Society and Democracy in Europe

Silke Keil, Oscar W. Gabriel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780415523844
• eBook ISBN: 9781136162442
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This comparative study examines what kinds of societal forces shape European relationships towards democratic political life in contemporary Europe.

Drawing on data from the European Social Survey (ESS), the book develops a theoretical perspective on the relationship between social structure and democracy and links this to research on social capital and political behaviour. The authors explore the impact of individual social characteristics on a broad range of the Europeans' political attitudes and behaviours. They investigate how the social position of the individuals in the European societies contributes to the explanation of the national and cross-national patterns of political engagement, addressing trust in the social and political environment, life satisfaction, party preferences and attitudes towards migration and migrants.

Providing detailed descriptions of the similarities and differences among the various European publics at the beginning of the 21st century, Society and Democracy in Europe will be of strong interest to students and scholars of European politics, political participation and political sociology.

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Introduction

Society and democracy in Europe

Oscar W. Gabriel and Silke I. Keil

Society and democracy in Europe: the topic – why it matters

The linkages between society and state have been a topic of social and political research for many centuries. Although ‘oikos’ and ‘polis’ were seen as separate domains of social life in Greek political philosophy, a good polity was not considered as viable in a social environment characterized by poverty, social in equality and social tensions. The proper distribution of power between state and society was also strongly disputed in liberal and socialist political thinking. Put simply: while liberals favour a strong society and weak state as a precondition of individual liberty, socialists trust in a strong state to guarantee social equality and security in an ever-changing society.

Early empirical research on the societal conditions of modern democracy also raised the issue of how state and society are related to each other:

Perhaps the most common generalization linking political systems to other aspects of society has been that democracy is related to the state of economic development. The more well-to-do a nation, the greater the chances that it will sustain democracy … the average wealth, degree of industrialization and urbanization, and the level of education is much higher for the more democratic countries.

(Lipset 1960: 31, 33)

Nowadays, researchers would hesitate to use industrialization or the density of cars as indicators of modernity, as was the case for Lipset (1960). That change in perspective is due to the process of transition from an industrial to a post-industrial society. In a post-industrial society, the major part of the workforce is no longer occupied in manual production, but in the service economy. The service sector also represents the largest part of gross domestic product (GDP) (Bell 1973). More recently, globalization has led to an increase in the international mobility of material and human capital, which has changed global living conditions. On the one hand, highly mobile capital has created big, powerful and wealthy international trade and finance centres; on the other hand, a large number of people emigrated from the poor and backward world regions to the wealthier ones, such as Europe. The processes of post-industrialization and globalization have deeply affected the infrastructure of social and political life all over Europe and other regions in the world, where social change is most advanced (Inglehart and Welzel 2005).

Apart from worldwide post-industrialization and globalization, the breakdown of communist regimes in Central-East and East Europe saw Europeans witnessing another profound transformation. The transition from communism to democracy in the 1990s was by no means limited to the political regime, but affected the overall living conditions of citizens (Merkel 1995). Given these various facets of social and political change, the European continent proves to be a fascinating laboratory for the study of the interrelationship of society and democracy in the modern world.

In this book, we will explore the relationship between social structure and democratic political life in contemporary Europe. The focus is on the impact of social characteristics on individual political attitudes and behaviour. The complex phenomenon of social structure is decomposed into three sub-dimensions: ascription and achievement are the two basic mechanisms in the attribution of social status, leading to social differentiation by allocating socio-economic resources and defining distinctive social roles. On the other hand, institutions and processes of social integration induce people to hold more or less the same values and attitudes and to participate in processes of social exchange. These three concepts explain our choice of the particular social structure variables dealt with in this book.

The political characteristics under observation have been chosen according to theoretical considerations on the one hand, and to the availability of cross-national data on the other. Research on the social basis of ‘citizen politics’ (Dalton 2008), i.e. on the issue of how citizens relate themselves to political life, has traditionally focused on party choice, and on such varied forms of social and political participation as being active in voluntary associations, donating money, helping other people, voting in elections, participating in both campaign and party related activities and in political protest. As far as social political orientations are concerned, such value orientations and attitudes as political and social trust, support of democracy, political interest and political efficacy have played a major role in social research. By analysing whether and, if so, how those characteristics – as well as others such as media consumption and attitudes towards migration – relate to the individual’s position in society, we are not only following a well-established research tradition, but we are also dealing with a problem which is highly relevant to modern democracy. If there is empirical evidence that people of different social backgrounds also hold distinct ideas of what makes up a good society, if those people participate differently in political life and also vary as regards social and political trust, then the democratic ideal of equality is challenged. And if research were to demonstrate that an impact of social characteristics on political attitudes and behaviour existed in certain societies, but not in others, or if the strength of that impact varied across the European societies, social research would be faced with a major explanatory problem. Exploring that field of research is the main purpose of this book.

The data used in the subsequent analyses come from the first three waves of the European Social Survey conducted in 2002/2003, 2004/2006 and 2006/2007 in more than 20 West and East European countries. The structure of this introduction is as follows. First, we present the concept of social structure and the main dimensions of the individual’s place within it. We describe the distribution of relevant characteristics of modern societies in Europe and the differences and similarities in the various European societies. Then, we turn to the changing structure of European societies and focus on those aspects which are particularly relevant in the process of societal transition. We scrutinize whether a dominant model of society exists on the European continent, and the way in which the countries analysed in this book correspond to such a model or deviate from it.

