Social Conservatism Research Articles

Brexit and Trump: contesting new cleavage formation

ABSTRACT The 2016 referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU and the election of Donald Trump in the US are seen to have exposed fundamental social divisions and acute political antagonisms. While each reflected the idiosyncrasies of their domestic political scenes, these events pointed to transnational trends and developments that were shared across and beyond Anglo-America. In the Brexit and Trump votes, the anger and frustrations of being ‘left behind’ was considered to have translated into a politics of social conservatism, exclusive nationalism and populist anti-elitism. The forces of globalisation seemed to have split national communities into two distinct social worlds with irreconcilable interests and values. This article examines whether these significant political events can be explained in terms of cleavage formation. The evidence from the Brexit referendum and Trump election points to a complex picture of voting in which social groups express multiple and intersecting identities and experiences. The article emphasises the universalising processes of individualisation and fragmentation in globalised societies underlying new forms of political conflict. Finally, the article assesses the role of racism in generating political divides in contexts where identities are fractured and uncertain and a new politics of exclusion has taken hold.

Prenatal Nondiscrimination Laws: Disability, Social Conservatism, and the Political Economy of Genetic Screening

This article analyzes recent state laws and legislative debates in the United States concerning the prohibition of abortions performed because of a diagnosis of fetal disability. The article brings together critical theories to analyze the legislative records—including floor debates and committee hearings—in the four states that enacted disability PRENDAs before 2019. This analysis shows how social conservatives use disability PRENDAs to present themselves as the protector of the oppressed, while advancing their views about family and gender. Furthermore, I argue that PRENDAs place the burden for structural economic and political concerns on the shoulders of individuals, especially pregnant persons, while largely ignoring the medical-industrial complex as well as the government's own poor funding of social services for people with disabilities. Critical attention thus needs to be paid to how factors such as the ascendancy of genetics, the privatization of medicine, and the state's facilitation of capital accumulation for biotechnology corporations help constitute the ideal self-regulating risk-averse pregnant neoliberal subject. To bring attention to these factors, the article examines the political economy of non-invasive prenatal tests (NIPTs).

Politics, Personality, and Impulsivity Can Color People's Perceptions of-and Responses to-Hurricane Threats of Varying Severity.

Theory and research suggest that objective features of a threatening situation and individual differences influence threat responses. We examine three ways individual traits may relate to a threat response: (a) directly and independent of objective threat features, (b) indirectly through relationships with threat perception, or (c) as moderators of the relationship between objective threat features and responses. Using integrative data analysis (IDA), we aggregated data across three studies examining hurricane preparation intentions. Analysis supported two of the potential pathways. Supporting the first path, both openness and extraversion had direct, positive relationships with preparation likelihood. Supporting the second path, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and social conservatism positively related to preparation likelihood through a positive relationship with threat perception, whereas impulsivity and sensation-seeking negatively related to preparation likelihood through a negative relationship with threat perception. This work shows the pivotal role individual differences play regarding responses to uncertain threats.

Value Shift: Immigration Attitudes and the Sociocultural Divide

AbstractThe sociocultural divide in Western Europe is increasingly focused on issues of national identity, namely immigration. It is commonly assumed that opponents of immigration also exhibit conservatism on other sociocultural issues. Yet recent research suggests that general social conservatism is declining in the region. Do immigration attitudes fit squarely into the sociocultural dimension? Using survey data from eleven West European countries, as well as a Dutch household panel from 2007–2019, this study finds that gender attitudes, a key sociocultural issue, are subject to change through both cohort and life cycle effects, while immigration attitudes are stable over the course of the panel and exhibit little variation across cohorts. Immigration attitudes also appear to be immune to period effects resulting from the 2015 refugee crisis. Further, those born during and after the ‘post-materialist revolution’ have weakened associations between these two attitudes, while older individuals' attitudes are strongly correlated. The combination of gender egalitarianism and anti-immigrant sentiment may become increasingly common as acceptance of the former spreads, while immigration remains a hotly contested issue.

In times of illness: Covid-19 threat influences temporal focus and implicit space-time mappings

According to the Temporal Focus Hypothesis, people's front-back mental space–time mappings are associated with their attention to the time frames of past and/or future. Based upon the findings that pathogen threats elicit preferences for social conservatism and traditions, we theorize that activating thinking about COVID-19, an ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019, will promote people's past-oriented thinking and increase their responses of past-in-front mapping. By manipulating saliency of coronavirus threat, our results showed that exposure to information about coronavirus created changes in a stronger past focus and caused a significant increase in the rate of past-in-front responses, which provides supporting evidence for the Temporal Focus Hypothesis. These findings suggest that the unprecedented pandemic not only harms people's health, but also can influence the way they construe the world.

