Suchergebnisse

This paper draws upon a number of official, semi-official and other public texts related to the current views of the Russian Church on social and political issues. Overall, in spite of a variety of opinions and nuances, a certain mainstream becomes apparent, as expressed through this body of texts. The most discussed topics include moral values related to the human body (such as abortion, euthanasia, reproductive technologies and sexuality) and issues such as blasphemy, juvenile courts and new technologies of personal registration for Russian citizens. 'Traditional morality' has become the signature discourse of the Russian Orthodox Church which is attempting to construct 'tradition' by drawing upon a partly imagined ethos of imperial Russia and the late Soviet Union. Traditional family values are central to the church's rhetoric. The authors of these texts see a presumed decay of traditional values as the main danger that must be opposed. They usually trace the source of this danger directly to the contemporary West. By contrast, they see Russia as a protective shield against these global influences. Either consciously or involuntarily, they translate their religious language of traditional morality into a political rhetoric of solidarity and patriotism. Such ideological rhetoric has direct political implications and analogies in the agenda of Putin's regime. This Russian appeal to 'traditional values', both religious and political, has recently acquired an extraordinary international relevance.

AbstractAlthough racial identity is usually assumed to be unchanging, recent research shows otherwise. The role of politics in racial identity change has received little attention. Using panel data with waves around two recent presidential elections, this article reveals survey evidence of racial fluidity and its strong relationship with vote switching patterns. Across several models and robust to various controls, switching from a non-Republican vote in 2012 to a 2016 Republican vote (i.e., non-Romney to Trump) significantly predicts nonwhite to white race change. Among nonwhites who did not vote Republican in 2012, switching to a Republican vote in 2016 increases the probability of adopting a white racial identity from a 0.03 baseline to 0.49, a 1,533 percent increase. Individuals originally identifying as Mixed and Hispanic drive this identity-voting link. A parallel dynamic on the Democratic side—new Democratic voters moving from white to nonwhite identities—does not occur. The systematic relationship between Trump switching and white identity adoption is unlikely to be spurious or due to measurement error, does not appear for the 2008–2012 election period, and makes theoretical sense in light of 2016 campaign rhetoric and trends in political-social identity alignment.