From Marxism to Social Democracy: Evolving Leftist and Ethno-National Perspectives in the European Kurdish Komala Diaspora

This study examines the relationship between political attitudes and individuals’ life satisfaction. While there is a massive body of literature on the political economy of subjective well-being, no study has focused directly on political engagement (interest in politics) and political orientation (ideology). To fill this gap in the current literature, the present study investigates the impact of political engagement and orientation on individual life satisfaction through regression analysis (OLS and 2SLS methods) using the European Social Survey dataset. Our initial findings (as well as the results of the Durbin-Wu-Hausman test) point out the endogeneity problem for political orientation. In order to overcome the endogeneity problem, the instrumental variable estimation and the Stock-Watson test were conducted. Our results show that political engagement and orientation have a statistically significant influence on personal life satisfaction. Accordingly, as individuals' political engagement increases, life satisfaction decreases. Second, life satisfaction increases as one moves from left to right on the political spectrum.

This paper analyzes the relationship between students' level of actual religiosity and their sociodemographic characteristics, political orientation, and political attitudes. The paper is based on an online survey conducted at the University of Rijeka (N = 624) in 2021. The vast majority of our respondents (90%) received the three holy sacraments of initiation in their early childhood and attended Catholic religious education at school. The explanation of the significantly less actual religiosity of students is approached from the position of Pickel's contextualized theory of secularization. Relying on Voas and Day, a composite variable distinguishes highly religious students, moderately religious students, weakly religious students, and non‐religious students on the basis of the respondents' positioning toward religious self‐identification, beliefs, Church attendance, and the importance of religion in one's life. Statistically significant correlations between actual religiosity and political orientation were established. Very religious Catholic students, who are the least numerous and the least homogenous category, are more inclined to right‐wing political orientation and reject ethno‐nationalism/anti‐multiculturalism less and accept clericalism more than other categories of students. In a broader sense, this study reveals that a large number of respondents distance themselves from religion and the Church at student age despite their experience of formal religious socialization at school age. Furthermore, the results suggest that the synergy of the liberalizing effect of education and the tolerant sociocultural atmosphere of an area reduces the influence of religiosity on the political attitudes and orientation of students.

The Kurds of Turkey: National, Religious and Economic Identities is a richly developed, multidimensional analysis of the diverse identities or elite blocs of the Kurds of Turkey. Based on the author's doctoral dissertation at the renowned Sciences Po in Paris, the book aptly demonstrates that the Kurds—much less, the Turkish Kurds—do not constitute a monolithic bloc, as many researchers and interested observers imply or even claim when they discuss the issue. As Cicek puts it: “Although most actors commonly use the notion of the ‘Kurdish issue,’ in reality there is not a single Kurdish issue, but the various ‘Kurdish issues’ of different Kurdish groups, which have different social imaginaries, ideological and political orientations, interests and institutions” (246). Thus, “the main conclusion of the research is the fact that divisions due to national, religious and class-based dynamics have constituted grave obstacles for the Kurdish groups in their consensus-building processes for the establishment of a Kurdish political region in Turkey” (236).To develop his thesis, the author mainly relies on interviews with “35 cultural and intellectual elites, 31 economic elites, 40 political elites, and 26 religious elites” (7) as well as a much lesser review of recent election results. Cicek analyzes the data through the theory of constructivism, which argues that “the collective identities and/or groups are not ‘substantial things-in-the-world,’ but historical, political and relational constructs having dynamic borders. They are not discrete, concrete, tangible or bounded, but are rather relational, process-based, dynamic, eventful and disintegrated” (237). Thus, “collective identities like Kurdish, Sunni-Muslim, Alevi, and Zaza in the Kurdish region, are not ‘identities taken-for-granted’ …, but rather the constructs of the socio-political entrepreneurs” (74).To this insight, Cicek adds the sociology of collective action “that contentious interests constitute the core issue of collective action” (33); “there are basically four main constraints/resources which