Journal of Elections, Political Opinion & Parties , 2021
The implementation of unprecedented crisis management policies in response to the spread of Covid... more The implementation of unprecedented crisis management policies in response to the spread of Covid-19 has attracted the attention of scholars interested in exploring the link between pandemic politics and political trust. However, while the disclosure of information about the pandemic constitutes an important aspect of crisis management policies, the effect of the level of information disclosure on political trust has not yet been investigated. As part of a larger nationally-representative survey experiment on the role of transparency on political trust, we collected data from 618 respondents in the Republic of Ireland in May 2020. The pre-registered study manipulated the level of the disclosure of government information about the status of the pandemic (high and low information conditions). We do not find any direct effects of information disclosure treatments on political trust. However, we find that the high information condition significantly increases political trust among individuals with higher levels of prior trust in government, while it leads to a backfiring effect among those with lower levels of prior trust. These findings are relevant for both public opinion and public policy researchers who are interested in the effect of openness on citizen attitudes.
There is no easy answer to the question of whether religiosity promotes or hinders commitment to ... more There is no easy answer to the question of whether religiosity promotes or hinders commitment to democracy. Earlier research largely pointed to religiosity as a source of antidemocratic orientations. More recent empirical evidence is less conclusive, however, suggesting that the effect of religiosity on democratic commitment could be positive, negative, or null. We review the existing approaches to the study of religiosity and democratic commitment, focusing on support for the democratic system, political engagement, and political tolerance, by distinguishing accounts that examine a single dimension of religiosity from accounts that adopt a multidimensional approach. We show that multidimensional approaches, while effective in accounting for the effect of religiosity on discrete democratic norms, fall short of accounting for some of the inconsistencies in the literature and in identifying the mechanisms that may be responsible for shaping how religiosity affects endorsement of democratic norms as a whole. To fill this gap, we propose the Religious Motivations and Expressions (REME) model. Applying theories of goal constructs to religion, this model maps associations between three religious expressions (belief, social behavior, and private behavior) and the religious motivations that underly these expressions. We discuss how inconsistent associations between religiosity and elements of democratic commitment can be rendered interpretable once the motivations underlying religious expressions, as well as contextual information, are accounted for. We contend that applying goal constructs to religion is critical for understanding the nature of the religion‐democracy nexus.
Norm enforcement may be important for resolving conflicts and promoting cooperation. However, lit... more Norm enforcement may be important for resolving conflicts and promoting cooperation. However, little is known about how preferred responses to norm violations vary across cultures and across domains. In a preregistered study of 57 countries (using convenience samples of 22,863 students and non-students), we measured perceptions of the appropriateness of various responses to a violation of a cooperative norm and to atypical social behaviors. Our findings highlight both cultural universals and cultural variation. We find a universal negative relation between appropriateness ratings of norm violations and appropriateness ratings of responses in the form of confrontation, social ostracism and gossip. Moreover, we find the country variation in the appropriateness of sanctions to be consistent across different norm violations but not across different sanctions. Specifically, in those countries where use of physical confrontation and social ostracism is rated as less appropriate, gossip is rated as more appropriate.
The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 2021
Addressing climate change requires international effort from both governments and the public. Cli... more Addressing climate change requires international effort from both governments and the public. Climate change concern is a crucial variable influencing public support for measures to address climate change. Combining country-level data with data from the Pew Research Center Spring 2015 Global Attitudes Survey, we test whether perceived threats from climate change influence climate change concern. We distinguish between personal threat and planetary threat and we find that both threats have substantive effects on climate change concern, with personal threat exerting a greater influence on climate change concern than planetary threat. The effects of both types of threats are also moderated by GDP per capita, such that threats have stronger effects on climate change concern in high-income countries than in low-income countries. Our findings contribute to the existing literature and open up new debates concerning the role of threats in climate change concern and have implications for climate change communication.
Religion’s effect on individual tendency to engage in political protest is influenced both by the... more Religion’s effect on individual tendency to engage in political protest is influenced both by the resources available to citizens at the individual level and opportunities provided to religious groups and organizations at the country level. Combining data from last two waves of the World Values Surveys with aggregate data on religious regulation, we show that private religious beliefs reduce an individual’s protest potential while involvement in religious social networks fosters it. At the country level, we find that government regulation of religion decreases individual tendency to protest, and has an especially detrimental effect on the likelihood of religious minorities joining peaceful protest activities. These findings are in line with opportunity structure theories that stress the importance of system openness for fostering political protest.
