The Persistence of Political Orientations: An Over-Time Analysis of Two Generations

1978 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-363 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Kent Jennings ◽  
Richard G. Niemi

In this article we take advantage of a two-wave panel study of two biologically-linked generations in order to examine some prevalent conceptions about the persistence of political orientations. The nature of the study design, outlined below, is particularly suited to addressing questions about individual-level continuities as they are affected by life-cycle, generational and historical processes. Our present discussion is geared to the individual level rather than to the aggregate level of continuity and change. Although many of the terms used are the same, and although it is difficult to discuss the one level without recourse to the other, the purposes and the approaches are fundamentally different. Aggregate analysis concerns itself with net movements and with the directionality of these movements. Individual analysis, as used here, concerns itself with the magnitudes of individual-level movements and has only a secondary interest in the direction of these movements.

1975 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 1316-1335 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Kent Jennings ◽  
Richard G. Niemi

This paper utilizes a national panel study of two biologically linked generations to study political change and continuity between 1965 and 1973. Four basic processes and combinations thereof are posited: absolute continuity, generational effects, life-cycle effects, and period effects. Data at the aggregate level give strong support for each type of change and continuity progression, depending upon the substantive political orientation examined. There are also strong traces of hybrid effects, especially the combination of period and life-cycle processes acting to propel the younger generation at a faster clip than the older. Over the eight-year span the absolute cleavage between the generations tended to decline, the major exception occurring with respect to specific issues and partisanship. The anomaly of this strain toward convergence in the light of the generation gap controversy is discussed.


1997 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 179-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerard H. Maassen ◽  
Jos L. van der Linden ◽  
Wies Akkermans

In 1944, U. Bronfenbrenner remarked on the need for a two-dimensional model of sociometric status. The low value of the correlation between the variables liking and disliking-assumed basic dimensions of sociometric status-is often cited as evidence for the correctness of Bronfenbrenner’ssuggestion. Sociometric status is derived from a coalescence of judgements at the individual level. In this article we argue that score attribution at this level (where one group member assesses another) is one-dimensional along the liking-disliking continuum. Two-dimensionality of sociometric status arises at the group level. However, we also show that at this level liking and disliking are not two distinct dimensions, but the poles of just one, the other being visibility (or impact). If the one-dimensional model of liking score attribution on the individual level is accepted, the obvious thing to do is to instruct respondents accordingly. Rating scales are suitable for this. The rating-scale methods we suggested in previous publications (e.g. Maassen, Akkermans, & van der Linden, 1996) are in keeping with this argument. Moreover, these methods may be recommended for their reliability, validity and for the variety of research designs to which they can be applied.


1984 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 1000-1018 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Kent Jennings ◽  
Gregory B. Markus

The present study examines the dynamics of partisanship and voting behavior by utilizing national survey panel data gathered in 1965, 1973, and 1982 from two strategically situated generations—members of the high school senior class of 1965 and their parents. At the aggregate level, generational effects appeared in the persistently weaker partisan attachments of the younger generation. At the individual level, strong effects based on experience and habituation appeared in the remarkable gains occurring in the stability of partisan and other orientations among the young as they aged from their mid-20s to their mid-30s. Dynamic modeling of the relationship between partisanship and voting choice demonstrated that the younger voters had stabilized at an overall weaker level of partisanship, leading to more volatile voting behavior which, in turn, failed to provide the consistent reinforcement needed to intensify preexisting partisan leanings.


Africa ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzette Heald

AbstractThe literature has tended to deal with diviners only where they have been seen to play a notable role in the transformation of social relationships. This leads us to overlook their relative social invisibility in many African societies. Yet we may gain insight into the rise of prophets and charismatic healers by looking at the other side of this story in the multitude of very humble practitioners plying their trade. This is the context in which this article explores the role of diviners among the Gisu of Uganda.The privacy of consultation, the search for distant diviners, the way they are approached only at times of crisis and as agents of private counteraction or vengeance, go some way towards explaining why it is difficult for diviners to gain recognition. Added to which are the difficulties of another order which relate to what might here be regarded as divinatory success. For divination may be seen to fail at a number of different levels: in the lack of credibility of a given practitioner, i n a lack of unanimity among those consulted and in the multiplicity of causal agents evoked.An argument put forward here is that scepticism is endemic to the system and, possibly, distinctive to it. We should ask not, as Evans-Pritchard did, how belief i s sustained despite the presence of scepticism but what it is about these beliefs which encourages scepticism. It is not useful to explore this issue in terms of the rationality question or the ‘truth’ of belief systems. If we are to draw a comparison with modern attitudes, of greater significance are the organisation and differentiation of knowledge and its relationship to power. It is suggested that diagnostic systems used by societies such as the Gisu encourage an agnostic attitude in a way i n which those of the modern West do not.In the final part of the article the social role of divination is reconsidered and some of the positive functions proposed for it are questioned. Gisu divination can be seen to have evolved into a very narrow niche whose parameters are bound, on the one hand, by the limits of belief and, on the other, by a system of interpersonal vengeance. We may say that the socially marginal attributes of diviners, exclusively concerned with the negative aspects of social relationships, represent a real social marginality. At best they are agents by which the individual may be reconciled with harshnesses imposed by his own destiny, of ancestral affliction; at worst they are agents of individual vengeance and retribution. This may be taken as more or less disqualifying them from articulating a positive, future-oriented vision on behalf of the community. Clearly it is not impossible but it is a huge jump from these humble practitioners, interpreting the present in terms of the past and trading evil with evil at an individual level, to prophets capable of formulating a positive social vision, a means forward, on behalf of a wider moral or social community.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen N. Breidahl ◽  
Nils Holtug ◽  
Kristian Kongshøj