Общество и государство как объект изучения в русской духовно-академической философии середины XIX - начала ХХ в.

The paper reveals social-philosophical views of representatives of the Russian spiritual academic philosophy of the XIX century. The author examines Orthodox theists’ social-philosophical doctrine, which can be defined as “social conservatism”, considers the phenomenon of the so called “official” patriotism characteristic for this philosophical trend. The article highlights the Russian theists’ views on national issue, considers “anti-juridical essence” of Orthodox social ethics, analyses Orthodox theists’ understanding of “God’s truth”. Scientific originality of the study involves a comprehensive analysis of Orthodox theists’ social-philosophical views. The research findings are as follows: the author proves that the Russian academic philosophers had a fully realistic view on the nature of the state abandoning its excessive “moralization” and emphasizing the necessity to develop confidential state - Church relations.

By the soil divided: The roots of geographical variation in English social conservatism

Using English data, we show that geographical variation in measures of social conservatism in the 19th and 21st centuries is strongly associated with variation in measures of social conservatism in the 17th century. Our statistical model includes a range of 19th-century and 21st-century economic and demographic characteristics, so the inter-temporal persistence in social conservatism is not to be explained by persistence in these characteristics. The association is still present when we fit a model with instrumental variables for the measures of 17th-century social conservatism, which suggests that the association is not a consequence of persistence in unobserved heterogeneity across locations. Rather, there does appear to be some inter-generational transmission of attitudes. A great deal of attention has been paid to the volatility of the British electorate in recent years, but our results show that the continuity in the country's political geography should not be overlooked.

American Conservatism and US Foreign Policy Challenges in the XXI Century: Between Interventionism and Isolationism

The process of ideological and political transformation of American conservatism under the influence of foreign policy factors in the XXI century is discussed in the article. Foreign policy concepts of various types of American conservatism (neoconservatism, traditionalism, social conservatism, libertarianism, paleoconservatism) are studied based on Michael Frieden’s method of «ideological morphology». Two main directions of the conservative foreign policy (interventionism and isolationism) have been identified. The analysis of the foreign policy aspect of Trumpism as US version of contemporary populism is presented in the light of the ideological approach. The characteristics of Trumpism as «thin-centred» ideology, which based on the antithesis of «the pure American people» and «the corrupt Washington elite» and a concept of «common will of the people», are under investigation in the paper. The research shows, that Trumpism uses concepts of «host» ideology (conservatism) to form its discourse. The connection between the international agenda of Trumpism and isolationist and protectionist ideas of paleoconservatism is determined. The influence of conservative ideological attitudes on the evolution of US foreign policy in the XXI century is traced.

Social and Economic Political Ideology Consistently Operate as Mutual Suppressors: Implications for Personality, Social, and Political Psychology

Right–left political views can be decomposed into distinct economic and social dimensions that bear differing relations with external criteria. In three community samples (total N = 1,487), we identified replicable suppressor situations in which statistically controlling for either social or economic political ideology increased the other ideology dimension’s relations with variables reflecting cognitive rigidity, authoritarianism, dangerous worldview, and lethal partisanship. Specifically, positive bivariate relations between social conservatism and these outcomes were enhanced after controlling for economic conservatism, whereas, after controlling for social conservatism, positive bivariate relations between economic conservatism and external criteria became negative and negative bivariate relations were enhanced. We identified similar, albeit less consistent, suppressor phenomena for general personality. Taken together, our results suggest that social and economic conservatism differ substantially in their psychological implications, and that following statistical control, these differences emerge in samples in which social and economic conservatism are highly positively correlated.

Poetics, Perversions, and Passing: Approaching the Transgender Narratives ofThesmophoriazousai

AbstractAristophanes’s Thesmophoriazousai offers a complex engagement with transgender identity and practice. It explores up to seven different transgendered modes through a variety of motivations and audience response. While embracing fictional/dramatic performance, these modes are best understood within the larger social and cultural framework that the play directly and indirectly suggests. Perched, like much Old Comedy, on the horns of social conservatism and conceptual flexibility, but also acknowledging a broad transgender continuum, the play’s creative tension allows for it to be recuperated and re-used by queer audiences and readers.

Right-wing populism and feminist politics: The case of Law and Justice in Poland

This article disentangles the complexity of right-wing populism and feminist politics using an original framework based on inputs (representative claims) and outputs (policies) to examine a Polish case. In 2015, the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS) formed a single-party majority government led by a female prime minister after winning the elections. PiS is ideologically conservative, promotes traditional and national values and is supported by the Catholic Church. Additionally, it is hostile towards what it calls ‘gender-ideology’ and is reluctant to implement feminist policies. This article also reveals that PiS represents conservative women’s interests and advocates an aspect of conservative feminism, therefore possessing a duality in its claims and policies. Overall, this article draws inferences about the nexus between social conservatism, populism and feminism, and thus seeks to contribute to the scholarly literature by examining a timely issue against the backdrop of rising populism, illiberalism and anti-gender campaigns.

