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Basic Personal Values and Political Orientations

Shalom H. Schwartz

in Improving Public Opinion Surveys: Interdisciplinary Innovation and the American National Election Studies

This chapter explains how values structure political attitudes and behavior, by laying out the theoretical framework and arguing for the relevance of these personal values to politics. It defines ten ... More

This chapter explains how values structure political attitudes and behavior, by laying out the theoretical framework and arguing for the relevance of these personal values to politics. It defines ten broad values according to the motivation that underlies each of them. These ten values may encompass the full range of motivationally distinct values recognized across cultures. They are likely to be universal because they are grounded in one or more of three universal requirements of human existence, with which they help people cope: needs of people as biological organisms, requisites of coordinated social interaction, and survival and welfare needs of groups. The chapter's analyses indicate that some of the personal values—in particular, tradition, conformity, hedonism, and universalism—have both direct and indirect effects on voting behavior and political attitudes.Less

The End of the End of Ideology

John T. Jost

in Ideology, Psychology, and Law

The “end of ideology” was declared by social scientists in the aftermath of World War II. They argued that ordinary citizens lack meaningful, coherent political attitudes that could be classified as ... More

The “end of ideology” was declared by social scientists in the aftermath of World War II. They argued that ordinary citizens lack meaningful, coherent political attitudes that could be classified as “liberal” (or leftist) or “conservative” (or rightist). The end-of-ideologists were so influential that researchers ignored the topic of ideology for many years. However, current political realities, recent data from the American National Election Studies, and results from an emerging psychological paradigm provide strong grounds for returning to the study of ideology. Studies reveal that there are indeed meaningful political and psychological differences that covary with ideological self-placement. Situational variables—including system threat and mortality salience—and dispositional variables—including openness and conscientiousness—affect the degree to which an individual is drawn to liberal versus conservative leaders, parties, and opinions. A psychological analysis is also useful for understanding the political divide between “red states” and “blue states.”Less

Religion as a Political Factor in Latin America: The Peruvian Case

Jorge Aragón Trelles

in Democracy, Culture, Catholicism: Voices from Four Continents

Mainstream modernization and secularization theories once predicted a gradual decline in the importance of religion as a factor in people’s political orientations. Evidence has not borne out this ... More

Mainstream modernization and secularization theories once predicted a gradual decline in the importance of religion as a factor in people’s political orientations. Evidence has not borne out this prediction, with the persistence of religious affiliation in contemporary societies and the role religion has played in recent political movements. Aragón discusses how religion impacts Latin American politics today and, using public opinion data, explores whether Peru is a country where religious beliefs and practices are associated with political perceptions and preferences. Whereas progressive Catholicism has declined in Latin America in recent decades, evangelical Protestantism has grown. However, the data indicates that denominational differences have little impact on political participation, whereas the strength of one’s religious participation—whether Catholic or Protestant—does track favorably with increased political participation.Less

“A Tense and Permeable Boundary”: Business Associations in the Civil Sphere

Lyn Spillman

in Solidarity in Strategy: Making Business Meaningful in American Trade Associations

This chapter amplifies the findings about business associations' political orientations, strategies of action, and vocabularies of motive. It examines their publicly oriented languages and strategies ... More

This chapter amplifies the findings about business associations' political orientations, strategies of action, and vocabularies of motive. It examines their publicly oriented languages and strategies of action beyond conventional politics. First, it assesses scholarly assumptions about associations' interest in public opinion with evidence from the census, and explores strategies of action and discourse about public relations in the focal sample. Then it points out that although scholars interested in nonprofit voluntary groups and civil society have ignored business associations, these groups should also be considered in debates about the strength of civil society. The chapter assesses evidence of orientations to civic goals in the business association population and explores qualitative evidence of associations' strategies of action and vocabularies of motive that challenges the distinction between economy and civil society. Attempts to influence public opinion and to participate in civil society are usually understood in languages of public good, especially stewardship of the public good through technical expertise. An extended case study, of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers, demonstrates these claims.Less