influence different Kurdish actors, in different ways, at ideas, interests, and institutions levels” (14), which he terms the “3-Is.” These four main constraints and/or resources are the central state, the geopolitical dynamic, Europeanization, and the globalization process. Cicek examines these concepts on numerous occasions throughout his work and maintains that “by simultaneously taking these ideas, interests and institutions into consideration, the ‘3-Is’ model can provide a more systematic and integrated frame with analytical elements to understand changes in polity, politics and policy levels” (35). At one point he also makes the important observation that “state intervention into the construction of the Alevi and Zaza identities can be understood as a political response aimed at undermining the leading Kurdish movements” (101) since expanding the construction of the Alevi and Zaza identities at the expense of the leading Kurdish movements would tend to weaken the latter.Cicek covers the relatively short period from 1999 to 2013. He starts with 1999 because he identifies it as the year when “the Kurdish issue was sharply and dramatically changed due to three interrelated significant events” (30–31): First, the capture of Abdullah Öcalan in Kenya on February 15, 1999; second, the significant success of pro-Kurdish politics in the local election held on April 18, 1999; and, third, the recognition of Turkey candidacy for EU accession in December 1999. Certainly, one can disagree with Cicek's periodization and dispute whether these events fully justify 1999 as a pivotal year. Although Öcalan's capture was surely important, earlier and subsequent elections make the one in April 1999 unremarkable and subsequent dates for the EU narrative might also have been chosen. The study covers the period up to 2013 simply because it was the year when the author finished his original research, although a short epilogue does consider developments from 2013 to 2015.However, the events of those years have already been overshadowed by more recent, more significant events that occurred since Cicek's manuscript was published, such as the attempted coup in Turkey on July 15, 2016; Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's subsequent crackdown on virtually anyone who might pose a threat to his rule, and the decline of Turkish democracy into authoritarianism that it precipitated; the failed referendum held by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq on September 25, 2017 followed by the partial collapse of the KRG, which had once been the Kurds’ foremost candidate for an independent state; and what might be called “Syria 201,” namely the dangerous evolution of the Syrian war into potential conflict among Russia, the United States, Iran, Turkey, and Israel, as well as the Turkish offensive into the Kurdish Syrian canton of Afrin on January 20, 2018.The book is divided into seven chapters, a conclusion, and the aforementioned epilogue. The first chapter presents the work's main theoretical framework, which has been outlined above, and the subsequent six chapters contain its core content. In the second chapter, Cicek dissects the three Kurdish identities or blocs mentioned in the title of the book—national, religious, and economic—and puts them into historical perspective. Here the author is particularly enlightening in portraying “the diverse ideas, interests, [and] institutions of the three blocs, as well as their interrelated construction processes, and the historical conflicts between them” (38). He devotes particular attention to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its umbrella network, the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK)—which he broadens to include the BDP-DTK— referring to all of these groups throughout his text as simply, “the leading Kurdish movement.”1 It almost seems as if he is fearful of calling the movement by its actual name, the PKK. More problematic is that the author frequently lists “three other pro-Kurdish parties (KADEP, HAK-PAR, and the OSP), as well as several secular political groups, such as the TDSK” (41) within the Kurdish national bloc as if they were somehow equally as important as the PKK. Although Cicek's analysis of these other national blocs is interesting, they are marginal groups, and their influence is grossly exaggerated by treating them in this way.Nevertheless, Cicek does correctly acknowledge that this leading Kurdish movement (the PKK) represents “a massive socio-political and socio-cultural mobilization in the Kurdish scene since the 1980s” (38–39) and “is a complex transnational and multi-dimensional social movement” (49). He also points out that the leading Kurdish movement “is organized not only in Turkey, but also in Iran, Iraq and Syria, [and] has multiple social, economic and political networks in almost all European countries [and] … given its 35-year lifetime and constant renewal … constitutes a very good example of the ‘learning organization’” (230). In addition to its transnational organizational structure, the PKK is