Discrimination of hotel employees: The role of heteronormativity and political exclusion

Abstract This study explores customers’ service evaluations based on the service provided by a hotel frontline employee with different sexualities, manipulated as effeminate or masculine. Study participants were randomly assigned to respond to a video with either an effeminate or masculine hotel employee that mimics a hotel check-in experience and after are asked to evaluate check-in service. The results suggest that participants who hold stronger heteronormative beliefs are more likely to discriminate against effeminate hotel employees when evaluating the service they provided. This effect persists for the social conservatism of the participants. The study also identified a joint effect of social conservatism and political exclusion. Without tapping into sexual orientation, this study contributes to the hospitality literature by introducing sexuality and heteronormativity and adds more content to queer studies. It also suggests the need for more protection policies, management awareness, and training regarding hotel frontline employees from a diversity management perspective.

Correlate Attitudes Toward LGBT and Sexism in Spanish Psychology Students.

The present study evaluates the correlations between sexism, homonegativity, binegativity, pro-trans attitudes, political affiliation, contact with LGBT individuals and perceived stigma among psychology students. A study was conducted with 655 cis women (471 heterosexuals, 179 bisexuals and lesbians) and 174 cis men (120 heterosexuals, 54 bisexuals and gays). Descriptive, multivariate analysis of variance, bivariate correlations and multiple regression were used. In general, the groups of men and heterosexuals obtained higher negativity scores and lower acceptance scores, with significant correlations being more frequent in the heterosexual group. Predictive models confirmed the literature on social and ideological conservatism.

Corporate social responsibility, market reaction and accounting conservatism

PurposeNon-financial information disclosure may reflect the quality of corporate financial reports or disclosure policy choices. The authors examine the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and accounting conservatism and also investigate channels through which such effects are transmitted. The purpose of this paper is to explore how CSR, as non-financial information that has received widespread attention, affects choices regarding corporate financial policy.Design/methodology/approachUsing ordinary least squares regression, the authors analyze China CSR Score data for 2010–2018. They control certain influencing variables related to the nature and characteristics of enterprises and discover that CSR can effectively increase accounting conservatism. Then, they extract the components of market reactions to CSR and study the market reaction path of CSR as it affects financial policy. They also conduct a robustness test to ensure that the results are not accidental in a complex environment.FindingsThe results reveal the influence of non-financial information on firms’ financial policy. In addition, the results confirm the attraction of liquidity and investor attention as the major market reaction channels by which CSR significantly promotes accounting conservatism. Additionally, other critical paths of influence deserve further exploration. The results remain robust for alternate measures of accounting conservatism, different components of CSR, other proxies on CSR, endogenous testing and alternate estimation methods.Originality/valueThe study represents the first analysis of the influence of CSR information disclosure on accounting conservatism in emerging markets, and it undertakes a preliminary exploration to clarify the mechanism of CSRs’ role in accounting conservatism. The results also provide a policy reference for external supervision and internal governance of enterprises. Thus, the results can help company managers maintain a favorable corporate image and establish a high-level investor protection mechanism.

Investigating Connections between Need for Cognitive Closure and Climate Change Concern in College Students.

Understanding how people’s worldviews and individual personality differences affect their thinking about anthropogenic climate change is critical to communication efforts regarding this issue. This study surveyed University of Georgia students to investigate the role that need for cognitive closure plays in level of climate change worry. The relationship between these two was found to involve suppression—a subset of mediation—by the social dimension of political conservatism. Political conservatism was also found to play a mediating role in the relationship between need for cognitive closure and support for governmental and personal climate solutions. However, social conservatism played this mediator role in women, and functioned as a suppressor for men. These findings help inform audience segmentation and creation of climate-related messages based on audience worldview and personality.

Life History Orientation Predicts COVID-19 Precautions and Projected Behaviors.