Introduction

Stefan Svallfors

in The Political Sociology of the Welfare State: Institutions, Social Cleavages, and Orientations

Political sociologists study the link between social and political life, primarily by understanding variations in the relationship between social structure, political orientations, and political ... More

Political sociologists study the link between social and political life, primarily by understanding variations in the relationship between social structure, political orientations, and political action, and by explaining the patterns that arise. Political sociology thus encompasses issues ranging from the orientations and action patterns of mass publics, the rise and fall of political parties, and the development and effects of political institutions. This book explores variations and mechanisms underlying the interrelationships among political institutions, social cleavages, and orientations among citizens in advanced industrial societies. It documents changes in welfare states and decision-making arrangements, along with variations of and mechanisms behind individual-level political orientations and identity formation. The chapter outlines the current main patterns of change in welfare states and decision-making structures, and presents the book's conceptual framework of analysis, including key concepts such as political articulation, moral economy, orientations, social cleavages, institutional feedback effects, and institutions.Less

Overloaded or Undermined?: European Welfare States in the Face of Performance Dissatisfaction

Staffan Kumlin

in The Political Sociology of the Welfare State: Institutions, Social Cleavages, and Orientations

This chapter examines the contention that mature welfare states are facing more and more severe challenges and pressures, and that their political responses will likely involve piecemeal ... More

This chapter examines the contention that mature welfare states are facing more and more severe challenges and pressures, and that their political responses will likely involve piecemeal cost-containment reforms within existing welfare systems, rather than an apocalyptic neoliberal “race to the bottom.” Even seemingly small changes in institutions and policies may trigger widespread public dissatisfaction with the performance of the welfare state. The chapter explores the effects of such dissatisfaction on citizens' political orientations and behavior by focusing on seventeen welfare states in Western Europe. Specifically, it considers whether dissatisfaction with performance undermines normative support for government intervention and welfare spending, or whether poor performance results in new demands for even more spending and intervention, thus potentially exerting more pressure on already constrained welfare states. The chapter shows that welfare state dissatisfaction has the potential to undermine incumbent government support as well as general political trust.Less

Conclusion: The Past and Future of Political Sociology

Stefan Svallfors

in The Political Sociology of the Welfare State: Institutions, Social Cleavages, and Orientations

This concluding chapter analyzes the results presented in the book in relation to the development of political sociology. It argues that the papers together represent a “fourth generation” of ... More

This concluding chapter analyzes the results presented in the book in relation to the development of political sociology. It argues that the papers together represent a “fourth generation” of scholarship in the field, where institutional feedback effects in general, and public policies in particular, are analyzed in a comparative perspective. Political sociology was born in the 1940s in New York City, at Columbia University's Bureau of Applied Social Research, under the intellectual leadership of Paul Lazarsfeld. The “Columbia School” and Lazarsfeld made important contributions to the development of research in the field of political sociology. In particular, Lazarsfeld pioneered the analysis of latent structures, while the Columbia School made the first rigorous and systematic attempts to analyze the social factors that influence voting and espoused a “social determinism” in the study of political behavior, for which it came under contemporary criticism. Aside from feedback effects of institutions, other concepts such as public policies and the moral economy of welfare states have improved the conceptualization of the relation between social cleavages, political orientations, and institutions.Less

The place of values in a world of politics: personality, motivation, and ideology

John T. Jost, Elvira Basevich, Eric S. Dickson, and Sharareh Noorbaloochi

in Handbook of Value: Perspectives from Economics, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Psychology and Sociology

This chapter reviews major taxonomic approaches to the study of values, organizing discussion around the theory of political ideology as motivated social cognition. In addition, it summarizes ... More