characterized by a distinct political culture that is unique to the region: “The KCK Contract, the fundamental document of the movement … advocates a new regime based on ‘radical democracy,’ highlighting communal economy, gender emancipation and equality, ecology, and a multilevel confederal organization of different social, cultural, economic, political, and religious groups at the levels of district, city, region and nation” (81).As for the other facets of the leading Kurdish movement and its constituent groups, Cicek accurately relates that “although there is not an organic hierarchical relationship between them, it can be argued that they function as legal and illegal fronts of the same social movement. Indeed, Kurdish politicians often state, the PKK-KCK and the BDP-DTK share the same societal base” (50). So if the PKK-KCK and BDP-DTK share the same constituents, what differentiates them? According to Cicek, “the PKK-KCK and its supremo A Ocalan determine the main ideological and political identity, main strategy and goals of the movement, while the BDP-DTK principally socialises and mobilises people…. Finally, the BDP-DTK is more pluralistic than the PKK-KCK’ (51). Possessing legal and illegal fronts would maximize the movement's ability to operate in a variety of fora.The Kurdish religious bloc is the second Turkish-Kurdish identity that Cicek analyzes in chapter 2. The author's nuanced presentation of six principal groups that make up the bloc is quite useful. They include (1)the traditional Kurdish pro-Islamists or the Kurdish tariqats; (2) followers of earlier pro-Islamist political parties such as the National View Movement (MGH) of Necemettin Erbakan, who largely became supporters of Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party (AKP); (3) the Gulen community (GC) of Fethullah Gülen—whose origins lie in the Nur community of Said Nursi, a.k.a. Saidi Kurdi or Kurdish Said (Bediuzzaman or “wonder of the age”)—whom, as is well known, was blamed by Erdoğan for the failed coup of July 15, 2016; (4) Kurdish pro-Islamists who promote Kurdish national rights and support cultural plurality and equality between ethnic groups; (5) Mustazaflar Hareketi (Movement of Oppressed People), the successor of the Kurdish Hizballah (KH), a fundamentalist version of Kurdish pro-Islamism; and (6) several small Salafist groups.Also discussed under the rubric of “autonomisation of Kurdish pro-Islamism” are small groups such as the Zehra Community (ZH), and Azadi. On the other hand, “the Alevi religious community including Turkish, Kurdish, and Arab ethnic groups constitutes the principal religious minority in Turkey” (64) and represents a profound division in the Kurdish religious identity and goals. “The historical discrimination and otherisation of the Alevi community by the Sunni-Muslim rulers made opposition to Sunni-Muslim Islamism the predominant element of the Alevi collective identity” (66). In addition, “the Zaza-identity-based cultural and political mobilisations … of Zazaki-speaking Kurds who claim that the Zazas are not Kurds, but a distinctive national group” (68) must be noted.Finally, chapter 2 also analyzes the Kurdish economic bloc, or the economic elites, as the third Kurdish identity within Turkey. Although “the term ‘the tender economy’ characterized the weak and centre-dependent qualities of the Kurdish economic elite … [they] have tried to become involved in the political struggle for the last decade” (73). Regarding this economic bloc, Cicek would want to consult Veli Yadirgi's recent excellent study based on his doctoral dissertation that has been published since the release of Cicek's manuscript, as Yadirgi's study adds a wealth of new date and interpretations regarding the Kurdish economy.2In examining the conflicts among the three Kurdish blocs at the idea level, the third chapter argues that “the left-wing political and ideological orientation of the PKK-KCK embraces a highly modernist secularism that limits the capacity of the movement to cooperate with Kurdish religious groups” (45). Indeed, the leading Kurdish movement (the PKK) is hostile to religion, often seeing it as “as an archaic, reactionary phenomenon that limits social emancipation and will be eliminated during the socio-economic development and modernisation process” (77–78). In addition, the PKK also sees religion as being hostile to it, casting religion as a tool of foreign intervention used by the Turkish government in order to subvert its political aspirations: “religion, according to this political perspective, is one of the principal instruments used by the Turkish state to undermine the Kurdish national liberation struggle” (78).On the other hand, the staunch secularism of the PKK often puts it at odds with “most pro-Islamist groups,” who “see the national groups as ‘the outsiders’ to the Kurds and the Kurdish region” (171). Indeed, Islamist Kurdish groups see some of the PKK's secularizing reforms, such as its promulgation of gender equality, as a threat to their Islamist ideology. As Cicek puts it, “the leading Kurdish