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Prominent theories claim that young Europeans are increasingly socialist as well as divided from their elders on non‐economic issues. This paper asks whether age‐based polarisation is really growing in Europe, using new estimates of the ideological positions of different age groups in 27 European countries across four issue domains from 1981 to 2018. The young in Europe turn out to be relatively libertarian: more socially liberal than the old in most countries but also more opposed to taxation and government spending. These age divides are not growing either: today's differences over social issues and immigration are similar in size to the 1980s, and if anything are starting to fall. Analysis of birth cohorts points to persistent cohort effects and period effects as the explanation for these patterns; there is little evidence that European cohorts become uniformly more right‐wing or left‐wing with age. Hence age‐based polarisation need not be a permanent or natural feature of European politics but is dependent on the changing social, political and economic climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Depression is the most common mental illness and its profound impact on cognition and decision‐making has implications for political judgement. However, those implications are unclear in the case of referendums offering a choice between status quo and change. On one hand, one component of depression is the kind of life dissatisfaction associated with voting for change. Yet cognitive models also portray depression sufferers as biased towards the status quo: they are less inclined to research change, more pessimistic about its benefits and more likely to exaggerate its potential costs. In this paper, we use data from Understanding Society to examine the impact of those cross‐pressures on support for Brexit. Prior to the referendum, while life dissatisfaction and generally poor health predicted support for Leaving the European Union (EU), those diagnosed with depression were disproportionately likely to support Remain. Supporting our claim that the latter was a sign of status quo bias, this difference disappeared once the result was in and leaving the EU had become the widespread expectation. The study highlights the unexplored importance of mental health for political judgements, emphasises the multidimensionality of conditions like depression and illustrates the psychological role of status quo bias in referendum voting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper contrasts two notions of the floating voter: the 'modern floating voter' and the 'frustrated floating voter'. In doing so, social modernization is contrasted with macro stimuli as explanations of volatility. The 'modern floating voter' emerges from social dealignment theories. These claim (1) an increase in volatility, (2) more frequent vote switching among the well educated and the new middle class, and (3) an instrumental view of politics among floating voters. Empirical tests on German data do not deliver any support for these dealignment hypotheses (employing log-linear models on cross-sectional and pooled-cross-sectional data and ANOVA). On the other hand, the model of the 'frustrated floating voter', which denotes vote switching that takes place in a mood of protest, receives some support in the data. Thus, the degree of political dissatisfaction of an electorate emerges as a potential predictor of volatility. In a final step, I test if the drop in political satisfaction between 1990 and 1993 can he attributed to social change, thus indicating an indirect effect of social change on volatility. The data do not support this hypothesis. The drop in satisfaction (and thus the potential increase in volatility) most likely should be attributed to macro stimuli. Thus, the results indicate that macro phenomena (which might be historic events, economic conditions, or the like) might be more fruitful in explaining volatility than social modernization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the question of whether the concept of elites is a fruitful category for the analysis of new social movements. It is proposed that mobilizations of new social movements are to be understood as dynamic interaction processes between mass constituencies and movement entrepreneurs, mediated by organizational communication networks. Taking the case of the West German peace movement, it is shown that such leadership roles can be identified as parts of the movement's internal division of labour. Furthermore, it is shown that movement entrepreneurs of the peace movement are also linked to established elite sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines changes in welfare effort from 1960 to 1980 and two intervening periods. Analysis of data on 17 OECD countries indicates that there is increasing divergence in welfare effort, as reflected in expenditure and policy orientation, although this statement masks important nuances relating to measures of welfare effort and time periods. The findings illustrate the importance of considering the elements of welfare effort. The patterns of variation in social transfer and government civil consumption expenditure differ as do the explanations of these patterns particularly those relating to the impact of working class mobilisation variables. These variables are positively and relatively strongly associated with change in consumption expenditure in both the 1960-73 and 1973-80 periods but only weakly associated with change in social transfer expenditure. This has implications for findings relating to the widely used ILO measure of welfare effort. Since it is skewed towards social transfer payments and includes only a small part of consumption expenditure, the impact of working class mobilization variables is not evident. Finally, the standardization of change in welfare effort for average annual change in real GDP results in interesting insights relating to the impact of independent variables on 'real' as opposed to nominal change in welfare effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'cyclical' effect covered in this paper deals with the development of public expenditure in West Germany in combination with the timing of elections. The underlying hypotheses on the cyclical