Social scientists and political theorists often claim that shared values are conducive to social cohesion, and trust and solidarity in particular. Furthermore, this idea is at the heart of what has been labeled the ‘national identity argument’, according to which religious and/or cultural diversity is a threat to the shared (national) values underpinning social cohesion and redistributive justice. However, there is no consensus among political theorists about what values we need to share to foster social cohesion and indeed, for example, nationalists, liberals, and multiculturalists provide different answers to this question. On the basis of a survey conducted in Denmark in 2014, this study empirically investigates the relation between, on the one hand, commitments to the community values of respectively conservative nationalism, liberal nationalism, liberal citizenship, and multiculturalism, and on the other, trust and solidarity. First, we investigate in what ways commitments to these four sets of values are correlated to trust and solidarity at the individual level and, then, whether the belief that others share one’s values is correlated to these aspects of social cohesion for individuals committed to these four sets of values. We find that conservative and liberal nationalism are negatively correlated to our different measures of trust and solidarity, whereas liberal citizenship and (in particular) multiculturalism are positively correlated. In broad terms, this picture remains when we control for a number of socio-economic factors and ideology (on a left-right scale). Finally, individuals who believe that others share their values do not, in general, have higher levels of trust and solidarity. Rather, this belief works in different ways when associated with different sets of community values.


2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 1843-1880 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Frimmel ◽  
Martin Halla ◽  
Jörg Paetzold

Abstract Does tax evasion run in the family? To answer this question, we study the case of the commuter tax allowance in Austria. This allowance is designed as a step function of the distance between the residence and the workplace, creating sharp discontinuities at each bracket threshold. It turns out that the distance to the next higher bracket is a strong determinant of compliance. The match of different administrative data sources allows us to observe actual compliance behavior with little error at the individual level across two generations. To identify the intergenerational causal effect in tax evasion behavior, we use the paternal distance to next higher bracket as an instrumental variable for paternal compliance. We find that paternal noncompliance increases children’s noncompliance by about 23%.


2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-93
Author(s):  
Domingos Faria ◽  

Beliefs are commonly attributed to groups or collective entities. But what is the nature of group belief? Summativism and nonsummativism are two main rival views regarding the nature of group belief. On the one hand, summativism holds that, necessarily, a group g has a belief B only if at least one individual i is both a member of g and has B. On the other hand, non-summativism holds that it is possible for a group g to have a belief B even if no member of g has B. My aim in this paper is to consider whether divergence arguments for non-summativism and against summativism about group belief are sound. Such divergence arguments aim to show that there can be a divergence between belief at the group level and the corresponding belief at the individual level. I will argue that these divergence arguments do not decisively defeat a minimal version of summativism. In order to accomplish this goal, I have the following plan: In section 2, I will analyze the structure of two important counterexamples against the summativist view, which are based on divergence arguments. Such counterexamples are based on the idea that a group decides to adopt a particular group belief, even if none of its members holds the belief in question. However, in section 3, I will show that these counterexamples fail, because they can be explained without the need to posit group beliefs. More specifically, I argue that in these apparent counterexamples, we have only a ‘group acceptance’ phenomenon and not a ‘group belief’ phenomenon. For this conclusion, I advance two arguments: in subsection 3.1, I formulate an argument from doxastic involuntarism, and in subsection 3.2, I develop an argument from truth connection. Thus, summativism is not defeated by divergence arguments. Lastly, in section 4, I will conclude with some advantages of summativism.


2019 ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piotr Zagórski ◽  
Jose Rama ◽  
Guillermo Cordero

AbstractThe recent success of right-wing populist parties (RPPs) in Europe has given rise to different explanations. Economic factors have proven to be significant mainly at the aggregate level. As for the individual level, it has been argued that the so-called ‘losers of globalization’ – the less educated and less skilled, profiles with higher job insecurity – are more likely to support RPPs. Nevertheless, RPPs perform strikingly well in countries less affected by the Great Recession, gathering high levels of support among profiles not considered the losers of globalization. Moreover, the effect of age on support for RPPs is not clear, as, on the one hand, the young are better educated and skilled, but, on the other, they suffered the effects of the economic crisis more. To address this puzzle, we focus on the impact of unemployment and employment insecurity among the youth on voting for RPPs in 17 European countries. We find that youth support for RPPs can be explained by the precariousness of the youth labour market.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (13) ◽  
pp. 3506 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alina-Mihaela Dima ◽  
Claudia-Elena Țuclea ◽  
Diana-Maria Vrânceanu ◽  
Gabriela Țigu

This research aims to evaluate the individual and social implications of telework, along with the foreseeable permanent result that could be generated. Consistent with this objective, a survey has been carried out on a sample of 1180 Romanian employees, on which a model has been developed, based on structural equation modelling. The model includes five latent variables, on the one hand targeting telework features and on the other hand, its possible effects on individuals and society. At an individual level, the study results emphasize that telework could contribute to a better work–life balance and could also help teleworkers to develop specific teleworking abilities. At a social level, telework could generate sustainable effects targeting the long-term management of the work force and providing solutions to potential problems at local community levels. The managerial implications of this study are directed toward the need to implement a series of sustainable human resource management strategies and efficient employee training and development programs. Moreover, organizations need to be more proactive in assuming corporate social responsibilities.


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