movement's efforts regarding the gender issue constitute the most important and visible aspect of its ‘anti-Islamist’ quality, according to most of the pro-Islamist Kurds” (89–90). Indeed, he goes on further to say: “pro-Islamist Kurdish groups understand the gender-based discourse and mobilisation that the Kurdish movement encourages as a modernist project that de-Islamises Muslim Kurdish society” (90). However, there is not full consensus amongst the religious-based identities. Some religious minorities invite the establishment of the secular state that the PKK proposes, anticipating that it will offer greater protections than an Islamist state. For instance, the non-Kurdish Alevis: “The Alevis refer to the Ottoman period as an epoch of massacres against the Alevi communities by the Sunni-Islamist rule, and for that reason support the new secular republic” (188). They “consider laicism as a political guarantee to protect them against the Sunni-Islamist hegemony” (93).Chapter 4 deals with the conflict of interest between the Kurdish national bloc and economic elite and how it “constitutes a remarkable obstacle to building a Kurdish consensus in Turkey” (104). “While most of the national groups … see the Kurdish economic elites as weak, unreliable and state-dependent actors” (116), “the economic elite argues that this model [of the PKK as a cooperative basis of production and consumption] is not compatible with the reality of the world, which is based on the market economy, and constitutes a very real danger for their economic interest” (126).Chapter 5 concentrates “on the debates around the institutional form of a prospective Kurdish political region” (128). Cicek concludes that these options are limited to local decentralization, federation, and regionalization, otherwise called regional autonomy. Noteworthy is Cicek's conclusion to this chapter, where he states that the PKK “explicitly declares that it does not advocate a Kurdish nation state, but rather democracy based on a multi-ethnic and multi-religious nationhood” (152). This proposed form of governance, which is termed “democratic autonomy,” was introduced to the PKK through the writings of Abdullah Ocalan during his incarceration after being captured in 1999, and Cicek goes on to discuss it. He also notes that democratic autonomy is criticized by other national groups who argue that it will damage “the integrity of the Kurdish region by dividing it when it is already part of a country that has been divided among four states (Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria)” (144).Chapter 6 differs from previous books that analyzed the conflicts among different Kurdish identities and instead focuses on the negotiations between them. Cicek argues that “the Kurdish groups have made noteworthy efforts to negotiate and build consensus on Kurdish issue(s) for the last decade…. However, there had been only limited progress” (155) given a strong path dependency, a concept he employs frequently, and which he defines as “the influence of the past over the present” (183). Rather quixotically, he declares that “although it ultimately failed, TEV-KURD was remarkable in its goal to unite different Kurdish groups under a single organization” (159), and adds that “like TEV-KURD, the DTK failed” (159). He concludes that, despite its failure, the attempt “can be noted as a learning process for both sides” (175–76), and later concludes that “today, there is a general consensus that the Kurdish groups must recognize each other and completely eliminate political violence against each other in the Kurdish region” (255), so maybe in that sense these attempts at negotiations were “remarkable” (255).In chapter 7 the author discusses historical, state-based, geopolitical, European, and global dynamics that have diverse effects on the ideas, interests, and institutions (the 3-Is) of the three major Turkish Kurdish identities that Cicek's book focuses on (specifically, the national, religious, and economic identities). This enables him to examine the influences on Turkish Kurds of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region (IKR) since 2003 and the de facto Kurdish region in Syria since 2011. Cicek also contrasts the various Kurdish versions of their history and identity with Erdoğan's AKP Party's interpretation of the history of the Kurds in Turkey, which provides “only a partial recognition of the Kurdish identity as ‘a local folkloric diversity in Turkey’” (194).Although most Kurds initially supported the Europeanization process of Turkey's possible accession to the European Union (EU) as a backdoor way to achieve Kurdish rights, the project has since “lost its credibility in the eyes of the Kurds” (219) after it did not sufficiently address their concerns. One problem was that “the EU principally adopted an Ankara-centric approach and just proposed liberal individual cultural rights for the settlement of the Kurdish issue” (220). Another was that the Kurds were not consulted in the course of the accession process: “The EU mainly cooperated with the central