Why is discontent with politicians highest among less‐educated citizens? Supplementing explanations concerning a lack of resources and knowledge, we examine the cultural distance to many a politician ...perceived by this group. Inspired by qualitative studies mapping the worldviews of people from the lower social strata, we explore less‐educated citizens’ perceptions of politicians using in‐depth (group) interviews carried out in various regions of the Netherlands (n = 26). Our analysis indicates that this group regards politicians as culturally distant “others” and that this perception goes hand in hand with specific negative evaluations of politicians. This improves our understanding of the much‐reported political discontent of these citizens. In moving beyond the often mentioned unspecific divide between the “people” and the “elite”, our analysis reveals that our interviewees: (i) consider politicians to be insensitive to the lived experiences of the “common” people, and therefore, question their legitimacy and the policies they propose; (ii) resent their communication styles, which they describe as “beating about the bush” and perceive to be emblematic of indecisiveness and a lack of integrity; and (iii) accuse them of superiority signaling, inspiring feelings of misrecognition and opposition. We conclude with detailing the implications of our findings for (future) research.
Although citizens' attitudes towards the European Union (EU) have been examined extensively, there is a dearth of studies on what the EU actually means to them. Inspired by observations suggesting ...that the EU means different things to different people, this research aimed to uncover these views using an inductive approach: 13 group interviews with a heterogenous set of homogenous groups. 45 Dutch citizens, strategically selected from various social backgrounds, were interviewed in‐depth. Four discourses on the EU were identified: pragmatic, federalist, anti‐establishment and disengaged. We also demonstrated that these discourses go hand‐in‐hand with: 1) specific evaluations of the EU beyond the conventional ‘Europhilia‐Euroscepticism’ dimension; and 2) similar criticisms regarding themes emphasised by interviewees themselves – wasting of money and a lack of transparency and democracy – but for very different, sometimes even counterposing, reasons. The wider implications of our findings and possible venues for further research are also discussed.
Recent in‐depth qualitative research indicates that different people ascribe different meanings to their apparently similar stances on immigrants' entitlement to welfare. We are the first to ...investigate such variation quantitatively among the public‐at‐large, applying the novel method Correlational Class Analysis to an original survey fielded among a representative sample in the Netherlands (n = 2138). We uncover five ways of looking at immigrants' entitlement to welfare, each including both people who oppose that entitlement and those who support it. People who adhere to these different viewpoints substantially differ when it comes to income, education, religious denomination, and political preference. We interpret these unique findings and discuss them in relation to the extant literature on welfare chauvinism. Moreover, uncovering what people's stances regarding immigrants' entitlement to welfare mean not only advances the scholarly debate on welfare chauvinism, but also provides a stepping stone for meaning‐oriented sociological research on public opinion more generally.
•Tests the role of social status in the educational divide in climate change attitudes.•Test of knowledge-deficit approach using objectively measured scientific knowledge.•Scientific knowledge more ...relevant for educational divide in climate skepticism.•Social status more relevant for educational divide in distrust in climate science.•Practitioners could increase sensitivity to subjective social status.
Research has frequently found that less-educated citizens are more skeptical about climate change and show less trust in climate science than their more-educated counterparts. We advance insights on why this educational divide exists by: 1) scrutinizing the relevance of the dominant knowledge-deficit explanation by uniquely using an objective measure of scientific knowledge; and 2) theorizing and empirically testing a novel explanation on the importance of subjective social status. Building on recent sociological insights, we theorize that less-educated citizens have a lower subjective social status and feel misrecognized by more-educated citizens, inciting frustration and opposition toward the attitudes and lifestyle of the latter. Because belief in and concern about climate change are predominantly embraced by more-educated citizens and have strong status connotations, less-educated citizens’ opposition to the lifestyle of more-educated citizens is likely also directed at the issue of climate change. We test hypotheses derived from both approaches by analyzing unique survey data gathered among members of a high-quality panel representative of the Dutch population. We focus on two outcome measures: climate change skepticism and distrust in climate science. We find that both the knowledge-deficit approach and the novel explanation involving subjective social status contribute to understanding the educational divide in climate change attitudes, in addition to other approaches covered by control variables such as income and political ideology. Our study concludes with a reflection on the theoretical implications of these findings and their practical implications for information campaigns, which our study suggests should be careful not to prime less-educated citizens’ perceived lower social standing.
Anti‐establishment politics have become part of contemporary Western democracies. Less‐educated citizens in particular have been found to display political distrust and populist attitudes, support ...populist parties, and abstain from voting. We advance a novel explanation for these patterns, drawing on extant theoretical insights to hypothesize that less‐ and more‐educated citizens differ in the extent to which they perceive politicians to be culturally distant to them. Informed by our earlier in‐depth qualitative research, we developed novel indicators of such perceptions and included them in a survey fielded among a high‐quality panel representative of the Dutch population. We found: 1) positive associations between perceived cultural distance to politicians and political distrust, populist attitudes, the intention to vote for a populist party, and non‐voting; and 2) that, overall, perceived cultural distance contributes substantially more to the educational gradient in anti‐establishment political attitudes and behavior than the conventional rationalist and materialist approaches.
