Suchergebnisse

Welfare state attitudes are often studied from the perspective of the individual's characteristics and/or national or regime-type contexts. This thesis instead seeks explanations for individuals' varying attitudes towards the welfare state at the level of local contexts (municipalities). Sweden is used as a case for testing whether there are such contextual effects. The general aim is to find out whether social, political, and institutional aspects of local context influence the attitudes of individuals. Since the general aim of this thesis is to examine how background characteristics of individuals and characteristics of local contexts simultaneously act in shaping individuals' attitudes, I use multilevel modelling in order to handle individual-level and contextual-level data simultaneously. Latent-class analysis (LCA) is also employed in the analyses to explore the patterning of variables. This is mainly done in order to create dependent variables and to distinguish between categories of municipalities sharing similar characteristics. The data consist of Swedish survey data, which have been complemented by municipal-level data. The findings indicate that the social and political context of municipalities can matter for individuals' attitude formation. Variation across municipalities in terms of the prevalence of social problems and risks seems to influence how individuals view the welfare state. Local municipal contexts characterized by many social problems and risks tend to be associated with more welfare state friendly attitudes among the local inhabitants, after taking individual-level determinants into account. Support for high social spending is greater in such milieus as is the tendency to view welfare beneficiaries with less suspicion regarding the potential abuse of welfare policies. Regarding the influence of local public service provision on attitudes, no evidence was found for feedback effects on individuals' attitudes toward public service privatization. In their attitudes towards the welfare state, individuals are to some extent influenced by their local environment. There seems to be a 'built in' thermostat in the Swedish welfare state. Local circumstances characterized by social problems and risks tend to be associated with a local citizenry having more welfare state-friendly attitudes.

Politische Einstellungen und hochschulpolitisches Verhalten
amerikanischer Studenten.

Themen: Attribute eines idealen Professors und Image der Professoren an
der Hochschule; Kontakte und Kommunikation mit Hochschullehrern;
Selbstbild der Studenten; Bewertung der Studienbedingungen, der
Ausbildung, der Forschung, der Lehre, des Massenbetriebs und der
akademischen Freiheit an der Universität; wichtigste Ziele der
Universitätsausbildung; Gründe für die Wahl des Hochschulorts;
Einschätzung der Reformbedürftigkeit der amerikanischen Gesellschaft;
wichtigste Probleme der Universität; Förderung des kreativen und
kritischen Denkens der Studenten durch die Professoren; Bewertung
angemessener Methoden studentischen Protestes; Sympathie für die
Studentendemonstrationen an der Berkeley University; eigene politische
Aktivitäten und Bereitschaft zur Teilnahme an Demonstrationen;
Einstellung zur Bürgerrechtsbewegung, zum Vietnamkrieg, zur Sexualität,
zur Kirche und zum Staat; Beurteilung der Wirkung politischer Proteste
gegen den Vietnamkrieg; wahrgenommene Betrügereien bei Studenten;
Beurteilung der Studentenzeitung; Studiendauer; tägliche Studienzeit;
Leistungsnachweise; Notendurchschnitt; Berufsziel; Werkstudent;
politische Orientierung und Einstellungsänderung seit Studienbeginn;
Mitgliedschaft in hochschulpolitischen Gruppen; soziale Herkunft und
Einfluß der Eltern auf die Entscheidung zum Studium; Kontakt zu den
Eltern und politische Diskussionen; Parteipräferenz der Eltern;
Mediennutzung.

Diverse Skalen: U. a. Studienzufriedenheit, Dogmatismus und Demokratie.

Demographie: Alter (klassiert); Geschlecht; Rasse; Familienstand;
Familienzusammensetzung; Kinderzahl; Konfession; Religiosität;
Haushaltseinkommen; Wohnsituation; regionale Herkunft; Militärdienst.

A survey was made in 1966 of the act's & opinions of a representative sample of residents of Bolpur, a small marketing town in West Bengal, India. The purpose was to discover whether the mass public differed signif'ly from the local elite in its views on important local, nat'l & internat'l problems. An open-ended questionaire containing 34 att'al items dealing with soc, pol'al, & econ problems & their possible solutions was admin'ed to 120 R's in Bolpur & for comparison purposes to 24 Coll teachers residing in all states of India. The data was qualitatively & quantitatively manipulated. The survey indicated a diffuse pattern of responses on many issues, shaped often by the educ'al achievement or occup of a R, & less by his pol'al party adherence, caste or religion. AA.

A recent study of personal finance companies revealed some interesting information concerning the att's of loan representatives toward prospective borrowers. One finding was the desire of loan personnel to keep borrowers waiting in a private office; another was their frequent tacit refusal to divulge certain aspects of the desired loan, eg, the exact amount to be received & the exact amount of interest to be paid. A number of commercial banks in the same cities were contacted for a similar unsecured loan. Most bank representatives offered exact information about the proceeds of the loan & interest & service charges without a specific request for it. AA.

We study the long-run effects of conflict on social attitudes, with World War II in Central and Eastern Europe as our setting. Much of earlier work has relied on self-reported measures of victimization, which are prone to endogenous misreporting. With our own survey-based measure, we replicate established findings linking victimization to political participation, civic engagement, optimism, and trust. Those findings are reversed, however, when tested instead with an objective measure of victimization based on historical reference material. Thus, we urge caution when interpreting survey-based results from this literature as causal.