state and did not sufficiently include the Kurdish groups and take their expectations into account” (233). But even if the process of EU accession had included terms that were more favorable to the Kurds, it would not have made much of a difference in advancing the goals of the Kurds’ collective ambitions in Turkey, because President Erdoğan gave up on the process once he won significant power in Turkey. Indeed, even developments internal to the Kurdish politics eventually marginalized the EU accession process: “after the establishment of the IKR [Iraqi Kurdistan Region], which provided a new cognitive and normative frame with its politico-administrative model, as well as immense economic and political resources to the Kurdish groups, the Europeanization process became an irrelevant dynamic for the national groups” (220). What would Cicek say about all of this following the virtual collapse of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq, after its failed advisory referendum on independence on September 25, 2017?A chapter entitled “Conclusion” then analyzes “how the three main types of Kurdish groups … cooperate to establish a consensus on a certain concept: a Kurdish political region in Turkey” (234). “The main conclusion of the research is the fact that divisions due to national, religious and class-based dynamics have constituted grave obstacles for the Kurdish groups in the consensus-building processes for the establishment of a Kurdish political region in Turkey” (236). Again, “in reality there is not a single Kurdish issue, but the various ‘Kurdish issues’ of different Kurdish groups” (246). Nevertheless, the different Kurdish groups have found seven shared interests on which they agree: There must be (1) a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue; (2) the constitutional recognition of the Kurds; (3) the reproduction of the Kurdish identity; (4) the Kurds’ right to self-government; (5) the socioeconomic development of the Kurdish region; (7) Turkey's good relations with the KRG and Rojava (Western Kurdistan, or the Kurdish region of Syria); and (7) Turkey's adhesion to the EU.Finally, as already noted, an epilogue brings up new matters from 2013 to 2015. Here Cicek waxes over “the glorious success of the HDP in taking 13.12 per cent of the votes” in the June 7, 2015, election. However, in almost the same breath, he ponders why the Turkish-PKK peace process (2013–15) failed. He provides six reasons: (1) the trust problem; (2) the withdrawal and disarmament of the PKK fighters; (3) the political status of Rojava in Syria; (4) the structures, mechanisms, and actors of the negotiation processes; (5) the agenda of the peace process; and (6) the internal struggle in the state establishment and the rising fears of the AKP regarding the maintenance of its power. Here he rather one-sidedly speaks of “the open, sincere, reassuring and stable role of the HDP in the ongoing peace process [and how it] increased the party's credibility throughout society. Conversely, the AKP, President Erdoğan in particular, adopted a narrow, insecure and unstable position during the peace process” (276). Thus he finds that “the rise of Demirtas [the HDP co-chair] as a young, sincere, honest, intellectual and populist political leader opposing President Erdoğan must be particularly underlined” (277). However, Cicek's intuition that Demirtas would remain a significant figure has not been borne out by events subsequent to the completion of Cicek's manuscript, as Demirtas has been imprisoned since November 2016. Nevertheless, it is true that Demirtas managed to win more than 8 percent of the vote for president of Turkey in the elections held on June 24, 2018.As for further minor criticisms, the author's jargonistic style may limit its audience mostly to scholars in theoretical would be a because there is much data for and the to the author's which otherwise might be a to the by to attention important points not fully on the first found Cicek's use of only a first instead of a full first followed by to be rather given his to throughout his despite a rather full much of Cicek's actual only to and not to the this is a or not is up to the Indeed, this finds Cicek's not only of but is in the actual addition, there are also several minor “The first Kurdish National held in in July occurred due to an only in an among a of to A to “the political [of the by the four of since it was only a that of these states and were even The to the as being an part of the leading Kurdish movement is since the HDP its in Cicek might have this problem by these pro-Kurdish political parties as the The to the the of of is a minor given that the was not the of “the last general election held on June is most a to his original doctoral as the of subsequent elections in the epilogue Finally, Cicek even to in his recent and by and by and among However, of these minor the of the different Kurdish identities in book a relatively a of a of which are the of of interest in Turkey's political and In conclusion, Cicek's manuscript to his of the and theoretical It and and it will be a very addition to the

