Values and Votes: The Indirect Effect of Personal Values on Voting Behavior

Recent research from social psychology suggests that personal values predict political behavior, such as vote choice. In contrast to previous studies, it is hypothesized in this article that personal values influence voting behavior only indirectly through political value orientation. Drawing on the personal value concept of Shalom Schwartz, structural equation models based on Swiss electoral data (SELECTS 2007) are applied to test the hypothesis of indirect effects. The empirical analysis shows that the effects of personal values are indeed mediated by political values, but that their indirect impact on vote choice remains substantial. It is argued on a theoretical level that personal values need first to be translated (or transformed) into political values to become effective on voting behavior.     

Eating the Rich vs. Feeding the Poor: Borrowing Constraints and the Reluctance to Redistribute

This paper offers an explanation why most democracies arecharacterized by moderate taxation of wealth although thewealth distribution is persistently skewed to the right. Wemodel an economy in which agents have to acquire highereducation to qualify for skilled work and in which capitalmarket imperfections prevent poor individuals from making sucha profitable human capital investment. If these borrowingconstraints do not bind for members of the middle class, theymay rationally reject redistribution although both the currentand the future median of the wealth distribution are below themean.     

Gesellschaft und Religion

In Habermas’ well-known speech Faith and knowledge (given on the occasion of accepting the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, 2001) the term “post-secular society” is of key importance. The present article examines the term from the perspective of the sociology of religion, outlining the gradual changes in Habermas’ conception of the importance of religion and its place in society. The value of the term “post-secular” proves to be of very limited value in characterising the present time. Nor is there any improvement to be found in Höhn’s suggested linking the terms of “post-secular” and “post-religious”. Still, using the term “post-secular society” helps to go beyond some of the intensely narrow views of being secular as favoured by modern societies.     

Where the whole city meets: youth,gender and consumerism in the social space of the MEGA shopping mall in Aktobe,western Kazakhstan

ABSTRACT

The shopping mall entered Central Asia's commercial sector as a result of the economic transformation of post-Soviet space. Constructed near the centre of the city, the shopping mall overwrites the urban landscape, dominating it as a symbol of modernity. It functions as a gateway of global consumerist culture to the Eurasian steppe. Using the MEGA shopping mall in Aktobe, in western Kazakhstan, as an example, this article shows that the building acts as a stage for the construction of a new social and cultural space. This study focuses on the ways in which young women interact with the mall's spaces. The mall turns out to be a playground not only for children, but also for the whole younger generation, who come to this unique place to see and be seen. The mall became a hot spot of youth culture in the post-socialist worker's city by offering more than a mere shelter from dust and snow storms on the steppe. The available amenities made it a favourite place for meeting, consuming and dreaming. Young women especially are attracted to MEGA to experience the newest fashions and build social relationships.     

Does voter polarisation induce party extremism? The moderating role of abstention

This article contributes to the literature on representation by examining how the ideological polarisation of the electorate affects parties’ programmatic positions in multiparty systems. The main argument is that parties face incentives to adopt more extreme positions when the electorate becomes more ideologically polarised and the share of non-moderate voters is higher. The reason is that by adopting moderate positions parties will prompt their non-moderate core constituents to sit out the election. This risk is conditioned by voters’ propensity to abstain. A higher (lower) propensity to abstain means that parties alienate a larger (smaller) share of their core constituents when adopting a moderate position. Parties therefore respond to greater voter polarisation by adopting more extreme positions, but the effect declines as voters’ propensity to abstain decreases. An empirical analysis of parties’ programmatic positions in 11 Western European countries between 1977 and 2016 strongly supports this expectation.