This disconnection between citizens and elected officials has led to decreased voter turnout by an alienated electorate, making it easier for special interest groups and extremists to become more influential. This new politics seeks to be youthful, highly democratic, and responsive to average citizens, but is also volatile, turbulent, media-driven, and often unpredictable. Leaders rise and fall rapidly. The data analysis of the New Political Culture is based on original surveys collected from some 7,000 cities in 20 nations. Citizen surveys in these same countries are also used.
Political issues shift with increased affluence.
As affluence has risen, the number of production workers has decreased and the number of professionals has increased in most of the countries studied. Younger, more educated and more affluent persons in affluent and less hierarchical societies should move farthest from traditional class politics. The NPC began in the 1970s and has become the dominant point of view in some nations. NPC supporters are younger, more educated and affluent, more often women, Protestant and Jewish, and live in cities and countries with more of these characteristics. These encourage attention to social and consumption issues, which increasingly dominate the political agenda.