Political orientation is often assumed to be shaped by socialization processes; however, previous studies have shown substantial genetic variance components in party affiliation, political attitudes and behaviors, or closely related personality traits. The majority of these studies have relied on the Classical Twin Design, which comes with restrictive assumptions, some of which are easily violated. Moreover, most analyses lack a perspective of age-group differences. In this study, we investigated political orientation in adolescents (age: 16-18) and young adults (age: 21-25) in a cross-sectional Nuclear Twin Family Design. We used data of the German TwinLife project, including data from same-sex twins reared together, their biological parents, and nontwin full siblings. We found genetic variation in political orientation, which was significant in the older cohort, possibly indicating an increasing importance of active gene-environment correlation from adolescence to adulthood. Individual differences in political orientation because of passive gene-environment correlation and shared environmental effects were larger in the younger cohort, substantiating the same theoretical consideration and the importance of shared socialization contexts for adolescents' political views. By running Nuclear Twin Family model analyses, and considering age-group differences, as well as the relationship of political orientation with the Big Five personality traits, our study extended previous work, and resulted in more robust and fine-grained estimates of genetic and environmental sources of variance in political orientation. Therefore, it contributed to a better understanding of the complex nature-nurture interplay that forms political orientation in emerging adulthood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Summary This study explored the hypothesis that age differences in adults' political orientations can be attributed to variations in the informational environment that accompanies the aging process rather than to the aging process per se. A quota sample of 353 Memphis adults was selected to match the demographic composition of the city's adult population in terms of age, sex, race, and occupational status. Interviews with respondents yielded measures of seven political orientations (i.e., political attitudes, knowledge and activities) plus numerous indicators of their “attitudinal-informational environment.” Correlational analyses revealed only three instances of significant covariance between adults' age and their political orientations but yielded some evidence supportive of the hypothesis. Despite the absence of consistent age differences in political orientations, 60% of the respondents perceived that their political values and/or beliefs had changed in major ways during adulthood, the most common change being an increased interest in political issues.

Terror attacks in Europe have increased substantially since the turn of the last century. Using data from European Social Surveys (ESS), we examine their effects on political attitudes and orientation by comparing within-country survey responses shortly before and after terror attacks involving at least one fatality. At the national level, we find little support for the hypothesis that terror attacks influenced attitudes towards immigration or political orientation. By contrast, there is evidence of post-attack increases in satisfaction with the national government and trust in parliament among ESS respondents living in the region that was attacked.

Political orientations, intelligence and education

ABSTRACTRecent decades have seen the growth of various strands of right-wing populist political orientations, where populism and critique of immigration policies have been central. These ideological developments have caused concern for the legitimacy of social and political institutions. The question explored in this paper, based on Norwegian survey data, is ‘Which types of right political orientations exist among young people, and how do these political attitudes affect trust in social and political institutions?’ The results reveal the existence of both a populist ‘new right’ political orientation similar to the ideology of the Progress Party and a nativist ideology. The new right orientation contains two sets of variables: (i) economic liberalism/state scepticism and (ii) nationalist values. For trust in political institutions, the emerging picture is complex because the nationalist dimension of both the populist orientation and the nativist ideological orientation implies a high level of trust in political institutions. To the extent the new right political orientations causes mistrust, it seems to come from the liberal economic, anti-statist values included in this ideology. Based on these findings, future researchers should distinguish more clearly between the ideological dimensions going into populist political right orientations and the relationship between attitudes and more practical implications of such ideologies.

