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This paper questions the introduction, in the mid-1990s, of the concept of European identity for the analysis of citizens' attitudes towards European integration. It argues that this notion was imported from social psychology without appropriate theoretical adaptation to the political democratic nature of the social group that a European polity would be. As a consequence, the current notion of European identity does not contribute very much to an understanding of the long-standing national and social differences of citizens' attitude towards the EU. The paper argues that for the time being, the identification process with a work-in-progress European polity should be conceived following three principles: First, European identity refers to a democratic community, that is, a special kind of social group whose vocation is self government. Thus, the link between citizens matters as much as differentiation with the others. Second, European identity is very definitively a work in progress. Lastly, it is developing in industrial societies, characterised by growing individualism but also remaining strong national identities. Building on Tilly's concept of identity and major works on national identity, this paper suggests a concept of identification with Europe that acknowledges the complexity of competitive processes at stake in identity change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many previous theoretical analyses of multiparty coalition behaviour have been based either on one-dimensional policy model or on a constantsum game interpretation. For theoretical and empirical reasons this paper focusses on a competitive two-dimensional model. In this model parties are concerned with policy outcomes but choose party positions both with a view to electoral consequences and as a basis for coalition bargaining. The political heart is proposed as the set of possible coalition outcomes. The heart is either the core of the political game or is determined by a small number of party positions. Under certain conditions an equilibrium in the choice of party positions can be shown to exist. The model suggests that parties can be categorized as either strong or weak core parties, anti-core parties or peripheral parties. This categorization of parties implies a typology of party systems, which gives some theoretical foundation for the occurrence of minority, minimal winning and surplus coalitions in many of the European countries in the postwar period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent analyses have demonstrated that personality affects political behavior. According to the mediation hypothesis, the effect of personality on political participation is mediated by classical predictors, such as political interest, internal efficacy, political discussion, or the sense that voting is a civic duty. This paper outlines various paths that link personality traits to two participatory activities: voter turnout in European Parliament elections and participation in protest actions. The hypotheses are tested with data from a large, nationally representative, face-to-face survey of the Spanish population conducted before and after the 2009 European Parliament elections using log-linear path models that are well suited to study indirect relationships. The results clearly confirm that the effects of personality traits on voter turnout and protest participation are sizeable but indirect. They are mediated by attitudinal predictors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2005, Moldova's Communist Party was re-elected to power on a platform that promised unification with the European Union, reversing the position officially held since 2001 which oriented the country toward Russia. The Party's new orientation also sparked widespread debate, especially within intellectual circles, as many individuals found themselves in the strange position of being ideologically anti-Communist and pro-European, at a moment when Communists themselves had become pro-European. This paper aims to capture the use of 'Europe' in the social and political negotiations of culture workers, whose professional identity includes a strong element of political opposition, and to explore how the increased proximity and power of the European Union to Moldova has caused the social and political geography of 'Europe' to shift within Moldova. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With Inglehart's work on values and European identity as a starting point, and based on a representative survey of 18- to 24-year-olds from 10 cities in six European countries (Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Slovakia, Spain, and the United Kingdom), the present paper analyses the meaning and relative importance of identification with Europe in comparison with other identification objects. Analyses of covariance and cluster analyses reveal that geo-political entities (like Europe, one's home country, one's region of residence, or one's birthplace) all draw similar ratings as to their importance for one's identity, and that this importance is low to at most medium high, with friends, partners, family, job and educational attainment of a much higher importance. In spite of the fact that the importance ratings for identification with geo-political entities are positively correlated with each other, they predict ethno-centrism differentially, identification with one's country being a positive, identification with Europe being a negative predictor of ethno-centrism (as revealed by multiple regression analyses). This finding leads the authors to theorize that on the Inglehartian continuum from survival values to self-expression values, national and European identity have dual meanings as expressions of value orientations, national identity overlapping in meaning with survival values, but also with European identity, and European identity overlapping in meaning with self-expression values, but also with national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper looks at young people's sense of being European in a number of European regions: Madrid and Bilbao, Vienna and Vorarlberg, Manchester and Edinburgh, Chemnitz and Bielefeld, Prague and Bratislava. We considered the ways in which 'exposure' to Europe through travel and speaking languages as well as cognitive mobilisation through discussing politics made young people aged 18-24 more European. However, the most important factor in differentiating ideas of Europe was the region itself with people in Central European regions (Austria, Germany, Czech and Slovak Republics) having much stronger European identification than those in peripheral regions (Spain and the UK). These ideas are explored using both quantitative and qualitative data from the regions and the explanations