development of certain expenditures are based on the 'New Political Economy' literature. This approach is then contrasted with the theory of budgetary incrementalism, an alternative mode of explanation of public sector growth. The data are tested to see whether a cyclical or linear model is more appropriate for describing public expenditure developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines voting preferences of Greeks during the 1981 general election. based on a public opinion survey. The sample (N = 598) includes three heterogeneous target groups (professionals, labourers and rurals) which represent a broad spectrum of the Greek society. It is hypothesized that Greece is undergoing social and political changes. These changes are measured with an empirical model constructed to employ three sets of indicators. The first set measured the degree and direction of influence on the 1981 conservative vote by objective conditions. The second set measured the degree and direction of the influence of subjective conditions on the same vote. The third set measured the degree and direction of influence of values and issues also on the same vote. The results indicate that both objective and subjective conditions were less important than values and issues. Thus, the influence of some objective factors (such as income or sex) on the conservative vote was either low or inverse. Similarly, the conservative influence of subjective factors (such as family and school) was weak. Instead, modern values and issues are becoming influential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the problems for social protection and economic growth that arise from the development of a dualistic labor force-- divided into a privileged core and a disadvantaged periphery--created by the dynamic interaction of labor supply rigidities and rapid technological growth. It concluded that reforms of labor market institutions have to be introduced in order to solve the existing problems.

In the face of the discourse about the democratic deficit and declining public support for the European Union (EU), institutionalist scholars have examined the roles of institutions in EU decision making and in particular the implications of the empowered European Parliament. Almost in isolation from this literature, prior research on public attitudes toward the EU has largely adopted utilitarian, identity and informational accounts that focus on individual‐level attributes. By combining the insights from the institutional and behavioural literature, this article reports on a novel cross‐national conjoint experiment designed to investigate multidimensionality of public attitudes by taking into account the specific roles of institutions and distinct stages in EU decision making. Analysing data from a large‐scale experimental survey in 13 EU member states, the findings demonstrate how and to what extent the institutional design of EU decision making shapes public support. In particular, the study finds a general pattern of public consensus about preferred institutional reform regarding powers of proposal, adoption and voting among European citizens in different countries, but notable dissent about sanctioning powers. The results show that utilitarian and partisan considerations matter primarily for the sanctioning dimension in which many respondents in Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark and Sweden prefer national courts to the Court of Justice of the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does the European Union integrate new values into the text of its treaties? A growing body of literature indicates that, in the past three decades, new norms and values have entered the EU's discourse, resulting in what is usually termed 'normative power Europe'. Yet the research and knowledge to-date about the EU's discursive assimilation of new values and norms is surprisingly poor. As any institutional change, such integration has the potential to undermine the coherence of the EU's identity and thus also its objective to 'speak with one voice'. This article explores the EU's discursive management of the continuity-versus-change imperative by analysing the integration of new values into the text of its treaties. This issue is addressed based on a quantitative content analysis on the full texts of European founding treaties between the 1950s and 2009. Findings show that the distribution of the EU's values in the text is not uniform: while the language of market economy and democracy is pervasive, the values of peace, European identity, rights and social justice are mentioned less frequently and in restricted linguistic environments. To account for the differences in the integration of values into the EU's treaty discourse, the article develops the notion of a discursive mechanism of differentiated value integration (MDVI). This rationale echoes the logic of differentiation in policy implementation employed by the EU. It is claimed here that, applied in the European discursive arena, MDVI allows radically different readings of the same text. This helps the EU to maintain a coherent value identity while at the same time enabling change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract. This article demonstrates that socioeconomic development, emancipative cultural change and democratization constitute a coherent syndrome of social progress – a syndrome whose common focus has not been properly specified by classical modernization theory. We specify this syndrome as ‘human development’, arguing that its three components have a common focus on broadening human choice. Socioeconomic development gives people the objective means of choice by increasing individual resources; rising emancipative values strengthen people's subjective orientation towards choice; and democratization provides legal guarantees of choice by institutionalizing freedom rights. Analysis of data from the World Values Surveys demonstrates that the linkage between individual resources, emancipative values and freedom rights is universal in its presence across nations, regions and cultural zones; that this human development syndrome is shaped by a causal effect of individual resources and emancipative values on freedom rights; and that this effect operates through its impact on elite integrity, as the factor