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In Germany, the federal and Länder governments have been implementing policies in order to contain the spread of Covid-19 since March 2020. This article examines the effects of political and social trust on the acceptance of these policies. The latter is, in turn, a prerequisite for compliance with public policy. In a multi-level regression analysis based on two waves of survey data collected in May and November 2020, we find that trust relates to the acceptance of anti-pandemic measures. Political trust, i.e. trust in political actors and institutions has a positive effect on acceptance. Social trust, meaning the trust in other citizens is found to reduce acceptance of measures like contact restrictions. In addition, ideological positions influence the effects of both trust variables. The impact of political trust on acceptance increases with increasingly liberal positions in both survey waves, since individuals with these positions might generally be more wary of state interference. We also found an interaction between social trust and ideology during the second wave: the further respondents are on the political right, the more the negative effect of social trust on acceptance is enhanced, as these individuals might favour individualism and self-reliance in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is uncontested that political trust is highly relevant in democratic political systems. Although scholars have begun to study to a larger extent political trust in new democracies, this latter interest has faded away in recent times. To reinvigorate awareness of this area, thirty years after German reunification, we take stock of political trust in East and West Germany. Drawing on ESS data from 2002 to 2018 (ESS 1–9), we study empirically the convergence hypothesis in view of both the levels of political trust and the particular quality of citizens' trust in its democratic institutions. Our findings show that we can still not speak of a convergence of the mere levels of trust in East and West Germany: East Germans do still display lower levels of trust in both representative and regulatory institutions. Regarding the quality of political trust, however, the gap between East and West is less pronounced. These findings are highly relevant for both research on the social and psychological underpinnings of trust and the assessment of the consequences of the undemocratic heritage for the German political system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Direct-democratic instruments are often seen as a cure for the current disenchantment with representative democracy. While research has begun to investigate whether direct-democratic instruments match the procedural preferences of populist citizens, it is an under-researched question whether populist citizens and populist voters would actually participate in direct-democratic voting. This study advances existing research by focussing both on direct-democratic preferences and effective direct-democratic participation of different types of populist citizens in Germany—populist voters on the right and left and citizens with general populist attitudes. Analyses based on survey data from 2018 show that while populist citizens and right-wing populist voters display strong attitudinal sympathy for direct-democratic instruments, especially right-wing populist voters fail effectively to participate in direct-democratic voting. Those who strongly participate in direct-democratic procedures are sophisticated and postmaterialist citizens whose preferences hardly align with those of right-wing populist voters and citizens, widening rather than closing the 'representation gap'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of regional identity in the German Länder has received only little attention so far. It is of great political importance, however, as a collective identity at the regional level is a favourable condition for binding decisions to be made on that level or for the delegation of competencies from the central to regional governments. Based on data from the German General Social Survey (ALLBUS) 2016 we show that the vast majority of Germans identify with their respective Land. If the Länder have a longer historical tradition and are donors in the interstate fiscal equalisation system, this regional identity is even stronger. We also found the compatibility of national and regional identity to be somewhat lower in Länder with a long historical tradition. Our analyses indicate that even in a seemingly rather homogeneous federal state such as Germany, differences in the historical traditions of individual regions affect regional identity – in the international literature this argument has so far been used exclusively with reference to historic nations, such as Catalonia and Scotland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research suggests that modernization is an important driver of liberalization in the field of gay and lesbian rights. Surprisingly, it has often been assumed—but not empirically examined—that a culture of tolerance mediates the relationship between socioeconomic modernization and liberal legislation. This article closes this gap by analyzing the seventy-three countries that took part in the fifth and sixth waves of the World Values Survey. As government responsiveness to public attitudes is structurally enforced by means of electoral accountability in democracies, but not in autocracies, we, in addition, distinguish between these regime types in an analysis of moderated mediation. We show that tolerant attitudes toward homosexuals do, indeed, mediate the influence of modernization on gay and lesbian rights policies in democracies, but not in autocracies. The result is confirmed by extensive robustness checks, including an instrumental variables approach to account for a potential reverse causality between tolerance and rights. The study does not only underline the relevance of cultural aspects of modernization, but also points to the crucial importance of regime type for a translation of public opinion into policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting in the 1990s, almost all Western democracies recognized same-sex partnerships within just over two decades. This study examines which factors accelerated or decelerated these legal changes. It focuses on the effects of several facets of culture: attitudes towards homosexuality in general; attitudes towards gays and lesbians as people; and religiosity. An event history analysis of 19 Western countries shows that the less tolerant people are of gays and lesbians and the greater a country’s percentage of regular attendees of religious services, the longer the time until a same-sex union law is introduced. The results provide new insights into policy effects of culture and point out the importance of distinguishing between the various elements of public opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In political theory, the subject of tax morale is closely linked to issues of citizenship and civic duties. Research on tax morale, however, is still rather underdeveloped in political science. In this article, we systematically compare a rational considerations approach with an approach focusing on the influence of community orientations on an individual’s tax morale. We expect that contexts varying with the existence and duration of communist rule have caused systematic differences in terms of the motivation for tax morale. Multilevel analyses based on data taken from the fourth wave of the World Values/European Values Survey (1999/2000) confirm our expectations that socialization under communist rule strengthens the relevance of community orientations in explaining an individual’s tax morale and reduces the impact of rational considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]