Emancipative Values Research Articles

Emancipation and Innovation: Empirical Evidence on the Relation Between Emancipative Values and Innovative Behavior

Emancipation and Innovation: Empirical Evidence on the Relation Between Emancipative Values and Innovative Behavior

The global development of value orientations, political support and democracy since the 1990s

This article analyzes the global development of democracy since the 1990s. The theoretical introduction is followed by a descriptive analysis of several indices of political support based on survey results for 89 countries that participated at least twice in the World Values Survey (WVS) or the European Values Study (EVS). The analysis focuses on emancipative value orientations measured by Welzel's Choice Index and several indicators of political support. The scores of these indicators are broken down by five regime types and seven world regions. The results confirm that the global decline of democratic quality since the mid-2000s has not been as dramatic as the pessimistic analyses of Freedom House and the V-Dem project have claimed. It has primarily taken place in a limited number of populous countries on which these publications have focused. When countries are treated equally, the quality of democracy has remained remarkably stable since the early 1990s. Emancipative values are globally on the rise, but their increase has been considerably higher in the established democracies. This supports the skeptical argument that they cannot be considered as the major cause of the third wave of democratization. The descriptive analysis is complemented by regression analyses for confidence in regime institutions and support for democracy as dependent variables. The evaluation of democratic regime performance is the strongest predictor of confidence in regime institutions. An intrinsic conception of democracy and the importance assigned to living in a democracy have the strongest influence on support for democracy. Emancipative value orientations have a minor influence on political support even in consolidated democracies. Finally, the analysis does not confirm the suspected relationship between the different levels of political support. Easton's theory of political support assumed that they mutually influence each other via a generalization of experiences or an overflow of values. Instead, it seems that confidence in regime institutions and support for democracy follow different cognitive logics.

Capable but Not Empowered? How Emancipative Values Affect Protest Participation Across Different Contexts

Political protest and citizen participation are important drivers of democratic change. While previous research has identified both micro-level attitudes such as emancipative values and macro-level factors as drivers of protest behavior, we know little about how citizens’ value-driven motivations interact with the political context. We argue that the effect of emancipative values on protest participation depends on both democratic institutions and the capacity of civil society mobilizations. Specifically, we expect the positive effect of emancipative values to be stronger in countries with higher democratic quality and more pro-democratic mass mobilizations, and weaker in countries with more pro-autocratic mass mobilizations. By combining survey and macro data for 88 democratic and autocratic regimes, we find that citizens’ value orientations interact with democratic quality and the prevalence of pro-autocratic mass mobilizations in shaping protest participation. These results contribute to a better understanding of the structural and societal preconditions for democratic change.

WINGOs as conduits of world culture, their relationships with emancipative values, and women’s political empowerment worldwide, 1981–2020

Women’s International Non-Governmental Organizations (WINGOs) are a major force in spreading world culture at the national level. At the same time, women’s political empowerment is one of the spaces in which world culture manifests itself. WINGOs, often in conjunction with emancipative values, may potentially have an impact on a country’s level of women’s political empowerment. However, scholars rarely integrate them into theory and empirical tests. Using the world culture approach as the larger frame, I build this framework and test it. Specifically, Hypothesis 1 tests whether there is a potential positive association between women’s political empowerment and the number of WINGO ties. Hypothesis 2 examines the potential interaction between emancipative values and WINGOs. Employing mixed-effects linear regression on the aggregated World Values Survey/European Values Survey (WVS/EVS) dataset and administrative data, I observe that WINGOs and emancipative values have separate effects on women’s political empowerment. However, there is no significant evidence that emancipative values interact with WINGOs.

Support for Emancipative Values in Russia during the COVID-19 Pandemic

In this article we analyze nationwide and individual trends in emancipative values in Russia during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the correlation between values and various personal COVID-19 pandemic experiences. Using panel data from 3 waves of a survey titled “Values in Crisis” we were able to identify a minor increase in support for choice values and an equally minor decrease in support for equality values between June 2020 and December 2021. Negative personal economic experiences during the pandemic reduce support for equality values whereas future financial concerns are positively, albeit weakly, associated with equality values. Neither personally succumbing to COVID-19 nor health-related anxiety are linked to support for gender equality. Neither indicator of negative pandemic experience correlates with individual choice values. Overall, emancipative value alignments seem to be resistant to shortterm deterioration of living conditions in Russia, both at the societal and the individual level.

