Demographic Ageing and Social Transformation Theorising The Silent Revolution

This book introduces the silent revolution as a new way to understand social change in ageing, post-industrial societies. It argues that demographic ageing, institutional drift, and the normalization of stagnation are quietly reshaping democracy, in ways that speak to current debates on post-democracy and late modernity. The book sets this argument against classical theories of revolution from Marx to Weber, and extends demographic transition theory beyond population statistics to its political and cultural consequences. Drawing on European population data, studies of voting behaviour, and comparisons of welfare states, it offers a new framework for understanding why ageing societies find change so difficult, and what this means for the future of democracy. It will interest sociologists of social change and political sociology, political scientists working on democracy, scholars of ageing societies, and readers concerned with the future of late modern democracies.