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Less-educated citizens report relatively low trust in institutions like politics, the judiciary and science, and find it harder to navigate these than more highly educated citizens. They also more often behave unhealthily and more frequently experience illnesses, and consequently die earlier. A pressing question is how to explain all these well-established educational divides, found in the Netherlands as well as many other western countries. In this inaugural lecture On life with low status, Jeroen van der Waal explores which role status differences play in that regard. How does feeling looked down upon because of their lifestyle shape less-educated citizens' thinking, feeling, and acting? And how does that feeling explain their substantial differences with more-educated citizens when it comes to health, health-related behaviours, and political preferences? Jeroen van der Waal sketches an interdisciplinary research program that enables to answer those questions. It combines insights from political science, psychology, public health, and sociology, and enriches sociological survey and experimental research with physiological research on stress and emotions, and social-psychological research on implicit associations with lifestyle attributes. This promises to provide crucial insights for various scientific debates in a wide range of research fields, and for optimizing communication between institutional professionals on the one hand, and less-educated citizens, patients, and pupils on the other.

Summary Crisis in the Post-Industrial City? Analysing the Impact of Post-Industrialism and Creativity on Unemployment among the Less Educated in Dutch Cities during the Crisis (2008-2012)Former industrial strongholds have to cope with higher
unemployment levels among the less educated than service-oriented urban economies. Two explanations that can account for this firmly-established pattern ‐ the polarisation thesis and the creativity thesis ‐ inspire contrasting hypotheses on how it will develop during the current
crisis. According to the first it is expected to wither, while the second predicts that it will grow in salience. An empirical assessment on unemployment levels among the less educated in Dutch cities during the time-span 2008-2012 yields findings in line with the first expectation. The implications
of the results for post-crisis urban economic developments are discussed.

This article studies whether and why less educated natives are less ethnocentric in postindustrial Dutch cities than in industrial ones, as suggested by several theories in urban studies. A multilevel analysis of survey data collected among the native working populations (source: Cultural Change in the Netherlands Surveys 2004 and 2006) of 22 Dutch metropolitan agglomerations (sources: Statistics Netherlands Statline and Atlas of Municipalities) confirms that those concerned are indeed less ethnocentric in the most postindustrial cities. This pattern proves not to stem from the better opportunities at the bottom end of the labor market in these cities, as the ethnic competition theory suggests, but from the more tolerant cultural climate in these cities, as emphasized by Richard Florida in his work on creative cities.

This paper deals with the linkage between changes in the political culture & changes in class-party alignments. First, we investigate how the political culture in Western countries has changed over time. Three views are tested using data on party-manifestos. The first predicts that only new-leftist issues will increase in salience. The second predicts that both new-leftist & new-rightist issues will emerge at the same time. The third, which is empirically corroborated, predicts that first new-leftist issues will emerge followed by a rise in new rightist issues. Second, we investigate how the emergence of these new issues has affected the traditional class-party alignments. We show that the middle class increasingly votes left-wing as new-leftist issues become more important & that the working class increasingly votes rightwing as new-rightist issues become more important. The middle class also appears to alienate from the traditional party of their class as new-rightist issues rise in salience. Tables, Figures. Adapted from the source document.

Leftist and rightist populist parties in Western Europe both oppose trade openness. Is support for economic protectionism also relevant for their electorates? We assess this in the Netherlands, where both types of populist parties have seats in parliament. Analyses of representative survey data ( n = 1,296) demonstrate that support for protectionism drives voting for such parties, as do the well-established determinants of political distrust (both populist constituencies), economic egalitarianism (leftist populist constituency) and ethnocentrism (rightist populist constituency). Surprisingly, support for protectionism does not mediate the relationship between economic egalitarianism and voting for left-wing populists, or the link between political distrust and voting for either left-wing or right-wing populist parties. In contrast, support for protectionism partly mediates the association between ethnocentrism and voting for right-wing populists. We discuss the largely independent role of protectionism in populist voting in relation to the cultural cleavage in politics and electoral competition, and also provide suggestions for future research.

Leftist and rightist populist parties in Western Europe both oppose trade openness. Is support for economic protectionism also relevant for their electorates? We assess this in the Netherlands, where both types of populist parties have seats in parliament. Analyses of representative survey data (n = 1,296) demonstrate that support for protectionism drives voting for such parties, as do the well-established determinants of political distrust (both populist constituencies), economic egalitarianism (leftist populist constituency) and ethnocentrism (rightist populist constituency). Surprisingly, support for protectionism does not mediate the relationship between economic egalitarianism and voting for left-wing populists, or the link between political distrust and voting for either left-wing or right-wing populist parties. In contrast, support for protectionism partly mediates the association between ethnocentrism and voting for right-wing populists. We discuss the largely independent role of protectionism in populist voting in relation to the cultural cleavage in politics and electoral competition, and also provide suggestions for future research.

Drawing upon problems of interpretation in political sociological research, this article questions the common practice of lumping together moral traditionalism and authoritarianism. First, it is demonstrated that of the two only moral traditionalism relates to religious orthodoxy. Second, the well-established strong correlation between both value orientations proves to be caused, in the case at hand solely by the circumstance that nontraditionalism and nonauthoritarianism go hand in hand; moral traditionalism and authoritarianism are almost unrelated. Third, moral traditionalists are shown to vote for Christian right-wing parties, whereas authoritarianism more commonly leads to a vote for a secular right-wing party. Fourth, whereas moral traditionalism proves decisive for the voting behavior of Christians, it is authoritarianism that underlies the non-Christian vote. These findings from The Netherlands (consistent with theories on cultural modernization) lead to the conclusion that attention should be paid to the distinction between these orientations because this aids the interpretation of research findings, and because authoritarianism will probably gain a more central role in politics at the cost of moral traditionalism.

PurposeThis article aims to explore whether and how economic, political and demographic municipal conditions shape citizens' attitudes regarding decentralised social policies.Design/methodology/approachThe authors analysed the 2018 wave of the Dutch Local Election Studies, which includes a novel survey item asking respondents whether they prefer local social policies to be primarily: (1) protection-based, (2) cohesion-building or (3) activation-based. The authors appended context indicators to that survey and performed multilevel logistic regression analyses (1,913 respondents nested in 336 municipalities).FindingsAt the individual level, these preferences are affected by gender, age, income, education and political inclination, as expected. However, preferences towards local social policies are not shaped by local economic, demographic or political conditions. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for future research.Originality/valueBy using unique data, including a newly developed survey item, this study is the first to explore whether and how municipal conditions shape preferences regarding local welfare. Understanding those preferences is increasingly important as many Western European countries have decentralised swathes of social policies from the national to the local level in recent decades.

Popular political discontent has become increasingly salient in western countries in recent decades, as can be witnessed by the rise of populist anti-establishment parties, nonvoting and increasing distrust in politics. However, these phenomena have predominantly been treated as 'democracy's deviants', neglecting the perspectives of the people concerned. Taking an inductive approach, this article examines how ordinary citizens come to turn away from established politics. Drawing on in-depth interviews with politically discontented Dutch nonvoters and PVV voters, the article develops a three-stage 'anti-establishment career' – 'introduction', 'validation' and 'consolidation' – through which their conceptions of politics gradually change. This deviant career model takes into account the dynamics and agency involved in the process, in contrast to conceptions of discontented citizens as utterly passive and anomic. The article concludes by arguing for more cultural-sociological sensitivity in the use of concepts referring to social-political action.