which makes freedom rights effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the role of governments in the transition in cable policy in the three largest media countries of Europe (Britain, France and Germany). In theoretical terms it is argued that the involvement of governments in determining the course of development of cable systems has comprised three main stages. In the first stage, governments tried to ignore cable and prevent the establishment of cable infrastructure. In the second stage, governments regulated the technology in order to promote a national cable policy and encourage the overall development of the broadcasting media. In the third stage, although at different speeds and perceptions, governments deregulated cable by giving permission to market forces to dominate cable's development and abandoning the social goals of cable policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues for the importance of place and policies addressed to it in recent post-industrial political transformations. My analysis focuses on the performance of Left parties in French and German cities with universities since the 1960s. Despite similar shifts in the occupational and sectoral bases of politics in the cities of both countries, these transformations followed divergent trajectories. In Germany decentralized policymaking, physical legacies of previous urban planning, and mobilization around land use and related issues gave rise to the most solid local strongholds of the Greens. In mid-sized and smaller cities, local constraints on growth itself resulted. In France centrally led expansion, less developed local policies and less planned urban structures contributed to emergent Socialist majorities and weaker, more contingent local Green performance. In both countries the environmental concerns and consumption interests linked to spatial amenities have given a new, altered significance to the geographic determinants of politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking a political process approach to the study of social movements, we analyze the impact of the availability of direct democratic institutions on the action repertory of Swiss social movements. Comparing social movements in the German and the Latin parts of the country, we show that the availability of direct-democratic instruments induces most social movements to use them. This has a moderating impact on their action repertory. However, we have to relativize this general result in two ways. On the one hand, direct-democratic institutions are selective to the extent that they favour the mobilization of certain types of movements at the expense of others. On the other hand, very radical movements such as counter-cultural movements may refuse to rely on this type of instrument altogether. We also note that in a polity with an important direct-democratic opening, such movements have little legitimacy and are likely to be less successful than in a polity where no such opening exists at all, or where it provides only a limited access to the political system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature about 'crisis of party' or 'decline of party' abounds, but most studies in this genre refer to underlying social changes when trying to explain these phenomena. Normative reservations about political parties have thus far been widely neglected in this debate. This article argues that more attention should be given to the interaction between elite theorizing about, and mass orientations towards, political parties. Even though direct survey evidence on popular attitudes towards political parties is largely unavailable, these attitudes can be indirectly measured using several attitudinal and behavioural indicators. Based on a survey of longitudinal data for 13 Western democracies, this article shows that signs of anti-party sentiment have become more visible as we have moved into the 1980s; but that sweeping generalizations are unfounded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As European regional autonomy parties, the Scottish National Party and the Italian Lega Nord present important similarities in the way they appeal to voters. Both parties, too, have recently been favoured by very similar social and political changes. Yet, of the two parties' recent electoral advances, that of the Lega has been by far the more striking. This can be explained in terms of the relative inability of the Lega's main rival, the Democrazia Cristiana, to adapt to its challenge. The Scottish National Party's main rival, the Labour Party, is better able to adapt owing to the long-standing institutionalisation of regional conflict in Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The failure of the Green parties at recent elections in Sweden and Germany makes it necessary to consider the future of 'new politics' in each country. With reference to modern organisation theory, the goal of this article is to explain the different character of the Green parties in both countries in terms of external political resources. Above all the features of new social movements on the one hand and the different party systems on the other are of particular importance. It is argued that both factors have an impact on the cleavage structure and social change in Sweden and Germany, as well as being important for the organizational survival of Green parties in both countries. The conclusion is that 'new politics' and the Greens have a more promising future in Germany than in Sweden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the interpretations of Dutch sociologists and political scientists on the Verzorgingsstaat and pillarization Welfare State concepts in Netherlands. The term Verzorgingsstaat was invented by Dutch sociologist Piet Thoenes, wherein he defined it as a form of society characterized by a system of government care on a democratic basis. Meanwhile, Schuyt stressed that it sounds for responsible society of present Christian-Democracy and can be classified in various approaches. Likewise, Adriaansens and Zijderveld interprets Verzorgingsstaat based on cultural changes. On the other hand, the term pillarization has been regarded as the reflection of the relationships of the society and the Netherlands government and could represent the political wishes of all relevant parties.