advanced are framed in terms of a theory of 'entitativity' or people's identification with something beyond themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While support for redistribution remains high across Europe, voting for left-wing parties, traditionally identified with this agenda, has been under par. Past research explains this puzzle by class-based disagreements about redistributive priorities and by second-dimension attitudes. These explanations, however, assume coherent voter preferences reacting to structural changes. By contrast, I argue that part of the puzzle also lies in attitudinal ambivalence—simultaneous negative and positive evaluations—regarding redistributive policy. Using cross-sectional public opinion and party position data, I find that such ambivalence increases with lower political sophistication, greater value conflict, and weaker economic need. Electorally, it deepens detachment between support for redistribution and left-wing self-identification and increases voting for more economically and culturally right-wing parties. These patterns hold independently of class differences and second-dimension attitudes and replicate stably in earlier data. The findings contribute to ongoing debates about attitude structures and voting patterns and illuminate an additional challenge for economically progressive parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the political sociology in Eastern Europe. The term sociology is a newcomer in the official nomenclature of social sciences in most East European countries. Sociology had been left out from the program of social studies, it was not because of any real scientific reasons, but because its name was objected, the present renaissance of sociology in these countries is related to the political changes which have taken place during the last decade; in fact, it is evidence of new political tendencies. Hence the importance of following the changing approach to political phenomena in the theoretical sociological publications in socialist countries. The period between 1957 and 1963, covered by the appended bibliography and referred to in the present paper, provides ample material on the subject. In this sense, the place of political sociology among sociological disciplines is essentially different from that of other branches of detailed sociology. The latter are concerned with some isolated fields of social life, while political sociology investigates social phenomena from the angle of their political aspect, the aspect of power. Hence, if there is any justification for regarding political sociology as a separate discipline, it is on the grounds of the difference in theoretical approach rather than the difference in the subject of study.

An introduction is presented to the articles published in this issue.

The roles of authoritarianism, social dominance orientation (SDO), and prejudice in the prediction of far‐right support were examined in Europe and the United States. A meta‐analysis shows remarkably similar, positive, and strong associations of far‐right support with these three variables in previous studies conducted in Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Results from two cross‐sectional studies in the United States further indicated that higher levels of authoritarianism and SDO related to higher voting intentions and support for Trump, via increased prejudice. In a three‐wave longitudinal study in the United Kingdom, authoritarianism and SDO predicted pro‐Brexit attitudes and support for the U.K. Independence Party, again via prejudice. These results shed a new light on the widely held beliefs in "American and British exceptionalism," as Trump and Brexit adherents share the same social‐psychological underpinnings as far‐right supporters observed in several European countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although past research has found that news exposure correlates with strong partisanship, insights are based on single-country studies. Other studies have shown that cross-national variations in news systems correlate with turnout, but have not explored partisanship. The current study fills this gap by testing the strength of the relationship between news exposure and partisanship cross-nationally. We argue that the greater the political parallelism in news systems, the stronger the correlation between news exposure and partisanship and the smaller the gaps in partisanship between those most and least educated. Multivariate analyses of the cross-national European Social Survey find empirical support for both hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Party finance reformers often call for European parties to increase their financial reliance on small donors, but researchers have made few efforts to establish the feasibility of such strategies. This study examines partisan giving in Europe, investigating the potential for parties and policymakers to increase this type of political participation. It also asks whether there are national-level factors that make such efforts more likely to succeed in some countries. The research uses data from the European Social Survey to examine patterns of contributions to political parties in 16 European countries. It finds that the strength of partisanship predicts political giving independent of party membership, which suggests that European political parties may have some scope to increase their number of individual donors. On the other hand, existing tax policies to encourage political giving do not seem to be effective in increasing this type of partisan political participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the hypothesis that media-driven political interest shapes party identification, the timing of vote decisions, and electoral participation. To estimate the effect of media-driven political interest, we make a key distinction between political interest as a lifetime political orientation and political interest that rises and falls with the occurrence of noteworthy political events. We then exploit the shared media markets in Switzerland and its neighboring countries to overcome the otherwise crippling endogeneity problem and identify exogenous increases in Swiss citizens' self-reported political interest caused by the coverage of national elections in France, Germany, and Italy. We find that media-driven political interest increases the length of time individuals use to make their vote decisions, decreases partisanship, and increases self-reported and actual turnout. