Are differences in the political attitudes of the regional population a mere reflection of the social and demographic composition of individual territorial units or is the regional context in which the political attitudes are formed itself important? The article presents the authors' answers to this question, based on empirical analyses of the data from four representative surveys that were conducted simultaneously in four different regions in the Czech Republic. The results of the analyses show that the populations in the individual regions differ not only in terms of electoral behaviour but also in more general political attitudes. The regional differences of political attitudes are not simply a reflection of the differences in the social and demographic composition of the regional populations. While differences in the social structures do contribute to differences in political attitudes, people's political attitudes are also significantly influenced by the regional social, political, and economic situation. In the statistical models, the contextual variables tend to be as important as the compositional variables. Different political attitudes vary in terms of their sensitivity to the influence of contextual underlying factors.
This article deals with similarities and differences in the orientations of East and West German MPs more than a decade after the unification of the country. Based on data from the Jena Parliamentary Survey, thus far the largest survey among German parliamentarians, carried out in 2003-4, the paper discusses three hypotheses. While differences between deputies from the East and the West are found to be significant for some dimensions, they are, in general, sub-ordinate to if not derived from the inter-factional differences induced by party competition. In spite of this evident impact of partisanship, German parliamentary parties exhibit unexpectedly low levels of party discipline / party unity in their attitudes towards the party and policy preferences. This phenomenon is slightly more pronounced in East Germany than in the West. Viewed against the background of parties as monopolists in the recruitment process and the reward schemes for MPs, this represents the most surprising finding from the survey.
The article presents an analysis of press items on the recent US presidential campaign as they appeared in two dailies, the New York Times and USA Today. The focus of interest is the non-voting section of the electorate, which forms a separate category, coming, as they do, under neither the usual 'Us', voting for a given candidate, nor the equally usual 'Them', voting for a different candidate. Floating voters, those who do not know for whom to cast their vote, or whether to vote at all, along with non-voters, form another category, the 'other Them'. The article compares them with 'obtuse publics', who can be observed solely by means of advanced research methodologies. The lack of visibility in the media comprises the article's primary axis, insofar as, to a large extent, non-voters remain imperceptible, despite the existence of research analysing their silence. Floating voters, in turn, are afforded the right to visibility. This is, however, a 'stigmatised' visibility, with the people concerned being portrayed with irritation and embarrassment. The article discusses the modality of this 'stigmatised' visibility; the paramount question, however, remains the absence from the media of the 'missing section of the electorate', amounting, during the last elections, to over one third of those who were entitled to vote.
The authoress of this article sets herself two goals: using the Animal Liberation Front as an example, she sets out to demonstrate the mechanisms governing the operations of the extremist wing of animal rights protection groups and to discern the factors underlying the dramatic increase in direct violence, against humans, and indirect violence, against property, which has occurred over the last twenty-five years. She is of the opinion that, given the growing trend toward decentralisation in individual organisational structures, resulting in the loss of an overriding authority and, effectively, of control over the movement, as well as the lack of philosophical and ideological checks and restraints which act as a curb against violence, what it may well come to is a significant radicalisation of acts of violence, and an explicit rejection of the ban on injuring and killing people.
This study introduces the concept of political disaffection, its measurement and operationalisation. Theoretically, this article builds on a differentiation between four basic types of orientations towards a political regime and its institutions: legitimacy of the regime, institutional disaffection, individual disaffection, and political dissatisfaction. Political disaffection is composed of two dimensions: institutional disaffection refers to beliefs that political institutions are not responsive to the requirements of the people; and individual disaffection reflects citizens‘ perceptions that they are able and willing to participation in politics. Principal axis factoring, reliability analysis along with internal and external validity analysis are used to examine institutional and individual disaffection using the Czech waves within ISSP (1996, 2000, 2004 and 2006). The results indicate that items used for measuring institutional and individual disaffection do measure the two concepts of interest. Moreover, repeated measurement of political disaffection and the stability of the results obtained provide strong arguments for the usage of these measures in future surveys.
Labels describe a fictitious situation which the contact person is supposed to asses and take a certain position. They represent a suitable complementary method of qualitative research. While in psychology they can be used as a tool for predicting behaviour, in anthropology and ethnology they can be used to study norms, perceptions or attitudes. The aim of this text is to show in what way they can be linked to other types of qualitative data (participatory observation, semi-structured interviews) through an example of a long-term anthropological research studying political preferences and moral attitudes. The principal research assumption is based on Jonathan Haidt’s concept, according to which self-declared political preferences are reflected in the sphere of moral emotions, in particular in the emotion of disgust. The results of the analysis show that all politically self-declared groups reflect morally unacceptable behaviour. The biggest difference between conservative and liberal contacts was observed with respect to sexuality (e.g. sexual behaviour, registered partnerships). The text points out the methodological limits of model situations: they can problematize the situations which individuals have not faced yet, as a result of which they can judge a fictitious and a real-life situation differently.
The article focuses on the differences in political participation among post-communist countries. First, it explores the variation in the level of political participation among post-communist states. Second, it deals with the differences in the determinants that account for political participation in individual countries. The second objective is met by introducing a three-dimensional explanatory model of political participation: individual resources, motivations, and social networks. In an empirical analysis political participation in nine post-communist countries is examined using data from the International Social Survey Programme 2004. Results show that the countries under study vary in the level of political participation both at the aggregate and individual levels. The most active citizens are in the former East Germany and Slovakia. Polish and Hungarian citizens participate in politics the least. Further, two modes of political participation - protest activity and contacting - are identified and used as dependent variables in further analysis. In the second part of the article, the explanatory model is tested against data from individual countries. The analysis shows that there is a difference in the factors that account for political participation in various post-communist countries. Generally, the three-level model of political participation works best in Hungary, Bulgaria, and East Germany. It explains very little variation in Russia and Poland.
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