Current literature presents conflicting findings concerning the effect of religiosity on attitude... more Current literature presents conflicting findings concerning the effect of religiosity on attitudes towards redistribution. This paper attempts to reconcile these findings by arguing that the belief and social behavior dimensions of religiosity affect support for redistribution via different mechanisms, and that these effects are moderated by state welfare generosity. Using multilevel path analysis models on data from the World Values Survey, we show that the effect of the religious belief on attitudes towards redistribution is mediated by competing personal orientations-prosocial values and conservative identification-while the religious social behavior dimension significantly decreases support for redistribution via increased levels of happiness. Lower levels of welfare generosity increase the positive effect of proso-cial orientations and weaken the negative effect conservative identification, leading to positive or null indirect effect of religiosity. These findings show the importance of taking into account the multiple dimensions of religiosity and institutional context when studying the relationship between religion and redistribution attitudes.
Authoritarian predispositions are associated with a preference for order, certainty, and security... more Authoritarian predispositions are associated with a preference for order, certainty, and security. Using data from European Social Surveys (ESS), we show that this association extends to attitudes towards redistributive policies. We demonstrate that support for redistributive policies that emphasize the government’s responsibility to provide old age, health, and unemployment benefits are positively associated with authoritarian predispositions. We also provide evidence that perceived economic threats moderate this relationship such that, for individuals who perceive higher levels of economic threat, the relationship between authoritarian predispositions and support for government responsibility is stronger. These results show that authoritarian predispositions are not only associated with social preferences but also attitudes towards economic policies.
Somewhat paradoxically, numerous scholars in various disciplines have found that religion induces... more Somewhat paradoxically, numerous scholars in various disciplines have found that religion induces negative attitudes towards immigrants, while others find that it fuels feelings of compassion. We offer a framework that accounts for this discrepancy. Using two priming experiments conducted among American Catholics, Turkish Muslims, and Israeli Jews, we disentangle the role of religious social identity and religious belief, and differentiate among types of immigrants based on their ethnic and religious similarity to, or difference from,members of the host society.We find that religious social identity increases opposition to immigrants who are dissimilar to in-group members in religion or ethnicity, while religious belief engenders welcoming attitudes toward immigrants of the same religion and ethnicity, particularly among the less conservative devout. These results suggest that different elements of the religious experience exert distinct and even contrasting effects on immigration attitudes, manifested in both the citizenry’s considerations of beliefs and identity and its sensitivity to cues regarding the religion of the target group.
This paper shows that cultural and material threats exist side by side, serving different psychol... more This paper shows that cultural and material threats exist side by side, serving different psychological functions, and that they manifest in differential attitudes towards immigrants from different ethnic or racial origins. While culturally threatened individuals prefer immigrants akin to themselves, as opposed to those from different races and cultures, the materially threatened prefer to allow in people different from themselves who can be expected not to compete for the same resources. we test our hypotheses using multilevel structural equation modelling, based on data from twenty countries from the
2002 wave of the European Social Survey. The disaggregation of these two types of perceived threat reveals responsiveness to the race of immigrants that is otherwise masked by pooling the two threat dimensions.
While arguably central to the human experience, religion is a largely understudied component of s... more While arguably central to the human experience, religion is a largely understudied component of social life and of politics. The comparative literature on religion and politics is limited in scope, and offers mostly descriptions of trends. We know, for example, that restrictions on freedom of religion are on the rise worldwide. In our theoretical framework, the recently higher universal levels of globalization combine with other sources of threat to account for the trend away from religious freedom. As threat to the majority religion increases, due to globalization and an increasing number of minority religions, freedom of religion is on the decline. Data for two decades from 147 nations are used to test hypotheses. Time-series cross-sectional and mediation models estimated at different levels of analysis with data from two independent sources confirm that threat systematically accounts for changes in religious freedom, with globalization playing a key role.
International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 25(3) 368-382., 2013
The effects of religious belief and religious social behavior on support for democracy are invest... more The effects of religious belief and religious social behavior on support for democracy are investigated in a priming experiment conducted among Turkish Muslims and Israeli Jews. By varying the question order of World Values Survey (WVS) items, which measure religious belief and religious social behavior, it was demonstrated that priming religious social behavior facilitates, while priming religious belief impedes, support for democracy, compared with a control group of no prime. These results were independent of participants’ intensity of religious belief or the frequency of their religious social behavior and held for the most part across both religious affiliations and political contexts.