Cronyism as a coping strategy: how do female academics deal with the lack of emancipative support?

PurposeThis paper aims to explore how female academics use cronyism to cope with the lack of emancipative support resulting from their intense teaching and research duties, poor representation at senior administrative levels and their exhausting familial commitments.Design/methodology/approachQualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with 32 female academics working full-time at four public universities in Egypt.FindingsThe findings showed that the low action resources (considering their unreasonable teaching loads, research requirements and supervision engagements), emancipative values (the unfair representation of female academics at senior administrative levels) and civic entitlement (universities not serious about promoting gender equality) are perceived by female academics as a lack of empowerment that necessitates their adoption of cronyism as their main coping strategy. Moreover, in male-dominated societies, female academics who do not have the power to shape their work-related status tend to use undesirable behaviours such as cronyism to mitigate the negative consequences of the shocks they encounter.Originality/valueThis paper contributes by filling a gap in human resources management in which empirical studies on the relationship between cronyism, emancipation and career shocks have been limited so far.

They sell Shawarma and pain: How do refugee entrepreneurs include host-country citizens? Evidence from a non-Western country

The aim of this paper is to explore how Syrian entrepreneurs in Egypt might ensure the inclusion of Egyptian employees in their restaurants in return for gratitude for the good treatment they receive from that country. The empirical sample comprises 54 semi-structured interviews with employees working full-time in restaurants owned by Syrians in Egypt. The findings showed that the previous disappointments and hardships of the refugees shape their way of thinking and behaving. The interviews indicated that Syrian refugees in Egypt return the gratitude they receive from their host country with long working hours, low financial incentives, and second-class treatment for their Egyptian employees. Moreover, the findings also indicated that guaranteeing Syrian entrepreneurs ongoing action resources (access to education, health, the labour market), emancipative values (ongoing tolerance from the host-country citizens) and civic entitlement (laws to secure freedom for Syrian refugees) might result in him or her feeling like the master that the citizens of the host country should please because he has suffered a lot in his country of origin.

Exploring the Predictors of Co-Nationals’ Preference over Immigrants in Accessing Jobs—Evidence from World Values Survey

This paper presents the results of an exploration of the most resilient influences determining the attitude regarding prioritizing co-nationals over immigrants for access to employment. The source data were from the World Values Survey. After many selection and testing steps, a set of the seven most significant determinants was produced (a fair-to-good model as prediction accuracy). These seven determinants (a hepta-core model) correspond to some features, beliefs, and attitudes regarding emancipative values, gender discrimination, immigrant policy, trust in people of another nationality, inverse devoutness or making parents proud as a life goal, attitude towards work, the post-materialist index, and job preferences as more inclined towards self rather than community benefits. Additional controls revealed the significant influence of some socio-demographic variables. They correspond to gender, the number of children, the highest education level attained, employment status, income scale positioning, settlement size, and the interview year. All selection and testing steps considered many principles, methods, and techniques (e.g., triangulation via adaptive boosting (in the Rattle library of R), and pairwise correlation-based data mining—PCDM, LASSO, OLS, binary and ordered logistic regressions (LOGIT, OLOGIT), prediction nomograms, together with tools for reporting default and custom model evaluation metrics, such as ESTOUT and MEM in Stata). Cross-validations relied on random subsamples (CVLASSO) and well-established ones (mixed-effects). In addition, overfitting removal (RLASSO), reverse causality, and collinearity checks succeeded under full conditions for replicating the results. The prediction nomogram corresponding to the most resistant predictors identified in this paper is also a powerful tool for identifying risks. Therefore, it can provide strong support for decision makers in matters related to immigration and access to employment. The paper’s novelty also results from the many robust supporting techniques that allow randomly, and non-randomly cross-validated and fully reproducible results based on a large amount and variety of source data. The findings also represent a step forward in migration and access-to-job research.

