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Populism is usually studied by looking at the electoral and rhetorical strategies of parties considered to be populist. In contrast, this article attempts to measure the support for the core propositions of populism among voters and explain the social differences in that support. On the basis of a survey of the Dutch-speaking population of Belgium (N: 2,330) we find that this support for populism turns out not to be directly influenced by a weak or uncertain economic position, by dissatisfaction with personal life or feelings of anomie. Support for populism appears foremost as a consequence of a very negative view of the evolution of society – declinism – and of the feeling of belonging to a group of people that is unfairly treated by society.

This article tests the claim that anti-Muslim feelings are more widespread than general anti-foreigner feelings. It reports on two split sample experiments, in which a randomly selected part of the respondents evaluated statements for which the target group was identified as 'foreigners' and the other part evaluated the identical statements but with the target group identified as 'Muslims'. By using open-ended questions we are able to separate those respondents who had Muslims in mind when asked about foreigners from those who did not. We find that anti-Muslim feelings are more intense than anti-foreigner feelings along a wide range of attitude dimensions. Furthermore, those respondents who had Muslims in mind while judging statements about foreigners, turned out to be at least as hostile as those who were asked explicitly about Muslims.

Objective. Using cross-sectional and panel data, this article estimates to what extent the association between students' choice of academic discipline and their sociopolitical attitudes is due to socialization and selection effects. Methods. This is done on the basis of seven incoming cohorts of students and one panel of students. Changes in the panel are controlled for contextual influences by comparing them to a control group. Results. Both selection and socialization effects are observed. The first are, however, much stronger than the second. Conclusions. Although the literature, and particularly the more popular literature, highlights socialization effects, these turn out to be very modest. Future research should address the questions of how and why students select academic disciplines in a way that establishes strong relations between those disciplines and their sociopolitical attitudes.

This paper deals with the often-observed complex relationship between the so-called old, ‘economic’ left/right alignment (egalitarianism) and the new, ‘cultural’ alignment. Many authors have observed that the less educated members of society occupy an apparently contradictory position, combining a leftist stand in favor of more equality and government intervention, with a rightist stand on minority rights, the treatment of criminals, and other aspects of democratic citizenship. Various explanations have been offered for this paradox. This paper proposes an explanation in terms of vulnerability and the way in which it is culturally processed. Less educated people are often vulnerable and long for more equality. The stronger their desire for equality, the greater their frustration when feeling vulnerable, and the greater the need to cope with that vulnerability. They do so, using particular narrative-coping strategies that create an affinity with the attitudes that form the new left/right alignment. One such coping strategy is based on feelings of relative deprivation. In the empirical part of the paper it is shown that relative deprivation completely explains the paradoxical position of the less educated, and that, when taking feelings of deprivation into account, the two left/right dimensions are in fact independent of each other at all levels of education, creating a situation that leads to tensions within parties that pursue egalitarian policies. The mechanism uncovered in this analysis reveals a tension at the heart of egalitarianism: the stronger the longing for equality among the vulnerable members of society, the more likely they are to opt for right wing positions on the new left/right dimension.

The cultural interpretation of career models, that links a preference for the flexible career to the quest for self-realization, and a preference for the linear; stable to the traditional work ethic, turns out to be empirically correct for the population considered in this analysis (inhabitants of Belgium, 19 to 36 years old). In contrast to what is posited by many authors, the traditional work ethic is, however; still quite strong. Moreover the career model that is both flexible and ambitious appears as a projection of the quest for self-realization onto the future career; but does not withstand experience with work and family life. As a consequence, many of the young people with a flexible career model shift towards either a traditional linear perspective or an ambitionless flat and rigid perspective as more life transitions are completed.

Dubieuze merite, reëel precariaat: een sociaal en cultureel rapport dat het verschil zou kunnen maken

This paper examines the impact of private, quasi-market versus public steering of educational systems on European youngsters' attitudes towards immigrants. There has recently been a drive for a quasi-market strategy in the provision of education, inspired by the hope that this will increase both quality and cost-effectiveness. However, research has shown that this policy leads to greater inequality between schools and individual pupils. In this paper we use the data from the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS 2009) to see whether the extent of market steering lessens support for immigrants' rights. Such an effect is expected because market steering is thought to increase the inequality between schools and to lead to a concentration of immigrant children in schools where pupils with weak socio-economic backgrounds are concentrated. The focus of the analysis is on the country level variation in the attitudes towards immigrants. Controlling for overall immigration pressure, quasi-market systems are observed to lead to less support for immigrants' rights, and this is largely due to the higher concentration of immigrant children in low SES schools in such systems. These characteristics of the educational system explain about half of the cross-national variation in attitudes towards immigrants among the 21 countries observed. Adapted from the source document.

In explanations offered for fear of crime, two different paradigms can be distinguished. The first considers fear of crime as a rational reaction to crime and victimization; the other views such fear as a representation of more general feelings of malaise. The paradigms suggest different research strategies and offer different explanations for the same empirical observations. The choice of paradigm therefore determines the meaning of the empirical findings and hence the policy implications that can be drawn from them. In this article, the authors describe the paradigms, illustrate the way in which they offer different explanations for the same observations, and try to empirically discriminate between them on the basis of crucial tests. The tests are performed on data for the Flemish (Belgian) population aged nineteen to thirty-six. The results support the view that fear of crime or feelings of insecurity should be seen mainly as a consequence of, on one hand, general feelings of malaise, vulnerability, and helplessness that can have many origins and, on the other hand, exposure to processes of communication that highlight crime and the risk of victimization.

This paper examines the impact of private, quasi-market versus public steering of educational systems on European youngsters' attitudes towards immigrants. There has recently been a drive for a quasi-market strategy in the provision of education, inspired by the hope that this will increase both quality and cost-effectiveness. However, research has shown that this policy leads to greater inequality between schools and individual pupils. In this paper we use the data from the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS 2009) to see whether the extent of market steering lessens support for immigrants' rights. Such an effect is expected because market steering is thought to increase the inequality between schools and to lead to a concentration of immigrant children in schools where pupils with weak socio-economic backgrounds are concentrated. The focus of the analysis is on the country level variation in the attitudes towards immigrants. Controlling for overall immigration pressure, quasi-market systems are observed to lead to less support for immigrants' rights, and this is largely due to the higher concentration of immigrant children in low SES schools in such systems. These characteristics of the educational system explain about half of the cross-national variation in attitudes towards immigrants among the 21 countries observed.

Philosophical and historical analyses of the relationship between the public and the private sphere suggest that contemporary men and women evaluate public affairs, politics and the state of society-at-large in the light of their private, particularistic concerns. That proposition is evaluated on the basis of the theory of symbolic society. This theory considers the process of detraditionalization as a shift in the mode of social control. From a situation in which the conduct of conduct is based on traditional roles, threat of scarcity and religious belief, societies shift to social control on the basis of, on the one hand a belief in an autonomous subject, on the other new socializing institutions like schools, mass media, advertising, consumption and therapy. When this theory is applied to the distinction between public and private sphere, three implications are drawn: (1) that the evaluation of the state of society and of personal life will be quite distinct; (2) that each of those evaluations is determined by different factors; and (3) that interpretative communities, created by similarities in the level of education and media use, have become more important for the evaluation of the state of society and less important for the evaluation of personal life. These hypotheses, which run counter the expectation that contemporary men and women evaluate public affairs in the light of their private concerns, are tested using multilevel analysis on comparative data of 18 countries (European Social Survey). The analysis shows how European modernization influences the structuring of evaluation of the private and public sphere in the sense predicted by the theory of symbolic society.