British Journal of Political Science, 43(2): 375-397., 2013
Religion can be a source of undemocratic attitudes but also a contributor to democratic norms. Th... more Religion can be a source of undemocratic attitudes but also a contributor to democratic norms. This paper argues that different dimensions of religiosity generate contrasting effects on democratic attitudes through different mechanisms. The private aspect of religious belief is associated with traditional and survival values, which in turn decrease both overt and intrinsic support for democracy. The communal aspect of religious social behavior increases political interest and trust in institutions, which in turn typically lead to more support for democracy. Results emerging from multilevel path analyses models using data from a total of 54 countries from the fourth and fifth waves of the World Values Survey suggest that there is some regularity in mechanisms responsible for the effect of religiosity on democratic support that extend above and beyond religious denomination.
Critically considering scholarship relating religiosity to ethical behaviour, we contend that rel... more Critically considering scholarship relating religiosity to ethical behaviour, we contend that religion is systematically related to levels of corruption, and that the nature of this relationship is contingent on the presence of democratic institutions. In democracies, where political institutions are designed to inhibit
corrupt conduct, the morality provided by religion is related to attenuated corruption. Conversely, in systems lacking democratic institutions, moral behaviour is not tantamount to staying away from corrupt ways. Accordingly, in non-democratic contexts, religion would not be associated with decreased corruption. Time-series cross-sectional analyses of aggregate data for 129 countries for 12 years, as well as individual level analyses of data World Values Surveys, strongly corroborate the predictions of our theory. The correlation of religion with reduced corruption is conditional on the extent to which political institutions are democratic.
International Political Science Review, 34(2): 210-226., 2013
This paper examines the influence of societal values on individual attitudes towards immigration ... more This paper examines the influence of societal values on individual attitudes towards immigration and immigrants. We argue that conflict between individual and societal values leads individuals to be exposed to frames and opinions that are contrary to their values, evokes competing considerations and creates attitudinal ambivalence and volatility. To evade ambivalence, individuals whose values are in conflict with those of their society rely less on their core values to construct their attitudes. Using data from the first wave of European Social Surveys and relying on Heteroskedastic Maximum Likelihood Regression, we test our argument simultaneously for 18 European countries and show that deviation from society’s conservation and self-transcendence values leads to greater ambivalence in attitudes towards immigration and immigrants. Our results provide evidence of the importance of the social context and society’s shared values in influencing personal political attitudes and judgments.
Perceptions: Journal of International Affairs, 17(3): 81-103, 2012
Public opinion towards the European Union in Turkey is a relatively understudied area. Although p... more Public opinion towards the European Union in Turkey is a relatively understudied area. Although previous studies identified some important factors that influence individual support for the European Union, such as material expectations and democratic attitudes, the role of other important factors, such as perceived political benefits and threats, have not been addressed. The purpose of this paper is to test the group-centricism arguments, which suggest that identity, group-based interests and perceived threats are important determinants of attitudes. Analysis of data from the latest available Eurobarometer dataset shows that symbolic politics and perceived benefits play an important role in shaping individual attitudes towards the EU in Turkey. While subjective material and political expectations increase pro-EU attitudes, the strength of national identity and perceived material and cultural threats to the nation are critical in decreasing support for the EU.
Different components of the religious experience have differing effects on attitudes towards demo... more Different components of the religious experience have differing effects on attitudes towards democracy. Using heteroskedastic maximum likelihood models and data from the fourth wave of the World Values Survey for 45 democratic countries, we show that as a personal belief system, religiosity contrasts with democratic principles, generating opposition to democracy while increasing ambivalence towards democratic principles among religious people. Nevertheless, at the group level, religion also serves as a social institution which increases the homogeneity of one’s social network, leading to lower ambivalence, and makes for an active minority group which benefits from the democratic framework, consequently increasing support overall for a democratic regime. This double-edged sword effect explains the mixed results currently found in the literature on religiosity and democracy, and clearly illustrates the multidimensionality of religiosity.
Although cited as an important source of support for capitalism and laissez faire, the effect of ... more Although cited as an important source of support for capitalism and laissez faire, the effect of economic individualism, which embraces the values of self-reliance, individual autonomy and freedom on government spending, has yet to be addressed. Hence, using data from the World Values Survey and Persson and Tabellini‘s Economic Effects of Constitutions datasets, I show that more individualist nations are associated with lower
government spending and that the effect of economic individualism is stronger in countries with majoritarian elections and presidential systems. The results also show that institutions do not exert a uniform influence on government size, with most
spending taking place under majoritarian elections and presidential systems in the most collectivist countries.
