opinion.
The Jury highlighted the book’s ambitious and innovative research design, which combines large-scale international survey data, media content analysis across more than forty countries, and qualitative interviews conducted in the United States and China. Through this mixed-methods, multilevel approach, Adamczyk develops a sophisticated framework for understanding how cultural and structural contexts shape attitudes toward one of the most contested moral and political issues of our time.
As part of the award ceremony on September 29, Professor Amy Adamczyk will deliver the 2025 Ronald F. Inglehart Best Book Award Lecture, offering the international research community an opportunity to engage directly with the findings and broader implications of her award-winning work. Researchers, students, and members of the public interested in political culture, values, religion, public opinion, gender, and comparative social research are warmly invited to attend.
Registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/0mK4Tjl5TW-kxWM6N98XNQ
The World Values Survey Association extends its warmest congratulations to Professor Amy Adamczyk on receiving the 2025 Ronald F. Inglehart Best Book Award and thanks all nominated authors for their valuable contributions to scholarship on political culture, values, and social change. A special thanks goes to the Award Jury including Professor Birol Yeşilada, Professor Anu Realo, and Professor Yilmaz Esmer.
