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Using data from the fourth round of the European Social Survey, we investigate the determinants of the individual union membership decision, focusing on the role of dispositional-as opposed to situational-factors. We argue that the battery of items in Schwartz's (1992) theory of basic personal values is relevant in the context of unionism and can be used to test the validity of certain elements of existing theories. We further claim that the use of basic values in this context is an effective way of operationalizing the role of societal interests embedded in the rational choice explanations for union membership. The econometric work-which features a three-way outcome variable identifying current, former and never-members-reveals that, along with socio-demographic, ideological, firm-level and sectoral characteristics, basic values are closely related to union membership status. While higher self-transcendence and conservation scores are associated with a greater likelihood of being a current member, higher openness-to-change and self-enhancement scores have the opposite effect. Adapted from the source document.

We use data drawn from the European Social Survey to investigate the extent of inter-generational links in educational attainment across twenty-four European countries. We find that there is a lot of cross-country variation in the observed patterns especially when gender distinction is made at both the parents' and the children's generations. To account for the variation in the estimates obtained in separate country regressions, we propose the use of simple educational inequality measures as country-level control variables. While the variation in the children's educational attainment turns out to be positively associated with the level of inter-generational links, the opposite is the case for the variation in the parents' attainment. The introduction of country-level variables into the analysis brings about the estimation of the econometric models on the pooled sample of all countries and the use of multilevel modeling methods which we find to perform better than least squares estimation. ; peer-reviewed

The purpose of this study is to re-examine the factors that shape party preferences in Turkey by estimating an individual vote intention function. The economic variables in the empirical model are items that can be used to test the conventional 'economic voting' hypotheses, i.e. whether individuals' economic evaluations about the past or the near future affect their party choice. In an earlier article, based on data from 2002, evidence was found in favour of these hypotheses. Those who had been affected adversely by the economic crisis of 2001 were found to be very unlikely to vote for the incumbent parties of the time. In the present article, we focus on comparing the characteristics of the intended voters of the currently ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) with those of other parties. According to multinomial logit estimates, those who make the more optimistic evaluations about the state of the economy are more likely to vote for the AKP. There is also an obvious increase in the number of AKP voters who support Turkey's European Union membership. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright]

Based on the multinomial logit estimates of an individual vote intention function, we perform restriction tests to make pairwise comparisons of the voter profiles of the major political parties in Turkey. The economic variables in the model are items that represent the well known hypotheses of economic voting theory, i.e. whether individuals vote retrospectively and/or prospectively, and whether they are sociotropic and/or pocketbook. The non-economic factors include socio-demographic characteristics as well as issues and identity variables that are likely to be good predictors of the party choice. In many cases, restriction tests provide evidence refuting the general view that the Turkish party system is artificially fragmented.

In this article, we examine the Turkish case for populism that was applied since the establishment of the multiparty regime on 1950. The originality of the Turkish case resides in two facts. (1) Populist policies were implemented by conservative center-Right governments rather than by Left governments as in some Latin American countries. Based on patron-client relations as a dominant characteristic of the rural social structure, these parties organized themselves as patronage networks. These party organizations can be characterized as machine-parties rather than as parties with coherent ideologies & national programs. Thus, they distributed to their clients the resources obtained more or less easily from foreign suppliers during the Cold War, due to Turkey's geostrategic importance as a NATO member. (2) It entails a vicious circle provoked by these populist policies manifest in a cycle of populist policies/crisis/military intervention/austerity measures. However, with the end of the Cold War period & the beginning of the globalization era, it became harder for Turkish governments to obtain long-term foreign debt in terms of multilateral agreements to carry out their populist policies. As a result, these resources were replaced by short-term, high-cost capital inflows. These inflows paradoxically facilitated the implementation of populist policies &, at the same time, worsened already severe consequences. As a result, sociopolitical tensions created by these severe conditions triggered the rise of radical movements such as political Islam & ultranationalism. Adapted from the source document.