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most research on European identity in political science and sociology either applies a theoretical and/or normative framework or concentrates on the magnitude of identification. This study goes beyond this by exploring the socio-structural conditions of European identity. Instead of bluntly asking how many identify with Europe, we look at social stratification as a potential cause of identification with Europe. Using Eurobarometer data from more than 30 countries, we report considerable differences in identification with Europe according to almost every social divide. Characteristics such as gender, age, education, area of living and social class play important roles in this respect. Our research further shows different divides in European identity across different European countries. This emphasizes that in order to better understand European identity in the future we should examine its background rather than the magnitude and allocate resources to the cross-national study of European identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the effect of public opinion, ideology, and political security on state decision-making on economic integration within the European Union (EU). Although leaders may have objective preferences based on projected economic effects and party ideology, they often face domestic constituencies with different views on increasing European interdependence. I argue that leaders with higher political security are able to discount adverse public opinion and to pursue their own preferences. Where leaders feel their political life may be in jeopardy, they stake out positions closer to prevailing public opinion. I test this hypothesis using a series of ordered probit models, and I conclude that even modest gains in political security dramatically increase the likelihood of a leader pushing strongly for economic integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dual enlargements of the EU and NATO have been widely proclaimed as the end of one era and the beginning of a new one. This 'endism' has been visible, for example, in the debate on the future of the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS). According to this line of thinking, the CBSS should be strengthened, provided with proper think-tank functions and furnished with sufficient powers to take decisions in matters crucial for the future of the region. Instead of undermining its position, it should be overhauled and provided with increased competence. So, in which direction do proclamations of 'endism', change and transformation point, and can shifts even be identified in the first place? In other words, are the constitutive debates still firmly anchored in the past? Or is there a breach discernible in the sense that the key regional agendas are now increasingly dominated by a new set of issues, such as of assuring oneself a prominent position within the Europe that is now unfolding? The prevailing pattern appears, in general, to be rather mixed. On the one hand there are clear shifts to be traced, especially in that questions of the 'future' and of how to adapt to the post-enlargement situation are becoming increasingly important.

First introduced as an image for propaganda, the concept of a 'Common European Home' became in 1986 part of Gorbachevian New Thinking and eventually came to represent a new diplomatic architecture for Europe. Beyond this diplomatic dimension, it also involved the Utopia of a new European civilization, which triggered a vivid debate in Russian society, inducing elites and opinion to reflect on their identity. On the diplomatic scene however, except for the 1987 and 1990 agreements, it brought no concrete accomplishments -- Mitterrand's project of confederation failed- illustrating the difficulty for West and Central Europeans in sharing a vision of a common future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the boundaries of clothing and the body in constructions of political identity in French colonial Louisiana. The study situates constructions of political identity among regulatory demands over the bodies of colonial subjects and the practices of taste and social distinction. It is argued that dress allowed colonial subjects to move into political spaces usually occupied by European colonizers. Archaeological, ethnohistoric, and visual data are used to investigate how French colonizers attempted to construct a body politic by regulating dress and the bodies of colonial subjects, while colonial ‘others’ attempted to constitute themselves as political bodies through self-fashioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses methods of teaching propaganda and the science of democracy. Most popular of the methods toward this end is a series of classroom lessons and assignments usually called "propaganda analysis." What are the actual effects of these lessons on the student? Do the methods of teaching propaganda analysis promote, for example, a vigorous faith in the values and ultimate triumph of democratic practice? Or do they, as critics often complain, simply promote an attitude of generalized cynicism, a feeling that one can't trust any newspaper, any radio commentator, any political speaker? Students at first become tremendously interested in the sportive side of launching an attack on "propaganda devices." Their enthusiasm is often reminiscent of bull-fighters, throwing the bull. After this first excitement, they tend to become morally indignant, at least in most cases, about the sheer quantity of fraud and misleading utterance to which they have been exposed all their lives, especially in paid advertising and in political speeches. At this point they have a tendency to espouse some program or other of violent censorship and even suppression of those who issue "anti-social" propaganda.

The article presents news related to public opinion research as of September 1, 1948. The Third International Conference on Public Opinion Research was held at Eagles Mere, Pennsylvania, September 12-15, under the joint sponsorship of the American Association for Public Opinion Research and the World Congress on Public Opinion Research. Meeting in Amsterdam, September 15-17, public opinion researchers from seven European countries formed the European Society for Public Opinion and Market Research The functions of this organization are - to represent European researchers using field surveys, to indicate standards which seem desirable, to exchange experience and information, to further the interests of public opinion and market research and of researchers, and to meet periodically. More and more people have become concerned with public opinion research in recent years, and the number of areas of specialization within the field has increased enormously. The journal, Public Opinion Quarterly's subscription list is divided into four approximately equal parts- one-fourth libraries as well as public and educational collections, one-fourth academic people, one-fourth businessmen and commercial enterprises and the rest journalists, foundations, governmental agencies, and unclassifiables.