Social structure: concept and meaning

As implied in the term ‘social’, used as a summary label for the individual’s relations to other individuals or social collectivities, each individual can be characterized by her or his position in the network of social interactions and roles. The notion of ‘structure’ is used to characterize a certain degree of order and stability among the elements and relations making up a system. Social structure encompasses three different components: (1) the set of social roles defining the individual’s position in social life, (2) the distribution of those individual characteristics at the societal level and (3) the features of social organization coordinating individual social roles and defining which particular ones are decisive for the individual’s place in society (Hradil 2008; Schäfers 2004). Therborn (2000: 23–4) defines social structure as a pattern of resources and constraints that are relevant to the role of individuals as social beings. For him, the concept of social structure entails the following components: (1) defining who belongs to a society and who does not, (2) the institutionalized and non-institutionalized allocation of resources to the members of a society and (3) the set of life changes, risks and opportunities. Together with culture – defined as the social set of shared meanings and symbols – social structure acts as a determinant of individual and collective action by setting restrictions and providing incentives for behaviour.

Determining the kinds of resources, restrictions and life chances that are particularly important in a given society, and describing how they are distributed and interact with the societal culture in shaping political action, is a matter of empirical investigation. Societies vary regarding the resources considered as particularly important to the achievement of highly valued societal goals, and the same applies to the contributions of society members to the achievement of their respective goals. In practically all societies, members are rewarded according to their contribution to achieving societal goals. That implies the allocation of valuable resources such as status, wealth, power, and honour defining the individual’s position in the social structure. The particular structure of social organization, and the place taken by individuals within the society, is legitimized by that society’s culture. The basic values, norms and other elements of the societal culture are transmitted to the members of a given society during the process of socialization. While resources contribute to social differentiation, culture creates and maintains legitimation and integration. All in all, the structure of a society is a complex result of manifold traditions, heritage, individual achievement and individual, as well as collective, decisions. Those mechanisms define people’s place in society and the roles they play in social life. Social structure can be seen as a system distributing people’s access to highly valued material and immaterial goods, and influencing the forms and intensity of the integration of individuals and groups into the societal community.

In this book, we explore how the individual’s position in the social structure, and the distribution of those characteristics in a society, impinge on politics, particularly on political value orientations, attitudes and behaviour. This question had already been posed in the earliest contributions to empirical social research. Theories of social modernization focus on the level and distribution of such social resources as wealth and education as prerequisites for democratic rule (Lipset 1969; Cutright 1969; MacCrone/Cnudde 1969; Neubauer 1969; more recently: Vanhanen 1997; Inglehart/Welzel 2005). From the very beginning, explanations of individual political attitudes and behaviour have included the individual’s position in her or his social environment as independent variables. As stated in the often quoted hypothesis of Lazarsfeld et al. (1944: 27), ‘social characteristics determine political behavior’ (cf. Smith 1968; Huckfeldt/Sprague 1995).

Dimensions of social structure

Resources and achieved positions

Social status belongs to the factors most frequently and intensely investigated in behavioural research. Resources such as money, knowledge and physical strength, which are linked to social position, can be converted into political influence. In empirical social research, those factors are mostly measured by education, income, occupation and related variables. Parsons (1972) conceives of the allocation of individual resources for achieving collective purposes as a necessary requirement for the survival and progress of a society and its political regime. In return, people delivering important resources to the community are rewarded by high socio-economic status. Since people investing their individual resources in a collective endeavour have a lot to gain or lose from political decisions, they are more deeply involved in politics than people having only minor stakes in political life. Many empirical findings underline the impact of such social resources as education, income, class and profession (or of concepts derived from those factors, such as socio-economic status, occupational prestige or objective social deprivation) on the individual’s relation to politics. Education, income and class are seen as bearing on people’s places in political life, and make a difference for political involvement, for support of political norms and values, and policy preferences. Those who are well equipped with socio-economic resources have easier access to the political process than citizens who are less well off in that respect (Almond/Verba 1989: 159–85; Milbrath/Goel 1977: 90–106; Nie et al. 1969; Oskarsson 2005; Verba et al. 1978). Irrespective of the permeability of the system of social stratification, the different positions of lower and upper status people in political life challenge the ideal of democratic government. Since democracy rests on the principle of social and political equality, the preferences of all citizens and social groups should have equal weight in the making of governmental decisions (Dahl 1971: 1). That goal is endangered if higher status groups are strongly overrepresented among the political activists and benefit more than others from political decisions.

Many societal resources highlight the crucial role of the individual’s economic position for the allocation of social rewards and social status in capitalist societies. Money, as the most important medium of transaction in modern societies, is used for rewarding the individual’s performance in the economy, and largely determines her or his position in processes of economic exchange. Personal income is normally linked to education and professional status. Apart from their economic function as cultural goods, education and profession facilitate the acquisition of knowledge and skills. Moreover, the diffusion of social culture takes place within the educational system and, at least in part, at the work place. In modern societies, those social characteristics are ones that have been achieved. The social position linked to access to those resources can be gained, but also lost, by individual efforts and choices. How, then, are the relevant socioeconomic resources like education, income and occupation, distributed in the societies under observation here?

Education

There is a great variety of educational institutions in Europe. In general, academic primary and secondary level as well as vocational training can be distinguished. Scandinavian, South European and East European countries have a comprehensive school system (Döbert et al. 2002). In the German-speaking countries, the Benelux countries and in Great Britain, school systems vary from region to region. There are even bigger differences in vocational training systems between European countries. Before outlining the distribution of educational attainment, it is important for purposes of interpretation to point out the variety of educational systems. Apart from a few exceptions, the educational systems of the EU member states are structured uniformly. I...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Notes on Contributors
• Preface
• 1 Introduction Society and democracy in Europe
• Part I Values
• Part II Attitudes
• Part III Behaviour
• Index