Journal of Elections, Political Opinion & Parties , 2021
The implementation of unprecedented crisis management policies in response to the spread of Covid... more The implementation of unprecedented crisis management policies in response to the spread of Covid-19 has attracted the attention of scholars interested in exploring the link between pandemic politics and political trust. However, while the disclosure of information about the pandemic constitutes an important aspect of crisis management policies, the effect of the level of information disclosure on political trust has not yet been investigated. As part of a larger nationally-representative survey experiment on the role of transparency on political trust, we collected data from 618 respondents in the Republic of Ireland in May 2020. The pre-registered study manipulated the level of the disclosure of government information about the status of the pandemic (high and low information conditions). We do not find any direct effects of information disclosure treatments on political trust. However, we find that the high information condition significantly increases political trust among individuals with higher levels of prior trust in government, while it leads to a backfiring effect among those with lower levels of prior trust. These findings are relevant for both public opinion and public policy researchers who are interested in the effect of openness on citizen attitudes.
There is no easy answer to the question of whether religiosity promotes or hinders commitment to ... more There is no easy answer to the question of whether religiosity promotes or hinders commitment to democracy. Earlier research largely pointed to religiosity as a source of antidemocratic orientations. More recent empirical evidence is less conclusive, however, suggesting that the effect of religiosity on democratic commitment could be positive, negative, or null. We review the existing approaches to the study of religiosity and democratic commitment, focusing on support for the democratic system, political engagement, and political tolerance, by distinguishing accounts that examine a single dimension of religiosity from accounts that adopt a multidimensional approach. We show that multidimensional approaches, while effective in accounting for the effect of religiosity on discrete democratic norms, fall short of accounting for some of the inconsistencies in the literature and in identifying the mechanisms that may be responsible for shaping how religiosity affects endorsement of democratic norms as a whole. To fill this gap, we propose the Religious Motivations and Expressions (REME) model. Applying theories of goal constructs to religion, this model maps associations between three religious expressions (belief, social behavior, and private behavior) and the religious motivations that underly these expressions. We discuss how inconsistent associations between religiosity and elements of democratic commitment can be rendered interpretable once the motivations underlying religious expressions, as well as contextual information, are accounted for. We contend that applying goal constructs to religion is critical for understanding the nature of the religion‐democracy nexus.
Norm enforcement may be important for resolving conflicts and promoting cooperation. However, lit... more Norm enforcement may be important for resolving conflicts and promoting cooperation. However, little is known about how preferred responses to norm violations vary across cultures and across domains. In a preregistered study of 57 countries (using convenience samples of 22,863 students and non-students), we measured perceptions of the appropriateness of various responses to a violation of a cooperative norm and to atypical social behaviors. Our findings highlight both cultural universals and cultural variation. We find a universal negative relation between appropriateness ratings of norm violations and appropriateness ratings of responses in the form of confrontation, social ostracism and gossip. Moreover, we find the country variation in the appropriateness of sanctions to be consistent across different norm violations but not across different sanctions. Specifically, in those countries where use of physical confrontation and social ostracism is rated as less appropriate, gossip is rated as more appropriate.
The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 2021
Addressing climate change requires international effort from both governments and the public. Cli... more Addressing climate change requires international effort from both governments and the public. Climate change concern is a crucial variable influencing public support for measures to address climate change. Combining country-level data with data from the Pew Research Center Spring 2015 Global Attitudes Survey, we test whether perceived threats from climate change influence climate change concern. We distinguish between personal threat and planetary threat and we find that both threats have substantive effects on climate change concern, with personal threat exerting a greater influence on climate change concern than planetary threat. The effects of both types of threats are also moderated by GDP per capita, such that threats have stronger effects on climate change concern in high-income countries than in low-income countries. Our findings contribute to the existing literature and open up new debates concerning the role of threats in climate change concern and have implications for climate change communication.
