Markus Hadler

Global activism and nationally driven recycling: The influence of world society and national contexts on public and private environmental behavior:

This article analyses the relationship between an individual’s environmental behavior and the social context. Drawing upon social movement and world societal literature, the authors start from the assumption that environmental behavior has both a global and national dimension. They use the 2000/1 ISSP environment survey to test their hypotheses and distinguish two behaviors: public and private. Public behavior includes actions such as taking part in a demonstration; private behavior consists of acts such as waste separation. At the contextual level, the authors consider linkages to world society, national political opportunity structures and resources. A hierarchical regression model including 23 countries and about 24,000 respondents shows that public behavior is quite similar across countries, whereas private behavior is influenced more strongly by local contexts. As for the contextual factors, political opportunity structures have the strongest impact on both behaviors followed by resources. World societal factors offer additional insights. Le présent article propose d’analyser l’influence du contexte social sur les pratiques environnementales des individus. A l’appui de la littérature à propos des mouvements sociaux et de la mondialisation, nous partons du principe que le comportement environnemental comporte une dimension nationale et une dimension globale. Nous mobilisons les résultats de l’enquête environnement de l’ISSP en 2000-2001 pour tester cette hypothèse, en opérant une distinction entre le comportement public (ex. participer à une manifestation de rue) et le comportement privé (ex. trier les déchets ménagers). Nous tenons compte des liens vers la société monde, les possibilités offertes par les systèmes politiques nationaux, et l’accès aux ressources pour contextualiser nos résultats. Le modèle de régression hiérarchique intégrant 23 pays et environ 24 000 enquêté.e.s montre que les comportements publics varient peu d’un pays à un autre, alors que les comportements privés sont davantage influencés par les contextes locaux. Du côté des facteurs contextuels, les deux types de comportement sont surtout influencés par les systèmes politiques nationaux, suivis de l’accès aux ressources. Des facteurs liés à la société monde apportent un éclairage supplémentaire. Este artículo desafía los supuestos convencionales que asocian la localización con la divergencia cultural. Tomando como punto de partida una investigación etnográfica sobre el sector de los seguros de vida en China, el artículo explora cómo la localización puede interactuar con la homogeneización y porqué puede no subvertir necesariamente la hegemonía cultural. Los datos ilustran cómo las aseguradoras transnacionales han diseminado nuevas ideas entre la población china, cómo han localizado sus prácticas de acuerdo con las condiciones locales, y hasta qué punto las nuevas aseguradoras locales emergentes imitan y se desvían de las prácticas organizacionales de las firmas transnacionales. A partir de las teorías institucionales, se analiza cómo una divergencia inicial entre las aseguradoras locales y transnacionales en las líneas de producto y en las estrategias de marketing ha desaparecido rápidamente y porqué se han producido las dinámicas homogeneizadoras. Se argumenta que la localización no es en modo alguno una garantía ni un indicador de divergencia y que la llamada “calle de doble dirección” de los flujos culturales entre lo local y lo global está lejos de ser realmente bidireccional.

Why Do People Accept Different Income Ratios? A Multi-level Comparison of Thirty Countries

Although evaluation of income inequality has been the subject of many studies, there are questions that remain to be answered. In regard to the structural position thesis, the reflection thesis and dominant ideology thesis, this article examines how much income inequality people will accept before deciding that the disparity is too large and how societal differences can be explained adequately. For this purpose, the attitudes of about 35,000 respondents in 30 countries are investigated. A multi-level analysis is carried out using data from the ISSP survey ‘Social Inequality III’ of 1999. At the societal level, both socio-economic and cultural characteristics are considered. While much research places emphasis on dominant ideologies, this analysis in addition attempts to grasp these ideologies by aggregating individual beliefs. It is shown that societal differences are well explained by ideologies, but that socio-economic characteristics are important as well. At the micro-level, several individual characteristics are considered. Among other things, people at the top of the vertical axis are less critical than those at the bottom. There are also substantial differences between societies in regard to how much inequality in income ratio will be accepted. Thus, people not only accept different amounts of income, they even have different preferences about which ratio is just.

Intentions to migrate within the European Union: a challenge for simple economic macro-level explanations

ABSTRACT Individual mobility within the European Union has remained rather low, in spite of large socio-economical differences and the lack of political restrictions for citizens of member states. Taking this as a starting point, this paper sets out to develop a more appropriate view by combing aspects of economic and sociological migration theories both at the macro and micro levels. For this purpose, the Eurobarometer survey 54.2 of 2001 is analysed by applying a three-level regression. Therefore, different characteristics of 15 European countries, 196 nuts-2-regions and about 7,000 respondents aged younger than 45 years are considered. Analyses show that the assumption of push-and-pull models – namely, that people leave less developed places – applies only within countries. In fact, the highest migration intentions can be observed in regions with a developmental gap compared to the overall level of a country. But between countries, the effect is quite the opposite – the highest intentions can be found in highly developed countries. However, the explanatory power of macro-level variables is rather low compared to that of individual characteristics. Therefore, research should place more emphasis on individual characteristics, to estimate a migration potential more accurately.

The influence of world societal forces on social tolerance. A time comparative study of prejudices in 32 countries.