This chapter reviews major taxonomic approaches to the study of values, organizing discussion around the theory of political ideology as motivated social cognition. In addition, it summarizes existing research programs addressing the connections among personality characteristics, value priorities, and political ideology, focusing especially on the values of equality and tradition. It is found that citizens in long-standing democracies such as Western Europe and North America tend to exhibit patterns consistent with an “elective affinities” model, which is characterized by a sorting of individuals into ideological classifications that match their underlying psychological needs and motives, but such patterns are absent or less apparent in newer Eastern European democracies. Additional data analyses are presented involving a sample of university students in Texas, and these indicate that (1) values mediate some of the effects of personality characteristics on political ideology, and (2) ideological proclivities mediate some of the effects of personality characteristics on value prioritization.Less

Political Orientations: Home or Away?

Anthony F. Heath, Stephen D. Fisher, Gemma Rosenblatt, David Sanders, and Maria Sobolewska

in The Political Integration of Ethnic Minorities in Britain

This chapter considers political interest, political knowledge, and democratic values (belief in a duty to vote). It confirms that those who migrated to Britain as adults show higher levels of duty ... More

This chapter considers political interest, political knowledge, and democratic values (belief in a duty to vote). It confirms that those who migrated to Britain as adults show higher levels of duty to vote than the white British and quite high levels of interest in the politics of their homeland, but their interest in and knowledge of British politics is rather lower than that of the British majority group. Interest in homeland and British politics often go together, and bonding social capital within ethnic groups often goes with increased interest in politics generally. There is a major decline across generations in levels of interest in homeland politics, and a convergence towards British levels of interest, knowledge, and duty. There is no sign that particular minorities, for example Muslim groups, are more resistant to change than others.Less

Gilles Deleuze's Political Posture

Jérémie Valentin

in Deleuze and Philosophy

This chapter explores the politics in the works of Gilles Deleuze. There is no political treatise nor political programme in Deleuze's work and his political orientation is very basic. However, in ... More

This chapter explores the politics in the works of Gilles Deleuze. There is no political treatise nor political programme in Deleuze's work and his political orientation is very basic. However, in his Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Deleuze and his co-author Félix Guattari dealt with political themes. The question of fascism is analysed in it and a universal vision of history is proposed. The same pre-occupations characterise A Thousand Plateaus, where these notions are revised and corrected.Less

Conceptualizing political support in democracies and autocracies

Marlene Mauk

in Citizen Support for Democratic and Autocratic Regimes

This chapter conceptualizes political support in democratic and autocratic contexts. It first sets the basis for a comparison between democratic and autocratic contexts by defining both democracy and ... More

This chapter conceptualizes political support in democratic and autocratic contexts. It first sets the basis for a comparison between democratic and autocratic contexts by defining both democracy and autocracy and outlining the fundamental differences between the two types of regimes, both in terms of institutional structures and functional logics. Taking into account how the different institutional structures and functional logics of democracies and autocracies affect the structure of political support, it distinguishes between three levels of political support: political value orientations, regime support, and incumbent support. Discussing their consequences for the stability of democratic and autocratic regimes, the chapter identifies regime support as the most consequential attitude for regime stability.Less

Conclusions

in The Truth about Conservative Christians: What They Think and What They Believe

This study of Conservative Christians began with the intention of exploring the social and demographic condition of these Christians and with the hope of ascertaining whether conservative religious ... More

This study of Conservative Christians began with the intention of exploring the social and demographic condition of these Christians and with the hope of ascertaining whether conservative religious belief necessarily correlated with conservative political orientation. It finds that approximately a fifth of white Americans belong to the denominations that might legitimately be categorized as conservative. Roughly half of that fifth were strictly “evangelical” in the sense that they believed in the literal, word-for-word inerrancy of the Bible. The Conservative Protestants were more likely to be from the South and somewhat less likely to have pursued a college education. But these differences were not large. The political cartoonists' images of uneducated “rednecks” from the South miss their mark badly; it is not only offensive but inaccurate.Less