Religion’s effect on individual tendency to engage in political protest is influenced both by the... more Religion’s effect on individual tendency to engage in political protest is influenced both by the resources available to citizens at the individual level and opportunities provided to religious groups and organizations at the country level. Combining data from last two waves of the World Values Surveys with aggregate data on religious regulation, we show that private religious beliefs reduce an individual’s protest potential while involvement in religious social networks fosters it. At the country level, we find that government regulation of religion decreases individual tendency to protest, and has an especially detrimental effect on the likelihood of religious minorities joining peaceful protest activities. These findings are in line with opportunity structure theories that stress the importance of system openness for fostering political protest.
Current literature presents conflicting findings concerning the effect of religiosity on attitude... more Current literature presents conflicting findings concerning the effect of religiosity on attitudes towards redistribution. This paper attempts to reconcile these findings by arguing that the belief and social behavior dimensions of religiosity affect support for redistribution via different mechanisms, and that these effects are moderated by state welfare generosity. Using multilevel path analysis models on data from the World Values Survey, we show that the effect of the religious belief on attitudes towards redistribution is mediated by competing personal orientations-prosocial values and conservative identification-while the religious social behavior dimension significantly decreases support for redistribution via increased levels of happiness. Lower levels of welfare generosity increase the positive effect of proso-cial orientations and weaken the negative effect conservative identification, leading to positive or null indirect effect of religiosity. These findings show the importance of taking into account the multiple dimensions of religiosity and institutional context when studying the relationship between religion and redistribution attitudes.
Authoritarian predispositions are associated with a preference for order, certainty, and security... more Authoritarian predispositions are associated with a preference for order, certainty, and security. Using data from European Social Surveys (ESS), we show that this association extends to attitudes towards redistributive policies. We demonstrate that support for redistributive policies that emphasize the government’s responsibility to provide old age, health, and unemployment benefits are positively associated with authoritarian predispositions. We also provide evidence that perceived economic threats moderate this relationship such that, for individuals who perceive higher levels of economic threat, the relationship between authoritarian predispositions and support for government responsibility is stronger. These results show that authoritarian predispositions are not only associated with social preferences but also attitudes towards economic policies.
Somewhat paradoxically, numerous scholars in various disciplines have found that religion induces... more Somewhat paradoxically, numerous scholars in various disciplines have found that religion induces negative attitudes towards immigrants, while others find that it fuels feelings of compassion. We offer a framework that accounts for this discrepancy. Using two priming experiments conducted among American Catholics, Turkish Muslims, and Israeli Jews, we disentangle the role of religious social identity and religious belief, and differentiate among types of immigrants based on their ethnic and religious similarity to, or difference from,members of the host society.We find that religious social identity increases opposition to immigrants who are dissimilar to in-group members in religion or ethnicity, while religious belief engenders welcoming attitudes toward immigrants of the same religion and ethnicity, particularly among the less conservative devout. These results suggest that different elements of the religious experience exert distinct and even contrasting effects on immigration attitudes, manifested in both the citizenry’s considerations of beliefs and identity and its sensitivity to cues regarding the religion of the target group.
This paper shows that cultural and material threats exist side by side, serving different psychol... more This paper shows that cultural and material threats exist side by side, serving different psychological functions, and that they manifest in differential attitudes towards immigrants from different ethnic or racial origins. While culturally threatened individuals prefer immigrants akin to themselves, as opposed to those from different races and cultures, the materially threatened prefer to allow in people different from themselves who can be expected not to compete for the same resources. we test our hypotheses using multilevel structural equation modelling, based on data from twenty countries from the
2002 wave of the European Social Survey. The disaggregation of these two types of perceived threat reveals responsiveness to the race of immigrants that is otherwise masked by pooling the two threat dimensions.
While arguably central to the human experience, religion is a largely understudied component of s... more While arguably central to the human experience, religion is a largely understudied component of social life and of politics. The comparative literature on religion and politics is limited in scope, and offers mostly descriptions of trends. We know, for example, that restrictions on freedom of religion are on the rise worldwide. In our theoretical framework, the recently higher universal levels of globalization combine with other sources of threat to account for the trend away from religious freedom. As threat to the majority religion increases, due to globalization and an increasing number of minority religions, freedom of religion is on the decline. Data for two decades from 147 nations are used to test hypotheses. Time-series cross-sectional and mediation models estimated at different levels of analysis with data from two independent sources confirm that threat systematically accounts for changes in religious freedom, with globalization playing a key role.
