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AbstractEvangelicals are generally considered culturally conservative regarding issues like abortion or homosexuality and sometimes also economically conservative regarding issues like tax reduction. But does this image also apply to Dutch evangelicals who live in a secular environment in which they constitute only a tiny fraction of the number of church members? This article explores the political attitudes of Dutch evangelicals with the help of two research questions: (1) Do Dutch evangelicals hold more conservative political attitudes on economic and cultural issues than Catholics, mainline Protestants and non-church members? and (2) Which decisive factors determine the supposed conservatism among Dutch evangelicals as compared to Catholics, mainline Protestants and non-church members? Analyses of survey data show that Dutch evangelicals are indeed culturally conservative, but more liberal in economic matters. In addition, results also show that their cultural conservatism is related to their religious convictions, while their economic attitudes are unrelated to religion.

Prior research shows vast educational differences in volunteering: more than half of the higher educated volunteer compared with only one third of the lower educated. However, these educational differences are not similar across countries. Our crucial question is "Which individual and contextual characteristics explain educational differences in volunteering?" We answer this question using secondary data collected in 17 countries. Multilevel analyses show that particularly a lower level of cognitive competence as well as a localistic orientation of the lower educated explains their lower likelihood of volunteering. Cross-level interactions between education and compositional indicators of the group of lower educated people within countries show that a stronger negative social and cognitive selection increases the educational differences in volunteering. In those situations, the group as a whole lacks the social resources within their networks that increase the likelihood to volunteer and is perceived to be less competent to perform voluntary work.

AbstractChanges in different aspects of euroscepticism developed at different paces and in varying directions in the regions and countries of the European Union (EU) from 1994 to 2004. Using Eurobarometer data, along with data on country and region characteristics, information on the positions of the political parties and media attention paid to the EU, it is tested in detail whether opposite developments in euroscepticism were associated with opposite developments in influencing contextual characteristics. The authors found that the Netherlands became systematically more sceptical towards the EU, whereas the opposite trend was found in Spain. The introduction of the Euro partially explains these divergent trends, but the direction of this effect varies with countries' GDP. Changes in media attention on the EU further explain the changes in the public's attitude. However, this effect is contingent upon specific circumstances. Growing media attention increases political euroscepticism in countries with a negative EU budget balance, whereas it decreases such scepticism in countries with a positive balance. The effect of left‐right ideological placement is contingent upon the EU budget balance as well. Finally, the effect of education on euroscepticism is found to be smaller in countries with a higher GDP.