Cubans in Spain: Transnational Connections and Memories

Mette Louise Berg

in Cuba in a Global Context: International Relations, Internationalism, and Transnationalism

The relationship between Cuba and its post-1959 diaspora has been characterized by antagonism and mutual recrimination—especially between the Cuban government and the Miami-based exile community. ... More

The relationship between Cuba and its post-1959 diaspora has been characterized by antagonism and mutual recrimination—especially between the Cuban government and the Miami-based exile community. Dissenting voices, experiences and trajectories, and discussions of gender, class, race, and generations within the diaspora have accordingly tended to be restricted to a relatively small network of US-focused scholars and intellectuals. Yet the Cuban diaspora is more complex than allowed by the dominant exile narrative, the official Cuban government narrative, or media representations. It is characterized by diversity in migration trajectory, legal status, and class position, as well as “race,” religion, and political identification and orientation. New studies have contributed toward a historically embedded and more geographically and socially representative understanding of contemporary Cuba and its diaspora. Cubans living in Spain provide an emergent and more nuanced picture of Cuban diasporic experiences over the past half-century.Less

Conclusion

Karma R. Chávez

in Queer Migration Politics: Activist Rhetoric and Coalitional Possibilities

This concluding chapter returns to the question of coalition as an alternative to normative and utopian approaches, and it offers some final thoughts about the importance of queer migration politics ... More

This concluding chapter returns to the question of coalition as an alternative to normative and utopian approaches, and it offers some final thoughts about the importance of queer migration politics as a lens for thinking about politics. This activist rhetoric has provided an opportunity to view and understand the complexity and variety of coalitional moments. It has also supplied a way to witness the possibilities that coalitional moments engender for practicing and envisioning politics and making lives more livable. The chapter further remarks on the status of a rhetorical perspective for intervening in constructions of national rhetorical imaginaries that can both open and limit the possibilities for political orientations, modes of belonging, and tactical strategies.Less

Conclusion

Jonathan Rayner

in The Cinema of Michael Mann: Vice and Vindication

This chapter concludes that Michael Mann's authorship must be viewed in several chronological, industrial, and formal contexts: the post-classical context, inflected by television but still marked by ... More

This chapter concludes that Michael Mann's authorship must be viewed in several chronological, industrial, and formal contexts: the post-classical context, inflected by television but still marked by the influence of experimentation in American films of the 1960s and 1970s, in which his career begins; the brand name, commercial American auteurist cinema of the 1980s and 1990s in which Mann's signature and success became established; and the emerging digital cinema of the new millennium. His work has been central to and instrumental in the definition and success of a modern cinema of heightened technique, aimed at intense and intended manipulation of audience response, which has nonetheless striven to retain modernist credentials of style, address, and political orientation. Also, the consistency of the generic territory that his films have traversed has provided both archetypal and iconoclastic examples of classical film formulae, and has given voice to realist structures of misplaced and endlessly frustrated yearning, as well as revealed the fallibility of misplaced and misprized heroism.Less

In Science We Trust—Or Don’t We?

Kostas Kampourakis and Kevin McCain

in Uncertainty: How It Makes Science Advance

Scientists are experts in their respective domains because they have the knowledge, credentials, experience, and affirmation of their peers. They are, therefore, the experts when it comes to ... More

Scientists are experts in their respective domains because they have the knowledge, credentials, experience, and affirmation of their peers. They are, therefore, the experts when it comes to scientific matters. But individual scientists cannot know everything. Consequently, what matters is not the views of individual scientists but the collective and consensus view of the scientific community. However, the public is divided on the issue of whether to trust science and scientists. Polls in the United States show that scientists are relatively highly respected compared to other professionals, but, at the same time, about half of the people only have some trust in scientists. Worse than that, political orientation rather than science knowledge seems to have a major impact on attitudes toward science. Finally, even though there is a consensus view among scientists on topics like climate change, the public perception is that scientists are divided on such issues.Less