International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 25(3) 368-382., 2013
The effects of religious belief and religious social behavior on support for democracy are invest... more The effects of religious belief and religious social behavior on support for democracy are investigated in a priming experiment conducted among Turkish Muslims and Israeli Jews. By varying the question order of World Values Survey (WVS) items, which measure religious belief and religious social behavior, it was demonstrated that priming religious social behavior facilitates, while priming religious belief impedes, support for democracy, compared with a control group of no prime. These results were independent of participants’ intensity of religious belief or the frequency of their religious social behavior and held for the most part across both religious affiliations and political contexts.
British Journal of Political Science, 43(2): 375-397., 2013
Religion can be a source of undemocratic attitudes but also a contributor to democratic norms. Th... more Religion can be a source of undemocratic attitudes but also a contributor to democratic norms. This paper argues that different dimensions of religiosity generate contrasting effects on democratic attitudes through different mechanisms. The private aspect of religious belief is associated with traditional and survival values, which in turn decrease both overt and intrinsic support for democracy. The communal aspect of religious social behavior increases political interest and trust in institutions, which in turn typically lead to more support for democracy. Results emerging from multilevel path analyses models using data from a total of 54 countries from the fourth and fifth waves of the World Values Survey suggest that there is some regularity in mechanisms responsible for the effect of religiosity on democratic support that extend above and beyond religious denomination.
Critically considering scholarship relating religiosity to ethical behaviour, we contend that rel... more Critically considering scholarship relating religiosity to ethical behaviour, we contend that religion is systematically related to levels of corruption, and that the nature of this relationship is contingent on the presence of democratic institutions. In democracies, where political institutions are designed to inhibit
corrupt conduct, the morality provided by religion is related to attenuated corruption. Conversely, in systems lacking democratic institutions, moral behaviour is not tantamount to staying away from corrupt ways. Accordingly, in non-democratic contexts, religion would not be associated with decreased corruption. Time-series cross-sectional analyses of aggregate data for 129 countries for 12 years, as well as individual level analyses of data World Values Surveys, strongly corroborate the predictions of our theory. The correlation of religion with reduced corruption is conditional on the extent to which political institutions are democratic.
International Political Science Review, 34(2): 210-226., 2013
This paper examines the influence of societal values on individual attitudes towards immigration ... more This paper examines the influence of societal values on individual attitudes towards immigration and immigrants. We argue that conflict between individual and societal values leads individuals to be exposed to frames and opinions that are contrary to their values, evokes competing considerations and creates attitudinal ambivalence and volatility. To evade ambivalence, individuals whose values are in conflict with those of their society rely less on their core values to construct their attitudes. Using data from the first wave of European Social Surveys and relying on Heteroskedastic Maximum Likelihood Regression, we test our argument simultaneously for 18 European countries and show that deviation from society’s conservation and self-transcendence values leads to greater ambivalence in attitudes towards immigration and immigrants. Our results provide evidence of the importance of the social context and society’s shared values in influencing personal political attitudes and judgments.
Perceptions: Journal of International Affairs, 17(3): 81-103, 2012
Public opinion towards the European Union in Turkey is a relatively understudied area. Although p... more Public opinion towards the European Union in Turkey is a relatively understudied area. Although previous studies identified some important factors that influence individual support for the European Union, such as material expectations and democratic attitudes, the role of other important factors, such as perceived political benefits and threats, have not been addressed. The purpose of this paper is to test the group-centricism arguments, which suggest that identity, group-based interests and perceived threats are important determinants of attitudes. Analysis of data from the latest available Eurobarometer dataset shows that symbolic politics and perceived benefits play an important role in shaping individual attitudes towards the EU in Turkey. While subjective material and political expectations increase pro-EU attitudes, the strength of national identity and perceived material and cultural threats to the nation are critical in decreasing support for the EU.
Different components of the religious experience have differing effects on attitudes towards demo... more Different components of the religious experience have differing effects on attitudes towards democracy. Using heteroskedastic maximum likelihood models and data from the fourth wave of the World Values Survey for 45 democratic countries, we show that as a personal belief system, religiosity contrasts with democratic principles, generating opposition to democracy while increasing ambivalence towards democratic principles among religious people. Nevertheless, at the group level, religion also serves as a social institution which increases the homogeneity of one’s social network, leading to lower ambivalence, and makes for an active minority group which benefits from the democratic framework, consequently increasing support overall for a democratic regime. This double-edged sword effect explains the mixed results currently found in the literature on religiosity and democracy, and clearly illustrates the multidimensionality of religiosity.
