The Relation Between Moral Attitudes and Political Identity

This study investigates how moral values structure the left/right identification of citizens. Specifically, this chapter reconnoitres how moral attitudes relate to the political fringes on both sides compared to economic attitudes. Using pooled data drawn from the World Value Survey (WVS) and the European Value Survey (EVS), this chapter calculates point-biseral correlation coefficients for 12 European countries at different points in time (1982-2014). The findings indicate that (1) both cultural and economic aspects determine mass political identification, (2) the significance of cultural aspects seems higher in traditional countries, (3) all influences remain largely stable over time. In addition, (4) this chapter identifies an unexpected pattern: while the economic dimension structures the political realm quite evenly, moral orientations seem to be divided into the ‘moral universalists' on the left pole and the ‘moral conservatives', who consider themselves as either moderate or rightist.

Ethical Implications of Identity Politics for Good Governance in 21st Century Nigeria

Contemporary empirical studies on identity question and political identity reveal that numerous political challenges revolve around the questions of identity. Identity thesis engenders a landscape of tremendous diversity and variation, which poses political problems when there is too much or too little of it. It manifests itself when there is a shift towards cultural diversity, largely due to upswing in migration and globalization. Given the multi-ethnic configuration of Nigeria characterized by heightened identity politics, a scenario of acute crisis of identity is inexorable. This study, therefore, examines why societies are today increasingly characterized by ethnic, racial, and religious diversity, which creates room for various forms of identity. Drawing upon extensive contemporary research and literature on diversity and identity politics, the study adopts qualitative descriptive methodology with content analysis curvature. Findings reveal that Nigerian political behavior, socio-economic relationship, and governance are driven by identity politics and ethnic solidarity.

Habermas and the New Populisms

Habermas is widely criticized for adumbrating an essentialist, deliberative, and consensual approach to democracy that neglects the significance and importance of contingency, conflict, and emotions in the struggle for hegemony and collective identification. However, his conception of system and lifeworld raise the claim that no society could exist without providing for a minimal degree of political cooperation between professional actors in the political system and spontaneously acting laypeople in the social lifeworld. Contingency, conflict, and emotions are obviously at play in this political conception of how to ground system and lifeworld in mutual relations of power, knowledge, trust, and respect. The goal is not to reach a stable consensus or succumb to conflict and chaos but to avoid that system becomes uncoupled from lifeworld, thus undermining the reciprocal connection between political authorities and laypeople required to make and implement authoritative decisions which are ‘for', ‘of', ‘with', and ‘by' ‘the people'.

Political Identity, Democratic Empowerment, and Political Learning

The political commotion of the world is rising anew. Political challenges and political turmoil unfold side by side, and at the fore of many current political struggles stands the notion of “political identity.” Identity is a key asset in citizens' orientations toward political issues, their selection of information, and not least their political participation at large. The character of political challenges and struggles suggests that we need a revitalized and more comprehensive conceptual framework and operationalization of political identity. Political identity plays a role in most political activity, and the authors engage in elaborating the concept. The discussion presents the notion of political learning in order to bridge the complex and vigorous relations between on the one side political orientations and awareness and on the other side current manifestations of democratic political identities.

Science as a Political Battlefield

This chapter will examine the role of science and factual knowledge in public policymaking in the digital era. The chapter will address why certain scientific issues trigger political controversy and cultural polarization and what psychological mechanisms fuel political tribalism, ideological group thinking, and the rejection of facts and science in collective political decision-making. Furthermore, the digital revolution and its capability of fueling disinformation and false narratives will also be analyzed. According to the main argument, the rejection of science on particular issues is not due to public ignorance, the lack of education, or scientific illiteracy. The emergence of “post-truth politics” and the erosion of science in collective decision-making is largely caused by rising political partisanship, cultural group thinking, motivated reasoning, and identity-protective cognition.

The Repertoire of Unconventional Participation

It is common to describe political identity using surveys that address cultural values. The construction of indicators by mixing answers to a set of questions then becomes a relevant method when taking a behavioral approach. Scholars such as Ronald Inglehart or Pippa Norris have been engaged in longitudinal studies using two important series of surveys; World Values Survey and European Social Survey Aggregate data enabled them to perceive strong trends in different societies in the world, which is why they linked the evolution of political identity with the shift of cultural values in western societies towards post-materialistic post-1970s. This finding might explain why citizens cared more about issues such as environmental protection, quality of life, and personal and cultural development instead of simply economic security, growth, and stability of power relations. The present study analyzes the repertoire of unconventional participation of European citizens with the data from European Social Survey.

Young People as Transformative Citizens Fighting Climate Change

The government of Indonesia has launched environmental policies to address the risks of climate change at the national to local levels and involves all elements of development: economy and business, education, environment and forestry, and transportation. In fact, behavioral change is seen as unsustainable, particularly in people's everyday lives. As this problem emerges, Indonesian young people through youth-led environmental organizations hold environmental activities to alternatively introduce and educate communities and schools to recognize and identity climate change impacts. The author then presents two successful youth organizations: Greenpeace Youth Indonesia (GYI) and the Indonesian Students Climate Forum (ICSF). GYI's actions are more stirred with Greenpeace's ideology, which focuses on direct campaigns, protest, and young activist mobilization, while ICSF's repertoires for mitigating climate changes are more community schools-based educational outreach. Although both of them are distinct in nature, their works have been transformative and applicable.

Citizen Mobilization and the “Right to Decide” Movement in Catalonia (2010-2014)

For the purposes of this chapter, it is interesting to analyse the arguments that justify the secessionist cause in Catalonia and, in particular, whether this bottom-up social demand falls within the scope of the democratically admissible. Similarly, it is important to determine how the Catalan people's ‘taking to the streets' represents a concrete political response with which in some form the will of the Catalan people has conditioned and even precipitated the political agenda of the current government. What has happened in Catalonia highlights the new—and prevailing—role played by civil society in public affairs. Within this framework, new questions arise regarding the counterpower exercised by citizens through massive, peaceful, and recurrent social mobilizations, which can, as a whole, be considered a spontaneous manifestation of participatory democracy.

Political Identity in a Postcolony

This chapter examines contemporary constructions of citizenship identities in Ghana. Citizenship in former colonies could be conceptualised as structurally and substantively different from Western forms due to the articulation of pre-existing and European modes of political organisations and belongings. National citizenship was supposed to redirect all subnational allegiances to the state, but scholars argue that this does not always happen. In former colonies such as Ghana, the tension between ethnic and national identities are believed to be especially intense. In this chapter, the author argues that the popular dichotomy between ethnic and national identities is an elusive one. It fails to capture the ways in which citizens actually think of themselves as members of various political communities. This failure stems from the practice of unproblematically applying an ideal-typical conceptual dichotomy to the messiness realities of the social world.

Social Studies Education From the Socialisation, Qualification, and Subjectification Perspectives

In most countries, social studies education is the assigned subject responsible for citizenship education, that is, developing students' attitudes, experiences, knowledge, abilities, and the skills that they need to be active participants in a democratic society. The role of social studies can be defined using Gert Biesta's three concepts of the domains of education: socialisation, qualification, and subjectification. First, schools have a role in socialising students into society, passing on values and knowledge. Second, the school system should contribute to students' qualification as citizens by helping them enhance their civic and critical literacy. Third, education should equip students with the necessary skills to allow them to develop their own political identity. Each of these domains gives rise to challenging questions related to educational outcomes. This chapter theoretically examines how Biesta's educational domains relate to social studies education in a synthetic understanding.