Recent research has demonstrated that genetic differences explain a sizeable fraction of the variance in political orientations, but little is known about the pathways through which genes might affect political preferences. In this article, we use a uniquely assembled dataset of almost 1,000 Swedish male twin pairs containing detailed information on cognitive ability and political attitudes in order to further examine the genetic and environmental causes of political orientations. Our study makes three distinct contributions to our understanding of the etiology of political orientations: (1) we report heritability estimates across different dimensions of political ideology; (2) we show that cognitive ability and political orientations are related; and (3) we provide evidence consistent with the hypothesis that cognitive ability mediates part of the genetic influence on political orientations. These findings provide important clues about the nature of the complex pathways from molecular genetic variation to political orientations.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how signi ficant social-demographic characteristics are if we want to explain the political behavior and orientations of actors in past societies. We approached this problem on the basis of roll call data and biographical data of the representatives of the Frankfurt National Assembly, the Paris Assembl?e Nationale Constituante 1848/49 and the British House of Commons 1841 1842. For comparative purposes results of related studies about the Mexican National Assembly of 1916 1917 and the German Reichstag of 1893 and 1903 have been used. The main hypothesis was that the social background and the social affiliations of the representatives determined their parliamentary decision making. This assumption has been tested first by a heterogeneous model (basic model) which combines standard attributs of collective-biographical research: age, profession, membership in the nobility, and regional origin. In a second step we split up the basic model in three partial hypotheses, which have been derived from general assumptions concerning the genesis and transmission of political orientations: . an interested oriented approach which interprets political beha vior according to the wish to get actual advantages in the contest for power, wealth and prestige; 2. an approach which emphasizes the effects of socialization and which assumes that political orientations have been acquired during political socialization and selection by institutions which transmit values and by experiences in the political career; 3. a theoretical approach which is focused on geographic repre sentation and which assumes a close connection between parlia mentary decision making and the orientations of the electors. Multiple Classification Analysis was used to test the different models. The research reported in this paper was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. . PRESENTATION OF THE PROBLEM The analysis of the social background of elites has an obvious justification when it concerns the investigation of recruiting processes: social-demogra phic characteristics constitute elements of the opportunity structure which determine the access and the career chances of the aspirants.(i) More pro blematical and controversial is the influence which the social background of the members of the elite has on their political attitudes and behavior.(2) Investigations concerning contemporary elites show that we must be very careful with intuitive suppositions in this area, since the type of influ ence and its extent varies considerably. In various cultural contexts vari ables which supposedly have a large influence were far less significant than expected.(3) On the other hand, in historical investigations an intuitive psychologization of social-demographic variables, i.e. inferences from (+) Address all communications to: Heinrich Best, Universit?t zu K?ln, Institut f?r Angewandte Sozialforschung, Greinstr. 2, 5000 K?ln 41 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.58 on Tue, 11 Oct 2016 04:31:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Political culture and political activity of young people in socio-political changes is of particular significance for modern Russian society, which has been undergoing large-scale socio-economic and political reforms in recent decades. The relevance of the research is determined by the role played by young people in socio-political processes in society. Studying the attitude of young people to political processes, value orientations and civic activity of the younger generation allows us to assess the changes that have occurred in the political consciousness and determine the strategy of youth policy in the country. The purpose of the research is to identify the values and political attitudes of students, to study their attitude to political changes and events in modern Russia. System analysis, axiological and activity-based approaches are used as theoretical and methodological bases, which allow identifying and arguing the specifics of political culture and political behavior of social groups, in particular young people, continuity and General socio-cultural factors of their formation. The paper uses the method of mass sociological survey of students of all faculties of the Ural state mining University (425 respondents were interviewed) on the content and nature of the political culture of students, conducted in November-December 2018. Based on a representative mass sociological survey, the article examines the prerequisites, value orientations and activity of students in the political life of the country. the article analyzes the state of political culture of young people and the main trends in its development. Attention is paid to the issues of instability of political views among young people and activism in issues related to the spheres of interests of young people. As a result of the research, values and political orientations, as well as socio-political activity of students are established. According to the results of our research, we can conclude that in General, young people reproduce the spectrum of the main political orientations and attitudes that have developed in Russian society. The results of this research can be used in the work of secondary vocational education institutions, higher education institutions, government agencies and municipal institutions that organize work with young people.

A lot of academic as well as journalistic discussions refer to the possibility that urban middle classes, which are the by-products of rapid economic growth, will change Chinese society. These discussions, however, have not produced common understanding of Chinese middle classes. On the contrary, a lot of confusion has been taking place on the definition and the characterization of urban middle classes in China. This paper will illustrate whether or how urban middle classes will bring out political change, or democratization, in Chinese society by using two different datasets, that is, AsiaBarometer 2006 which contains a lot of relevant questions on political orientations and attitudes and Four-city Survey in 1998 and 2006 which tells us chronological changes of urban middle classes during these eight years. These empirical data suggest that urban middle classes in China are very ambivalent in terms of their political orientations and behaviours. They are more interested in securing space for their free speech or economic activities, but their political attitudes are very conservative in the sense that they 1) support technocracy, 2) trust central government, and 3) allow depression of freedom of speech for the sake of maintenance of social stability. Such ambivalence can be fully explained by the fact that urban middle classes are “winners” of market economy. Two scenarios, one optimistic and the other pessimistic, for the future politics in China will be discussed.