Социальная обусловленность репродуктивного поведения населения

The article presents analysis of the current demographic situation associated with the reproductive activity of population. Rosstat data, secondary studies of attitudes, behavior, opinions and attitudes of the population in relation to reproductive behavior are given. As a theoretical justification, the author relies on the theory of R. Inglehart, which is based on the idea of a cultural transition from an industrial society to a post-industrial. Another theoretical approach chosen by the author defines the role of emancipative values and implies freedom of choice and equal opportunities (K Welzel). According to the author, these are important structural elements that expand the understanding of the concept of «reproductive behavior». Reproductive behavior can be viewed from the point of view as a medical phenomenon associated with conception, childbearing and childbirth and medical impact; as a socio-political phenomenon associated with the decisions and measures of authorities at all levels to improve the demographic situation. Purpose – on the basis of a comprehensive analysis, to identify the main changes and trends in the development of the demographic situation associated with reproductive behavior, to identify factors that act both motivating and destabilizing reproductive activity of the population.

The Innovation of Values: Exploring the Role of News Media Exposure and Communication in Moral Progress in the Netherlands

ABSTRACT The world has made enormous moral progress since the 1980s. People emphasize universal emancipative values and freedom more. In this research, the role of media use and interpersonal communication therein is studied from a diffusion of innovations perspective. A secondary analysis of World Values Survey data from the Netherlands was conducted (N = 4281). Emancipative values are widely supported; however, worries about loss of freedom and moral regress increasingly lead to societal conflicts. The results show value gaps and different uses of media between adoption categories, especially between laggards and others. Multimedia use is correlated to supporting emancipative values. Early adopters use news media most, while early majority and laggards use digital media more. Outcomes such as lower levels of connectedness in combination with higher standard deviations for emancipative values indicate that media and interpersonal communication can help include laggards more in supporting emancipative values and resolving social conflicts.

Against the Mainstream: On the Limitations of Non-Invariance Diagnostics: Response to Fischer et al. and Meuleman et al.

Our original 2021 SMR article “Non-Invariance? An Overstated Problem with Misconceived Causes” disputes the conclusiveness of non-invariance diagnostics in diverse cross-cultural settings. Our critique targets the increasingly fashionable use of Multi-Group Confirmatory Factor Analysis (MGCFA), especially in its mainstream version. We document—both by mathematical proof and an empirical illustration—that non-invariance is an arithmetic artifact of group mean disparity on closed-ended scales. Precisely this arti-factualness renders standard non-invariance markers inconclusive of measurement inequivalence under group-mean diversity. Using the Emancipative Values Index (EVI), OA-Section 3 of our original article demonstrates that such artifactual non-invariance is inconsequential for multi-item constructs’ cross-cultural performance in nomological terms, that is, explanatory power and predictive quality. Given these limitations of standard non-invariance diagnostics, we challenge the unquestioned authority of invariance tests as a tool of measurement validation. Our critique provoked two teams of authors to launch counter-critiques. We are grateful to the two comments because they give us a welcome opportunity to restate our position in greater clarity. Before addressing the comments one by one, we reformulate our key propositions more succinctly.

Values and emotionality in Greek political culture: a study of ressentiment

In this article, we provide a theoretical discussion of ressentiment within the emerging fields of the political sociology and political psychology of emotions and offer an empirical investigation of its political-cultural function. The complex emotion of ressentiment refers to a recurrent rumination on negative feelings and an affective compensation for life failures. Extant studies show ressentiment can be linked to electoral support for populist, anti-immigration and far-right parties, and can provide leverage for major sociopolitical upheavals. Using the World Values Survey 7th wave dataset for Greece we analyse the psychological components and political expressions of ressentiment testing three hypotheses on its relationship with efficacy and life satisfaction, value systems and political violence. The analysis is possible due to an original six-item ressentiment scale that we offer as a novel measure of this emotional phenomenon. We find a limited distribution of ressentiment in Greece concentrated among economically and socially disadvantaged segments of society. We also find that ressentiment scores link monotonically with overall life dissatisfaction and diminished political interest, lack of efficacy, low interpersonal trust and aversion for sociocentric and emancipative values. Traces of dormant support for violence are evident in responses about violence against others where ressentiment-ful participants score higher compared with their less ressentiment-ful counterparts. We discuss the implications of our findings for the quality of democracy, authoritarian populism and nationalism.