Although cited as an important source of support for capitalism and laissez faire, the effect of ... more Although cited as an important source of support for capitalism and laissez faire, the effect of economic individualism, which embraces the values of self-reliance, individual autonomy and freedom on government spending, has yet to be addressed. Hence, using data from the World Values Survey and Persson and Tabellini‘s Economic Effects of Constitutions datasets, I show that more individualist nations are associated with lower
government spending and that the effect of economic individualism is stronger in countries with majoritarian elections and presidential systems. The results also show that institutions do not exert a uniform influence on government size, with most
spending taking place under majoritarian elections and presidential systems in the most collectivist countries.
Critically considering scholarship relating religiosity to ethical behaviour, we contend that rel... more Critically considering scholarship relating religiosity to ethical behaviour, we contend that religion is systematically related to levels of corruption, and that the nature of this relationship is contingent on the presence of democratic institutions. In democracies, where political institutions are designed to inhibit corrupt conduct, the morality provided by religion is related to attenuated corruption. Conversely, in systems lacking democratic institutions, moral behaviour is not tantamount to staying away from corrupt ways. Accordingly, in non-democratic contexts, religion would not be associated with decreased corruption. Time-series cross-sectional analyses of aggregate data for 129 countries for 12 years, as well as individual level analyses of data from the World Values Surveys, strongly corroborate the predictions of our theory. The correlation of religion with reduced corruption is conditional on the extent to which political institutions are democratic.
While arguably central to the human experience, religion is a largely understudied component of s... more While arguably central to the human experience, religion is a largely understudied component of social life and of politics. The comparative literature on religion and politics is limited in scope, and offers mostly descriptions of trends. We know, for example, that restrictions on freedom of religion are on the rise worldwide. In our theoretical framework, the recently higher universal levels of globalization combine with other sources of threat to account for the trend away from religious freedom. As threat to the majority religion increases, due to globalization and an increasing number of minority religions, freedom of religion is on the decline. Data for two decades from 147 nations are used to test hypotheses. Time-series cross-sectional and mediation models estimated at different levels of analysis with data from two independent sources confirm that threat systematically accounts for changes in religious freedom, with globalization playing a key role.
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion, 2020
In research on religiosity and support for democratic norms, two major debates stand out: The fir... more In research on religiosity and support for democratic norms, two major debates stand out: The first concerns whether some religious traditions, such as Islam or Orthodox Christianity, are inherently undemocratic, and hence whether supporters of these traditions have antidemocratic orientations. The second debate is about whether religious orientations beyond religious identification foster or hinder support for democratic norms. Both debates may be resolved by conceptualizing both individual religiosity and support for democratic norms as multidimensional orientations.
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Articles in Journals by Gizem Arikan
2002 wave of the European Social Survey. The disaggregation of these two types of perceived threat reveals responsiveness to the race of immigrants that is otherwise masked by pooling the two threat dimensions.
corrupt conduct, the morality provided by religion is related to attenuated corruption. Conversely, in systems lacking democratic institutions, moral behaviour is not tantamount to staying away from corrupt ways. Accordingly, in non-democratic contexts, religion would not be associated with decreased corruption. Time-series cross-sectional analyses of aggregate data for 129 countries for 12 years, as well as individual level analyses of data World Values Surveys, strongly corroborate the predictions of our theory. The correlation of religion with reduced corruption is conditional on the extent to which political institutions are democratic.
government spending and that the effect of economic individualism is stronger in countries with majoritarian elections and presidential systems. The results also show that institutions do not exert a uniform influence on government size, with most
spending taking place under majoritarian elections and presidential systems in the most collectivist countries.
2002 wave of the European Social Survey. The disaggregation of these two types of perceived threat reveals responsiveness to the race of immigrants that is otherwise masked by pooling the two threat dimensions.
corrupt conduct, the morality provided by religion is related to attenuated corruption. Conversely, in systems lacking democratic institutions, moral behaviour is not tantamount to staying away from corrupt ways. Accordingly, in non-democratic contexts, religion would not be associated with decreased corruption. Time-series cross-sectional analyses of aggregate data for 129 countries for 12 years, as well as individual level analyses of data World Values Surveys, strongly corroborate the predictions of our theory. The correlation of religion with reduced corruption is conditional on the extent to which political institutions are democratic.
government spending and that the effect of economic individualism is stronger in countries with majoritarian elections and presidential systems. The results also show that institutions do not exert a uniform influence on government size, with most
spending taking place under majoritarian elections and presidential systems in the most collectivist countries.