The ongoing Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has had a devastating impact worldwide. It is unclear as to what one expects during the “post-peak” and “post-pandemic” periods in terms of: (1) continued adherence to precautionary measures (e.g., wearing a mask) and (2) behaviors during these periods pertaining to widespread (anticipated) medical solutions that can buffer subsequent waves (e.g., vaccination and donating plasma). In this study, we examine predictors of individual differences in attitudes and behaviors with regard to the COVID-19 pandemic and the months moving forward. Of the factors that contribute to how one might navigate the pandemic – a source of elevated environmental threat – life history orientation may play a crucial role. In this study, participants (n = 209) indicated their agreement with items on attitudes toward COVID-19 precautions and medical solutions that can buffer subsequent waves. In all models, we found significant positive relationships between one’s slow life history orientation and their self-reported adherence to precautions and endorsement of medical solutions. This effect was detectable even after controlling for factors related to political conservatism and personal experience with deleterious events as a result of the pandemic. Discussion includes reflection on the main finding, demographic variables, as well as the relationships uncovered among the modeled covariates (e.g., social conservatism, political conservatism).

The paradox of minority accommodation: Eastern Europe after 30 years

The article discusses some of the paradoxes of minority accommodation in Eastern Europe 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In the course of doing so, it focuses on four specific issues: volatility, sequencing, a shift from nationalism (group) to social conservatism (grid), and on the radicalisation of mainstream parties. Volatility is tied to the ebb and flow of shifts in the status quo associated with minority accommodation, which elucidates both why radical right mobilisation accelerates and why it loses steam. The expansion of minority rights leads to political ‘extreme reactions’. Sequencing matters since minority accommodation coincided with democratisation in Eastern Europe, so the struggle over minority rights is confounded with a concurrent regime change. Shifts from group to grid refer to the recent rise in socially conservative issues as sources of polarisation. Finally, extremist parties can threaten democratic pluralism. Nevertheless, large radicalised mainstream parties that control parliaments, not small extremist parties, subvert the institutions of democratic oversight. The threat originates from the mainstream and is exacerbated by the fact that liberal democracy has not ‘locked in’ in most of Eastern Europe.

Family Values of Siberian Merchants

The article discusses with topical issues of social history of Russia in the second half of the 19th — early 20th centuries on the example of one class. Active modernization processes in Russia changed not only the foundations of economic development, but also the collective consciousness. The "catch-up" type of modernization is usually associated with the peculiarities of the Russian economy and the dominance of state interests. Without denying this position, it should be noted that if there is no change in the views of the population, the formation of new values, we should not expect positive and effective results. The Russian merchant class accumulated significant economic resources in its hands, but it was extremely slow to enter into new processes, which, from our point of view, is primarily due to social conservatism. This is most evident in the maximum protection from external influences of family values. However, it should be noted that under the influence of time, in the beginning of 20th century there has been a change. Intra-family relations most clearly reflected in a concentrated form the origin and status of each member of the family, and the attitude to the emerging changes. Through the memories of representatives of these families, the heterogeneity of the social appearance of representatives of the class will be shown. Conservatism in the family did not mean denying progress at all, it was a desire to maintain reliable "rear". As history shows, stable developing societies protect and cultivate family values.

Reactionary Technopolitics: A Critical Sociohistorical Review

This paper outlines a critical social history of reactionary media, political, and information networks—what I refer to generally as technopolitics—in the United States and their significance to the hostility towards truth and fact that is a central feature of our political present. I begin with a critical review of the unique right-wing media and political ecosystem that emerged from the alliance between neoliberalism and social conservatism in the twentieth-century. In the second section, I focus on digitization, Trump, and the alt-right, and discuss the historical tethers connecting the latter to the cyber-libertarians and white supremacists operating on the early internet. Next, I take stock of the history covered in the paper, and argue that we can see three general sociopolitical tendencies emerging from our current juncture: something like a paleoconservative hardening of the Republican Party’s base; the degeneration of the core alt-right into white supremacist terrorism; and the rise of an “intellectualist” reactionary assemblage epitomized by the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW). I provide a brief analysis of the IDW and discuss its chief political and social significance in the post-Trump, post-alt-right social landscape of what Jodi Dean describes as communicative capitalism.

CONSERVATIVE IDEOLOGY OF INDONESIAN MUSLIMS: THE ROLE OF EPISTEMIC MOTIVATION, AUTHORITARIANISM AND ISLAMIC TOTALISM

This research proves that religiosity (Islamic totalism) is a predictor of conservative ideology, as is the need for cognitive closure and right wing authoritarian which has been proven as a psychological variable that affects conservative ideology. The ideology of conservatism emphasizes on the tendency to preserve what is already established, resist change and maintain existing orders whether social, economic, legal, religious, political, or cultural (Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003). This research utilized a quantitative survey method. Participants of this study were 528 college students from Jakarta with multiple regression analysis. The results obtained are 1) Islamic totalism, cognitive closure and right wing authoritarian are social and economic conservatism predictors; 2) only Islamic totalism is a religious conservatism predictor; 3) Islamic totalism has the greatest influence on social, economic and religious conservatives.