Lifecycle, generational, and period effects on emancipative values in Serbia

The aim of this paper is to analyse the lifecycle, generation?al, and period effects on emancipative value preferences in Serbia. The data used in the analysis was collected in the World Values Survey (WVS), conducted in Serbia in 1996 (N = 1,280), 2006 (N = 1,220), and 2017 (N = 1,046), respectively. As a proxy measure of the respondents? life?cycle stage, the recoded age variable (young/middle-aged/ elderly) was used. Based on the age period during which a person spent their formative years (15-24 years of age), a sixfold typology of political generation membership was constructed. The year in which the survey was conduct?ed was used as a measure of period effects. The results indicate that emancipative values were more likely to be embraced by younger respondents (r = .22**) and in survey waves after 2000 (r = .17**), and less by the members of the socialist generation (p < .01) than by those generations who spent their formative years after 2000, omnibus F(5, 3440) = 58.19**. The results reveal a complex relation?ship between lifecycle, generational, and period effects on emancipative values and call into question the exclusive importance that is usually attributed to generational differences in theory. The conclusion outlines possible implications for the theory of human empowerment and practical implications for the possibility of value change in Serbian society.

Lifecycle, Generational, and Period Effects on Emancipative Values in Serbia

Lifecycle, Generational, and Period Effects on Emancipative Values in Serbia

How important is culture to understand political protest?

The literature considers nonviolent protests among the most important predictors of transitions towards democracy and democratic reforms. This study addresses the conditionsmaking countries more likely to experience nonviolent instead of violent forms of protest. While the literature emphasizes economic and political predictors of protest at the country level, we expand the study of nonviolent-vs-violent protest by incorporating cultural predictors. To do so, we use a newly developed time-pooled cross-sectional database covering an established set of orientations from the World Values Survey, known as “emancipative values”. Estimating the prevalence of these values at the country level as a time-varying predictor of nonviolent-vs-violent protests, we present the first comprehensively longitudinal analysis of the determinants of protests. Taking into account time-varying unobserved heterogeneity, persistence, the excess number of zeros and over-dispersion in protest event data, we find that emancipative values are a significant and positive predictor of the countries’ nonviolent protest levels, yet not violent protest levels.

Variations in the Acceptance of Parental Corporal Punishment of Children: What Matters?

This article tries to identify people's degree of acceptance of parental corporal punishment (CP) of children and the nature of the association of different variables, particularly the value variables with such acceptance. For this purpose, the study uses data from the World Values Survey 6 (2010-2014), which is a large survey of attitudes based on representative samples from 60 different countries (around 1,200 respondents from each). This study tested five hypotheses and two subhypotheses on individuals' acceptance of parental CP: effects of emancipative values (aspiration to autonomy and freedom), nonmasculine values, religiousness, people's dissatisfaction with life in general, and more specifically, dissatisfaction with financial and health conditions and national bans on CP. The findings show that the higher level presence of emancipative values and nonmasculine values are associated with lower support for CP. The study also finds that a number of sociodemographic variables affect the endorsement of CP; on the one hand, people with higher age and lower social classes (subjective) tend to express less support for CP, whereas on the other, people with no partners (divorced/separated/widowed/single) and men tend to express higher support for the use of parental CP. The identification of these associations can help us to develop more effective policies to address the problem of CP.