ABSTRACTWe report on a study of the correlates of attitude to global warming (GW). We build on prior research on the role of demographic variables, personality, and political orientation in predicting attitude to GW. We argue dispositional optimism should increase willingness to treat GW seriously, via its impact on active coping behaviors and reducing cognitive avoidance in the face of anxiety, and that there should be an interactive effect of optimism with political orientation. We draw on an existing data set (N = 819) of adult respondents. We use correlation and regression analysis to examine the association between demographic variables, personality traits, optimism, political orientation and GW attitude. We use moderated regression to test for an interactive effect between political orientation and optimism on GW attitude. We find a significant inverse association between (more right‐wing) political orientation and GW attitude, and a positive association between education and GW attitude. We find personality effects, the strongest of which is an inverse association between Competitiveness and GW attitude. As hypothesized, we find that optimism is positively associated with GW attitude and that this association is stronger for more right‐wing political orientation. We draw conclusions for the efficacy of approaches to communicating about climate change to different groups. We consider limitations of the research and implications for future research.

Sexual harassment (SH) refers to unwelcome behavior that creates a hostile, intimidating, or offensive environment. This behavior can manifest through physical, verbal, or nonverbal actions. The present study analyzes the relationship between political orientation (left-wing, center, and right-wing) and attitudes toward SH with a focus on the moderating role of gender. We examined two types of attitudes: SH myth acceptance, and rejection of sexist remarks, specifically piropos. SH myths are widely held but false beliefs that serve to deny and justify male-perpetrated harassment of women. Piropos are a form of harassment prevalent in Spain, where strangers make unsolicited comments about a woman's appearance in public spaces. Data were collected at a Spanish university, and multiple regression analyses were performed (N = 303). Participants with left-wing political orientation showed significantly lower SH myth acceptance compared to both right-wing (β = .80, p < .001) and center-oriented participants (β = .51, p < .01). Similarly, left-wing participants showed significantly higher rejection of piropos compared to right-wing (β = -1.26, p < .001) and center-oriented participants (β = -.80, p < .01). Furthermore, the interaction between political orientation and gender revealed that men with right-wing political orientation showed higher SH myth acceptance (β = -.51, p < .05) and lower rejection of piropos (β = .96, p < .05) compared to women of the same political orientation.

Objective After learning of the rape allegation against the Attorney-General, Australians were divided in their support for an inquiry. We hypothesised that motivated reasoning on this issue would be associated with ideological preferences. We therefore examined whether perceptions of arguments about the inquiry could be explained by participants’ political orientation, preference for hierarchy (SDO), and motivation to justify the gender status quo (GSJ). Method Three months after the allegation was made public, we recruited a gender-balanced sample of 554 Australians to complete an online survey. Results Participants believed that an article arguing for an inquiry was stronger than an article arguing against an inquiry. However, this effect was weaker among those on the right of the political spectrum and those high on SDO. Political orientation was also associated with differing evaluations of the article’s authors: left-leaning participants found the pro-inquiry author more credible, but right-leaning participants did not. GSJ was not associated with differing evaluations of the articles or their authors. Conclusions These findings suggest that ideological preferences are associated with motivated reasoning when evaluating partisan allegations of sexual misconduct. Evaluations of such allegations appear to vary according to people’s political attitudes and preferences for social equality or hierarchy. KEY POINTS What is already known about this topic: (1) In early 2021, Australians were deeply divided in their support for an inquiry into the rape allegation against Christian Porter. (2) Individuals tend to respond to political sexual misconduct allegations with a partisan bias. (3) Gender system justification (GSJ) and social dominance orientation (SDO) are associated with the denial of injustice towards women, and the maintenance of social hierarchies, respectively. What this topic adds: (1) Ideological preferences can help to explain how people evaluate arguments about the inquiry. (2) Participants on the political left and those low on SDO evaluated a pro-inquiry article as significantly stronger than the anti-inquiry article, but this effect was reduced amongst those on the right and those high on SDO. (3) These findings provide evidence that political orientation and SDO are associated with motivated reasoning when evaluating partisan allegations of sexual misconduct.