This article provides better understanding of less-educated citizens’ underrepresentation in citizens’ initiatives. Based on in-depth interviews with less-educated citizens in Rotterdam, the ...Netherlands, the study discerned that the concepts of ‘feelings of entitlement’ and a ‘taste for politics’ are crucial for understanding their (non-)participation. The study uncovered that sub-dimensions of these concepts occur in different combinations, yielding four ideal types of (non-)participation: retreating non-participation, rebellious participation, potentially cooperating participation and pragmatic non-participation. In addition to well-known explanations as lack of time, money, social capital and political knowledge, the findings underline the fruitfulness of an approach that enables to uncover citizens’ perspectives for understanding their (non-)participation in citizens’ initiatives. Contrary to conventional understanding, this research also shows that a lack of feelings of entitlement does not necessarily inspire a distaste for politics, and that distaste for politics stimulates non-participation for some, while it inspires others to become politically active.
This study aims to understand vaccine skepticism among a population where it is remarkably prevalent—more-educated Dutch parents—through 31 in-depth interviews. Whereas all respondents ascribe a ...central role to the individual in obtaining knowledge (i.e., individualist epistemology), this is expressed in two repertoires. A neoromantic one focuses on deriving truth through intuition and following a “natural” path and informs a risk typology: embracing (refusing) “natural” (“unnatural”) risks such as “childhood diseases” (“pharmaceutical substances”). A critical-reflexive repertoire centers on scientific methods but is skeptical about the scientific consensus and informs a risk calculation: opting for the choice perceived to bear the smallest risk. Thus, the same vaccine can be rejected because of its perceived harm to natural processes (neoromantic repertoire) or because its scientific basis is deemed insufficient (critical-reflexive repertoire). Moreover, these opposing repertoires are likely to inspire different responses to the same health-related information.
Leftist and rightist populist parties in Western Europe both oppose trade openness. Is support for economic protectionism also relevant for their electorates? We assess this in the Netherlands, where ...both types of populist parties have seats in parliament. Analyses of representative survey data (n = 1,296) demonstrate that support for protectionism drives voting for such parties, as do the well-established determinants of political distrust (both populist constituencies), economic egalitarianism (leftist populist constituency) and ethnocentrism (rightist populist constituency). Surprisingly, support for protectionism does not mediate the relationship between economic egalitarianism and voting for left-wing populists, or the link between political distrust and voting for either left-wing or right-wing populist parties. In contrast, support for protectionism partly mediates the association between ethnocentrism and voting for right-wing populists. We discuss the largely independent role of protectionism in populist voting in relation to the cultural cleavage in politics and electoral competition, and also provide suggestions for future research.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, ODKLJ, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Next to their well-documented authoritarian cultural agenda, new-rightist populist parties have developed specific views on the welfare state: welfare chauvinism and welfare populism. This article ...studies the electoral relevance of these views for Dutch new-rightist populist parties by means of survey data representative of the Dutch population (N = 1972). The electorate of those parties shows high levels of both welfare chauvinism and welfare populism. However, only welfare populism underlies support for new-rightist populist parties in addition to well-known cultural motives. Based on these findings, ideological and electoral competition between political parties is discussed, and suggestions for further research are provided. Au-delà de leur agenda culturel autoritaire bien démontré, les partis populistes de la nouvelle droite ont développé des positions spécifiques sur l'État providence : chauvinisme social et populisme social. Cet article étudie la pertinence électorale de ces orientations pour des partis populistes de la nouvelle droite hollandaise au moyen de données représentatives de la population hollandaise (N = 1972). L'électorat de ces partis montre des niveaux élevés tant de chauvinisme social que de populisme social. Cependant, seul le populisme social est à la base du soutien aux partis populistes de la nouvelle droite, outre les motivations culturelles bien connues. À partir de ces découvertes, la concurrence idéologique et électorale entre les partis politiques est discutée et de nouvelles recherches sont suggérées. Junto a su bien documentada agenda cultural autoritaria, los partidos populistas de la nuevaderecha han desarrollado puntos de vista específicos respecto del estado de bienestar: el chovinismo de bienestar y el populismo de bienestar. Este artículo estudia la relevancia electoral de estas nuevas perspectivas para los partidos de la nueva-derecha holandesa mediante una encuesta representativa de la población (N = 1972). El electorado de dichos partidos muestra altos niveles en ambos aspectos, el chovinismo de bienestar y el populismo de bienestar. Sin embargo, solo el populismo de bienestar subyace en el apoyo a los partidos populistas de la nueva-derecha sumado a aspectos culturales bien conocidos. En base a estos resultados, se analiza la competencia ideológica y electoral entre partidos políticos y se presentan sugerencias para futuras investigaciones.
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