Value Contrasts and Consensus in Present-Day Europe


Book Description

People's fundamental values can be conceived of as conceptions of what is desirable. They influence their selection from available modes, means and ends of action. Because of the societal importance of values they deserve scholarly attention. This volume inquires into the values present-day Europeans cherish by empirically analyzing the data of 2008/2010 wave of the European Values Study and explaining the consensus and contrasts in value orientations found. The contributors to this volume try to capture the diversities and similarities in value orientations between contemporary European countries in a range of life-spheres by unravelling context and composition effects. They are in search of evidence that either country level factors such as institutional arrangements or the composition of the populations of countries in terms of gender, age, socio-economic status, religion etcetera have the greatest impact. By doing so they paint the moral landscapes of Europe today.




European Values in Numbers


Book Description

This volume presents the beliefs and values of people in European countries and the trends that appeared at turn of the century. Based on survey data from the 1981, 1990, 1999, and 2008 values studies in Europe, trends in human values are examined concerning important life domains such as religion and morality, primary relations and family life, work and leisure time, society and political culture. It shows the cultural varieties and similarities in value profiles of the Europeans at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century.




Behind the Illiberal Turn: Values in Central Europe


Book Description

“We have to abandon liberal methods and principles of organizing a society. The new state that we are building is an illiberal state, a non-liberal state”, Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban famously said in 2014, exemplifying a broader trend taking place in Central Europe. Why would the countries that were praised as democratization and Europeanization success stories take an illiberal turn? This volume explores changing values and attitudes to explain events that took place in the aftermath of the financial and migration crisis in six Central European countries: Croatia, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.




The Impact of the Market


Book Description

Pluralism has become the defining characteristic of modern societies. Individuals with differing values clamor for equality. Organizations and groups assert particular interests. Social movements flourish and fade. Some see in this clash of principles and aims the potential for a more just human community, while others fear the erosion of enduring culture. Yet beneath this welter stand powerful and pervasive institutions, whose distinctive norms profoundly shape our moral commitments and character—notably the family, the market, the media, and systems of law, religion, politics, research, education, health care, and defense. Drawing on scholarship from five continents, many disciplines, and diverse religious perspectives, this series examines the impact of these various institutions on moral education, character, and values. As globalization carries the shifting dynamic between individuals and institutions into every part of the globe, the contributors hope that this conversation will help address the increasing challenges confronting our pluralist societies and our world. In the theoretical, empirical, and historical contributions to this volume, theologians, economists, and market practitioners discuss the many tensions between market economics, ethics, and the Christian religion, thus adding to the fruitful and much needed dialogue between economics and theology. With contributions by Jason Brennan, Michael J. Broyde, Ginny Seung Choi, Samuel Gregg, Peter Lampe, Manfred Lautenschläger, Frank J. Lechner, Klaus Leisinger, Katrin Gülden Le Maire, Piet Naudé, Paul Oslington, Stephen Pickard, William Schweiker, Virgil Henry Storr, Jürgen von Hagen, Michael Welker, Kaja Wieczorek and John Witte. Contributions by Peter Carnley, Gregor Etzelmüller, Johannes Eurich, Jennifer Herdt, Admiel Kosman, Piet Naudé, Waihan Ng, Friederike Nüssel, Bernd Oberdorfer, Martin Percy, Stephen Pickard, Raja Sakrani, William Schweiker, Philipp Stoellger, Milton Wan, Renee Ip, Michael Welker and John Witte, Jr.




Social Structure, Value Orientations and Party Choice in Western Europe


Book Description

This book analyses the impact of socio-structural variables, such as social class, religion, urban/rural residence, age and gender, on influencing an individual’s voting preferences. There have been major changes in recent decades both to social structure and how social structure determines people’s voting behaviour. There has also been a shift in value orientations, for example from religious to secular values and from more authoritarian to libertarian values. The author addresses the questions: How do social structure and value orientations influence party choice in advanced industrial democracies?; To what extent is the impact of social structure on party choice transmitted via value orientations?; To what extent is the impact of value orientations on party choice causal effects when controlled for the prior structural variables? The book will be of use to advanced students and scholars in the fields of comparative politics, electoral politics and political sociology.




Social Values and Identities in the Black Sea Region


Book Description

Social Values and Identities in the Black Sea Region focuses on the nexus between geopolitical challenges and cultural framework in the Black Sea region. The volume shows how the common inheritance interferes with different religious and political institutional backgrounds, fostering the formation of a particular cultural area. The interdisciplinary approach combines contributions from the domains of sociology, political science, international relations, and security studies and employs qualitative and quantitative analyses.




Debating Turkey in Europe


Book Description

In contemporary history, a much-debated issue has been whether European nations have a common identity and what relevance the European Union has for a shared definition of Europeanness. The present book examines the link between historical conceptions of Europe and the contestations over Turkey’s compatibility with the European Union during the 2000s.




The Political Attitudes of Divided European Citizens


Book Description

This book unveils the significant impact of the European integration process on the political thinking of European citizens. With close attention to the interrelation between social and political divisions, it shows that an integrated Europe promotes consensus but also propagates growing dissent among its citizens, with both objective inequalities and the subjective perception of these inequalities fuelling political dissent. Based on original data sets developed from two EU-funded projects across eight and nine European countries, the volume demonstrates the important role played by the social structure of European social space in conditioning political attitudes and preferences. It shows, in particular, that Europeans are highly sensitive to unequal living conditions between European countries, thus affecting their political support of national politics and the European Union. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and politics with interests in Europe and the European Union, European integration and political sociology.




European Studies and Europe: Twenty Years of Euroculture


Book Description

In 1998, the Master’s programme Euroculture started with the aim to offer, amid the many existing programmes that focused on European institutional developments, a European studies curriculum that puts the interplay of culture, society and politics in Europe at the heart of the curriculum. Among other topics, the programme focused on how Europe and European integration could be contextualised and what these concepts meant to European citizens. In June 2018, Euroculture celebrated its twentieth anniversary with a conference to discuss not only the changes within the MA Euroculture itself, but also to reflect upon the changes in the field of European studies over the last two decades writ large. This volume brings together the main findings of this conference. Since its start, Euroculture has engaged with European studies by providing a space for cooperation between more mainstream-oriented research on the one hand and a variety of sociological, historiographical, post-structuralist, and post-colonial perspectives on Europe on the other. This has enabled Euroculture to contextualise the emergence and development of European institutions historically and in relation to broader socio-political and cultural processes. Its methodology, that treats theoretical and analytical work, classroom teaching and engaged practice as integral parts of critical inquiry, has significantly contributed to its ability to continuously enhance scholarly discussions. The volume is divided into two parts, which are intrinsically linked. The first part contains reflections on the field of European studies and on concepts, analytical perspectives and methodologies that have emerged through interdisciplinary dialogues in Euroculture/European studies. The second part contains contributions that reflect upon the Euroculture programme itself, discussing both changes and continuities in the curriculum and didactic methods, outlining possible venues for further developing the educational and research programme that is firmly embedded in a network of partners that have been closely cooperating over a span of no less than two decades.