Images of social and political order

Abstract

Introduction The phrase ‘social and political order’ refers to institutions and arrangements of a society that are relatively stable or constant. Usually these institutions and arrangements contribute to the persistence of a society by continuously repro­ ducing those aspects that are important for its existence. For example, the avail­ ability of hospital care or a law on the frequency of local elections are parts of the social and political order. Most people have ideas about how society should look; that is, they have ideas about the social and political order. These ideas reflect the more general images people have of their society – for example, that health care should be affordable for everyone or that elections should take place within regular intervals. Whereas a social and political order is relatively stable and constant, images of this order can differ widely and probably can change more easily. These differentiations and flexibility underline the need for empiri­ cal information on images of the social and political order. Besides, images potentially cover a virtually infinite range of different social and political institu­ tions and arrangements and are usually explicitly formulated in normative terms. In spite of this obvious relevance, empirical research on images of social and political order is relatively rare. What images do citizens have of the basic insti­ tutions and arrangements of their society? What image do they have about a ‘good’ social and political order? How are these images distributed in democra­ cies? Are interests, conflicts and cleavages relevant for different images among different groups? Normative considerations about solidarity, obeying laws, autonomy and electoral participation apparently are widely shared and supported in all democracies (cf. van Deth 2007). Especially recent debates about ‘citizen­ ship’ have revitalized interest in these normative orientations. Discussions about normative considerations typically are based on the use of concepts such as values and ideologies. Although closely related to these concepts images of social and political order refer to orientations people have about the principles, regulations, arrangements and institutions which enable fruitful social and political cooperation. In this way these images are conceptualized as normative orientations more restrictedly than is usually done in research on ideologies, values, or citizenship. Whereas values, ideologies and ideas about justice and(re)distribution are widely explored empirical information about images of social and political order is harder to find. The first three waves of the European Social Survey (ESS) contain a few direct statements that can be considered as indicators of images of social and political order as conceptualized here (the desirability to let homosexuals live as they wish, to take measures to reduce income inequality, to ban undemocratic parties and to rely on modern science to solve environmental problems). In a first step the responses to these statements are used to construct two different measures of images of social and political order dealing with cultural­ pluralist ideas on the one hand and conventional social democratic ideas on the other. By combining these two basic images a typology is obtained with four distinct types of images (progressives, cultural pluralists, conventional social democrats and conservatives). Second, the structural determinants of these four types are explored. Different stages of modernization and individualization among Euro­ pean countries are expected to result in cross­ national differences between coun­ tries participating in the three waves of the ESS. As in other contributions to this volume explicit attention will be paid to the distinct impacts of ascribed and achieved social­ structural features on the images of social and political order among European citizens. Whereas ascribed features are expected to be directly relevant for these images (with people belonging to less privileged groups showing more support for progressive ideas than other people), the impact of achieved features seems to be more complicated. Presumably, contextual factors will be relevant to explain cross­ national differences in the levels of support for images of social and political order. Yet these factors are not expected to change the impacts of ascribed and achieved features in each country.