Ukrainian

The article deals with analysis of relationship between the prevalence of emancipative values and demographic modernization in the field of reproductive behavior and fertility using the data of the latest wave of World Values Survey (2017-2020). The study is aimed to compare the commitment of respondents from different countries to emancipative values (according to the index “Welzel emancipative values”), to assess the impact this complex “value factor” has on the number of respondents’ children, on their attitudes to childbirth, on the age of motherhood. Also focus of this study includes analysis of factors that affect index value, in particular individual socio-demographic characteristics of respondents. Within this study an attempt is made for the first time to model the relationship between the commitment to emancipative values and number of children controlling for the impact of both the individual socio-demographic characteristics of the respondent and the stage of demographic transition in his / her country. Other components of the research with results that potentially can contribute to the existing literature are related to studying: relationship between the prevalence of emancipative values and the attitude to the evaluative judgment on the mandatory birth of children; impact of the emancipative values’ spread on motherhood age; impact of respondents’ socio-demographic characteristics on their commitment to emancipative values (based on the Ukrainian data). Censored Poisson regression is used to model the relationship between the emancipative values index and the number of respondent’s children. Regression model (linear regression estimated by OLS) is estimated to determine the dependence of value orientations’ (according to Welzel values) on the age of respondents from Ukraine, controlling for the influence of such variables as sex, education level and type of settlement. Evaluation of the impact average value of Welzel index has on attitudes towards childbirth, as well as its effect on the mean age of mother at the first child birth is carried out at the national level based on WVS data using correlation-regression analysis. There is a statistically significant inverse relationship between index of emancipative values and number of children. The effect of this value factor is bigger in magnitude compared to the effects of such factors as age, gender, type of settlement, education level of the respondent (all abovementioned effects are statistically significant). There is a strong statistically significant relationship between the prevalence of emancipative values and the increase in the proportion of those who do not perceive the childbirth as a social duty. Also obtained results reveal that the spread of emancipative values has statistically significant positive effect on the mother’s age at the first birth (i.e. with the higher level of emancipative values the mother’s age at the first birth is increasing). Conducted analysis showed the statistically significant age effect in the differentiation of the Welzel index among Ukrainian respondents, as well as the effect of their settlement place and educational level on propensity to emancipative values.

Democratic Horizons: what value change reveals about the future of democracy

ABSTRACT Recent accounts of democratic backsliding are negligent about the cultural foundations of autocracy-vs-democracy. To bring culture back in, I demonstrate that (1) the countries’ membership in culture zones explains some 70% of the global variation in autocracy-vs-democracy and (2) that this culture-bound variation has remained astoundingly constant over time – in spite of all the trending patterns in the global distribution of regime types over the last 120 years. Furthermore, the explanatory power of culture zones over autocracy-vs-democracy roots in the cultures’ differentiation on “authoritarian-vs-emancipative values.” Against this backdrop, lasting regime turnovers happen as a corrective response to glacially accruing regime-culture misfits – driven by generational value shifts into a pre-dominantly emancipatory direction. Consequently, the backsliding of democracies into authoritarianism is limited to societies in which emancipative values remain under-developed. Contrary to the widely cited deconsolidation-thesis, the prevalent generational profile in people’s moral orientations exhibits an almost ubiquitous ascension of emancipative values that will lend more, not less, legitimacy to democracy in the future.

Values As Determinants of Social Capital: Regional Perspective

This research focuses on emancipative value orientations, regional factors and their interaction in determining social capital in Russia. We are especially interested in how the effects vary for formal and informal social capital, measured as different types of civic engagement. Applying multilevel regression modeling on national survey data MegaFOM 2017 and available official statistics, we find that emancipative values significantly increase the probability of taking part in civic activities, yet the effect is larger and more uniform across regions for formal social capital. Contrary to expectations and previous cross-country studies, the moderating effect of emancipative values prevalence is either insignificant or rather unstable and goes in the negative direction. Moreover, other regional resources do not significantly moderate the relation between individual emancipative values preference and social capital.

Why The Future Is Democratic

Recent accounts of democratic backsliding neglect the cultural foundations of autocracy-versus-democracy. To bring culture back in, this article demonstrates that 1) countries' membership in culture zones explains some 70 percent of the total cross-national variation in autocracy-versus-democracy; and 2) this culture-bound variation has remained astoundingly constant over time—in spite of all the trending patterns in the global distribution of regime types over the last 120 years. Furthermore, the explanatory power of culture zones over autocracy-versus-democracy is rooted in the cultures' differentiation on "authoritarian-versus-emancipative values." Therefore, both the direction and the extent of regime change are a function of glacially accruing regime-culture misfits—driven by generational value shifts in a predominantly emancipatory direction. Consequently, the backsliding of democracies into authoritarianism is limited to societies in which emancipative values remain underdeveloped. Contrary to the widely cited deconsolidation thesis, the ascendant generational profile of emancipative values means that the momentary challenges to democracy are unlikely to stifle democracy's long-term rise.