Russian Parental Values in the international Context, 1990/1991–2017/2020

The aim of the paper is to analyze parental values in Russia and 33 other countries, and explore how they’ve changed between 1990 and 2017–2020. Russian dynamics are shown on 7 waves, international — on 2 waves. We used a combination of data from the World Values Survey and the European Values Study. We found that in 1990 the Russian value agenda in regards to children was essentially directed towards survival. By 2017–2020 certain changes had occurred: Russians no longer considered survival values to be as important (such as hard work, thrift, obedience); self-expression values (e.g., independence and imagination) became more popular; humanistic values lost much of their importance for Russians. In 33 countries humanistic values remained as popular as in 1990, while survival values seem to be less important. Russian parental values change in the same direction as do Russian personal values.

What are the factors of tax evasion? New findings in the EVS Study

This paper is analyzing tax morale in three selected European countries through the evaluation of the results of the European Values Study. The main aim is to identify the factors that influence taxpayers’ decisions on the issue of whether they justify cheating on tax or not. The dependence and effect of selected factors were determined by analyzing data from the latest European Values Study (2019). The analysis revealed that not only demographic factors (gender, age), but also other socio-economic and institutional factors (religion, willingness to defend the home country, being a proud citizen, trust in government and respect for authorities) have a significant impact on taxpayers’ justification of cheating on taxes. This research is specifically focused on the Czech Republic, Poland and Spain.

A comparative analysis of changes in anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim attitudes in Europe: 1990–2017

Muslims and immigrants have both been subjected to negative attitudes over the past several decades in Europe. Using data from the European Values Study, this study analyses the changes in these attitudes in the period 1990–2017. We find that negative attitudes have been increasing on average in Europe as a whole, with anti-Muslim attitudes being more prevalent than anti-immigrant attitudes. However, when split into a Western European set and an Eastern European set, from 2008, there is a divergence between the two halves. Our findings reveal that negative attitudes towards Muslims and immigrants have decreased in Western Europe, whereas they have increased significantly in Eastern Europe. Further analyses find that there are large discrepancies between anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant attitudes in different countries. These discrepancies are discussed in detail and related to several relevant factors, such as the differences in size of the Muslim and immigrant populations, variations in the refugee influx and other possible factors and developments.

Traditional Gender Attitudes, Nativism, and Support for the Radical Right

Using data from the 2017 European Values Study, I analyze the link between harboring traditional gender attitudes and supporting radical right-wing parties. I theorize that the intrinsically gendered elements of the radical right's platforms and rhetoric, which mirror traditional masculinity and femininity in both explicit and implicit ways, make the ideology a comfortable home for individuals who hold traditional gender attitudes. My analyses reveal that gender traditionalists are more likely than egalitarians to express support for the radical right, even after controlling for a host of existing explanations. The same impact is not replicated for mainstream conservative parties. In addition, holding more gender-traditional attitudes raises the probability of supporting the radical right among both nativists and non-nativists. These findings provide important evidence that gender attitudes seemingly constitute a significant pathway to support for the radical right across Europe.

The Organization of Political Belief Networks: A Cross-Country Analysis

Studies on mass opinion conceptualize political ideology as an interrelated network of attitudes, beliefs and values. Drawing from the emerging literature on belief network analysis, I formalize this conceptualization to investigate different ways of organizing political ideologies among 76 countries. Using the joint dataset of European Values Study and World Values Survey collected between 2017 and 2020, I construct networks of belief correlations and examine the variations in the organization of political beliefs in the cross-national context. Consistent with the theories of social constraint, I find that in countries with high institutionalization of political parties, the organization of political beliefs is more likely to be dense and consolidated. These patterns are robust to a variety of predictors between-countries, and the results are not sensitive to sampling variability, variable selection, or item properties.

Do political or ethnic and historical borders affect values and beliefs more? Some evidence from Central Europe

The paper uses data from the World Values Survey and the European Values Study on individuals in Hungary and its neighbouring countries to examine the effects of political borders on different beliefs, as opposed to that of ethnic differences or historical borders. The focus on Hungary and its neighbours is explained by the fact that parts of the Hungarian ethno-linguistic community can be found in all these countries, which makes it possible to separate the effect of culture from that of the current political community. By applying a cultural gravity model which is concerned with the differences in beliefs between all possible pairs of individuals in the sample, the paper finds that out of five areas of beliefs, it is the beliefs regarding work, markets, and democracy whose differences are robustly affected by political borders, giving some support to the approach which argues that values are shaped through the dialogue occurring within a political community.*

Religious and conspiracist? An analysis of the relationship between the dimensions of individual religiosity and belief in a big pharma conspiracy theory

In the increasing scholars' attention to factors associated with conspiracy beliefs, religiosity has been under-investigated, at least in empirical research. This study aims to address the issue by analysing to what extent and in which forms individual religiosity is associated with conspiracy beliefs. Religion and conspiracy theories could show both similarities and dissimilarities. First, as alternative religiosity and conspiracy theories tend to spread knowledge stigmatized by the authorities, we expect that alternative religious beliefs are positively associated with conspiracy beliefs. Second, as religion and conspiracy theories explain events with the agency of invisible forces and detect patterns in nature, also conventional religious beliefs are supposed to be positively associated with conspiracy beliefs. Third, church attendance is hypothesized to discourage conspiracy beliefs, as exposure to religious authorities could deter the adhesion to unofficial narratives. By employing data coming from the Italian joint edition of the European Values Study–World Values Survey 2018, the paper tests the hypotheses by analysing the association between the multiple dimensions of individual religiosity and belief in a conspiracy theory on pharmaceutical companies. Results show that, after controlling for confidence in political and religious institutions and attitudes towards science, only alternative religious beliefs, here measured by belief in the reincarnation, are positively associated with belief in the big pharma conspiracy theory. Empirical evidence suggests taking caution when looking at similarities between conventional religiosity and conspiracy beliefs.

The common-is-moral association is stronger among less religious people

Questionable behaviours that are perceived as more common also tend to be judged as more morally justified. Here we explore this phenomenon in survey data from 31 countries in the European Values Study, allowing us to examine the universality of the common-is-moral association. More than 35,000 participants rated eight questionable behaviours (e.g., cheating on taxes, having casual sex) on how frequent they are and how justified they are. We estimated common-is-moral associations both across individuals for each behaviour and across behaviours within each individual; in both cases, the association tended to be positive. We further examined the hypothesis that the common-is-moral association would be stronger among less religious people, who are less likely to adopt their moral judgements from religious authorities and therefore should be more susceptible to the heuristic of using the perceived commonness of a behaviour as a guide to how it should be morally judged. Indeed, we found the common-is-moral association to be somewhat stronger among less religious people, whether the association was estimated across individuals or within individuals. We discuss alternative explanations, implications and directions for future research.