Societal variation in xenophobia, homophobia, and other prejudices is frequently explained by the economic background and political history of different countries. This article expands these explanations by considering the influence of world societal factors on individual attitudes. The empirical analysis is based on survey data collected within the World Value Survey and European Values Study framework between 1989 and 2010. Data are combined to a three-wave cross-sectional design including about 130,000 respondents from 32 countries. Results show that xenophobia and homophobia are influenced by the national political history, societal affluence, and the presence of international organizations. Global forces, however, are of particular importance for homophobia.

Happiness as an Expression of Freedom and Self-Determination

In this paper, subjective well-being, as measured by survey questions on life satisfaction and happiness, is investigated from a sociological-comparative point of view. The central thesis is that happiness will be greater the more freedom a person has in her/his life decisions. It is hypothesized, therefore, that happiness will be higher in all those social contexts (micro and macro) which provide a person with greater freedom. Hence, happiness should be higher among the employed, among persons in higher positions and with higher incomes, and happiness should also be higher in free market and democratic, and in less stratified societies. A comparative empirical analysis (multilevel regression) is carried out, using survey data on 41 nations from the World Value Survey 1995–97. The finding that happiness is related significantly to the degree of individual freedom is fully confirmed. It also has been proven that people who live in circumstances providing more freedom of personal choice are happier. However, macro-social conditions are not directly relevant for personal freedom and happiness; this happens only through their perception and through their expected change (improvement or stagnation) in the future.

A shift from public to private environmental behavior: Findings from Hadler and Haller (2011) revisited and extended

In 2011, we published the article ‘Global activism and nationally driven recycling: The influence of world society and national contexts on public and private environmental behavior’ in International Sociology. We considered the effects of national affluence, political opportunity structures, and global ties on these two environmental behaviors. This initial analysis showed that public behavior is quite similar across countries, while private behavior is more strongly influenced by the national context. Furthermore, a higher level of development, permissive political opportunities, and more ties to world society showed positive effects on both public and private behaviors. The 2011 analysis and conclusions were based on survey data from 23 countries collected by the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) in 2000/2001. This crosssectional design did not allow for any insights in changes over time. Meanwhile, ISSP has collected another wave of data on environmental behaviors and attitudes in 2010/2011. Together with the older ISSP data from 1993/1994, this research note utilizes a threewave design that allows more complex insights. The present time-comparative analysis extends and qualifies some of the initial observations. Private and public behaviors are becoming more similar across countries over time, and, therefore, homogenization processes are present in both dimensions. The underlying trends, however, are contrarian. Activism has decreased and private behavior

Individual action, world society, and environmental change: 1993–2010

ABSTRACTThis article studies the question of how global cultural models shape individual environmental behaviours. The analysis applies a novel, cross-sectional, longitudinal, multilevel model that combines individual-level survey data from sixteen countries collected by the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) with contextual characteristics such as the presence of international organisations, the national institutionalisation of environmentalism, and polities’ demands on individual participation. The analysis provides only limited support for the direct effects of ties to world society. It rather suggests indirect effects via the institutionalisation of environmentalism at the national level and via various individual exposure variables. In addition, both public and private behaviours are positively influenced by attitudinal alignment with global models, whereas certain individualisation processes have negative effects.

Downward flexibility: Who is willing to take an inferior job?:

Most workers look forward to better jobs across their careers, but in an age of rising inequality and insecurity at work, some are willing to accept an inferior job in order to avoid joblessness. We use the Work Orientations III survey from the 2005 International Social Survey Programme to explore such ‘downward flexibility’ and develop several regression models specified for 19 OECD countries to test hypotheses and explore macro- and individual-level variations. Workers in liberal ‘labour market regimes’ are more tolerant of downward adaptations, in line with evidence that these regimes produce strongly institutionalized norms of flexibility. Tolerance of a worse job is also higher among those with weak labour market positions (low-income respondents, women and young people). Further macro-level analysis suggests that the ‘model’ country with the most downwardly flexible workers would be rich and unequal, with weak unions and low levels of social protection and industrial rights.

Environmental Behaviors in a Transatlantic View: Public and Private Actions in the United States, Canada, Germany, and the Czech Republic, 1993-2010

Comparing environmental behaviors in the United States, Canada, Germany, and the Czech Republic, this article examines the contextual- and individual-level determinants of private and public environmental actions. The analysis uses survey data collected by the International Social Survey Program in 1993, 2000, and 2010, and shows that private behavior is the most common in West and East Germany followed by Canada, the Czech Republic, and the United States. Public behavior, on the other hand, is the most common in Canada followed by West Germany, the United States, East Germany, and the Czech Republic. The comparison over time reveals that public behavior has decreased and converged at a lower level while private behavior has increased. In terms of individual-level determinants, both private and public behaviors are influenced by similar environmental attitudes, but different sociodemographic characteristics.

ISSP and the ISSP 2014 Citizenship II Module: An Introduction

This introduction provides an overview of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) and the data that has been collected by this group. Its main focus, however, is on the Citizenship module, which was published by GESIS in mid-2016. This survey includes questions on citizen rights and duties, political efficacy and interest, as well as about the political system of the respondents’ country. Details of the fieldwork, such as participating countries, sample size, sampling mode, etc. are reported, whereas first descriptive findings are shown in a separate contribution.