Central to the 'new politics' is the increased salience of non-material issues and a heightened concern with participation. 'New social movements' and 'new politics' parties are contingent manifestations of this new politics, which is also manifest in changed orientations toward established political parties. In most respects, the British appear no less well-disposed toward the 'new politics' than their European neighbours. Yet Britain is distinguished by the absence of either a radical ecology movement or a successful 'new politics' party. British exceptionalism is explained by institutional arrangements which constrain the environmental movement toward integration rather than opposition, and an electoral system which polarises political competition and inhibits the development of new parties. One consequence is the preservation of the Labour Party as a beneficiary of, and vehicle for, the expression of much political dissent. As a result, in Britain the 'new politics' is to an unusual degree combined with 'old politics'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American and Swedish university and gymnasia students were examined in order to discover whether or not evidence could be found for higher levels of: a) ideological coherence, b) political interest, c) ideological variance, and d) strength of interface between political party preference and political self-concept on the one hand and socio-political attitudes on the other for Swedish citizens as compared to American citizens. The results confirmed the hypotheses in almost all cases and the results are discussed in terms of differences between the nations' political party environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the history of social science, cyclical theories have had an intrinsic fascination for the explanation of social change. Confronted with the manyfold deviations and fluctuations of social development which could not he explained by linear-evolutionary, let alone equilibrium theory, cyclical concepts claim to improve theory building. These concepts are based on the assumption that empirical deviations from a trend should not be handled as random error but can be interpreted substantially. Correspondingly the change from equilibrium to cyclical theory demarcates the changed, perception of social systems from static to dynamic stability. Therefore the newer concepts, however, no longer thematize holistic changes of a social system but componential changes within a system. This article discusses the problems arising from this changed perspective, in terms of definition and statistical assessment of cycles. Further, three groups of micro-level explanations causing cyclical development are discussed: predator-prey and saturation concepts and theories of institutional inertia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Portuguese revolution of 1974-75 produced a great outpouring of mass political activity, centred on three sites: industrial workplaces, urban neighbourhoods, and southern latifundios. In each, workers or residents organized to meet immediate needs (most often, employment security and housing). but in the favourable political conjuncture they moved beyond immediate grievances to demand far-reaching social and political changes. Small political parties of the far left attempted to interpret these demands and become their political vehicle; they failed, but achieved a surprising electoral success with the 1976 presidential campaign of Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho. Analysing the vote for him, I argue that it is best understood not (as some interpreters claim) as populist or representing Portuguese traditions of Sebastianism and the 'saviour army', but as a working-class-based expression of the demand for popular power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the responses of political parties to social change are mediated by ideology, which offers only a limited range of options. What these are, how and why they are limited, and in what ways they may account for recent political developments are the main themes of the article. They are treated in the context of a general review of the relations between ideologies, parties and change, using a modified model of the traditional Left-Right spectrum based on the concept of a ‘relative and dynamic Centre’. The resulting mode of analysis, here called ‘idealectics’, is illustrated with reference to Western and especially British experience over the last two decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of the Irish Republic since 1960 offers an interesting example of considerable societal change but little change in the political parties or party system. Despite fairly rapid urbanization, industrialization, population growth and liberalization, the political changes that have taken place are relatively minor. Party policies, roles, recruitment patterns, strengths and support bases have not changed very much. It is noted that the strongest party seems to have changed least, and it is suggested that this is because it had least need to change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]