Conference Agenda

Taking the degree of trust in others and individualism as relevant indicators to assess citizenship and democracy, we analyze the evolution of these two indicators in Spain from 2002 to the present, comparing them with other countries in the European context. This time span coincides with social changes in Europe, particularly in Spain, marked by significant shifts in aspects such as migration, economic crises (the "great recession" during the period 2008-2014), the 2020 pandemic, the rise of left and right-wing populism, and other noteworthy issues that affected European countries to varying degrees.

In this communication, we highlight the analytical focus on the evolution of these variables, considering them either as predictor variables or in their interrelationships with other variables. This is within the framework of broader studies on values and democratic participation, citizenship, the environment, discrimination against social groups, or political ideology polarization.

For the analysis, we utilized both secondary (ESS) and primary data (two waves of surveys from the Observatory of the Culture of Encounter). Secondary data were drawn from ESS surveys, starting the chronological series in Round 1 (2002) and concluding it in Rounds 9 (Spain 2018) and 10 (other European countries). Primary data extended the time series for Spain to 2021 and 2023, post-COVID-19 pandemic, through two waves of the Survey of the Observatory of the Chair of Cultural Encounter at the University Comillas in Madrid. This survey included in the questionnaire the original ESS questions on these two variables (beside some others), with a representative sample of the Spanish population (n=1200), maintaining comparable methodology to that of the ESS.

Results analyzed thus far for the period 2018-2023 suggest the hypothesis that, for Spain, the pandemic may have led to an increase in trust in others and reduced individualism. However, after a few years, there seems to be a tendency to return to pre-COVID values recorded in 2018. Similarly, the aim is to identify other trends or cycles that allow for comparisons between Spain and other Southern European countries and the rest of Europe.

About the presenting author: José A. López-Ruiz is an Applied Social Research and Data Analysis Expert (1994) with a PhD in Political Science and Sociology from the Pontifical University of Salamanca (2007). Since 2000 he has been a professor and researcher at the Comillas Pontifical University, collaborating with the University Institute of Migration, the Sociology Laboratory and the Research and Social Studies Unit. He is an associate researcher at the Martín Patino Chair of the Culture of Encounter. Publications include books, chapters and articles mainly on social inclusion, rural sociology and the sociology of youth.

In connection with the redefinition of paid and unpaid work arrangements pushed by the Covid-19 crisis, already existing challenges for gender equality further increased 2020-21. Recent literature reports the worsening of gender equality in about all the European countries. More than men, women increased their unpaid care workload, due to the suspension of childcare services, the implementation of homeschooling, and other family obligations. Furthermore, women’s wellbeing appeared more at risk, as the result of higher stress, anxiety, and dissatisfaction both towards family and work life. Work-from-home arrangements often amplified these conditions.

Nevertheless, the condition given by the pandemic challenged the gendered flexibility stigma and pushed for changes in the organization of work within companies and new workers’ demands emerged concerning wellbeing, better work-life balance, more recognition of the personal efforts. A qualitative study currently conducted in Italy reports that, in contrast to these demands, companies differ in their offer. While some companies are promoting internal structural changes to lead this social transition, others remain attached to old models in which gender role expectations also remain strong. Situations within Europe vary considerably, also because of the different gender cultures in companies and in the broader social national contexts. On these issues, countries in the South of Europe can also present different dynamics.

To better understand the possible dynamics behind the increase or decrease of gender inequalities and whether the changes pushed by this crisis could last in the post-pandemic future, this contribution builds on studies carried out on these issues during the first and second waves of the pandemic in Southern European countries and provides an overview of work-life balance conflict and gendered dynamics related to flexibility stigma and workload expectations by using ESS10 data, complemented with EU Policy Watch information.

The relationship between religion, religiosity and party politics has always been a central topic for both political sociology and electoral studies. Despite many studies claiming that the link between religious identities and party choice has become increasingly weaker in the last decades, the role of religious beliefs, practice and identity for voting behavior remains important for at least two main reasons.

First, for a contextual issue. If secularization processes triggered a deep evolution in how people deal with religion and develop their own beliefs and practice, such processes advanced at a different pace in different institutional and political contexts, especially in the West. Therefore, we should expect the relation between religion and party choice to work differently in different contexts.

Second, for a party competition reason. The relationship between individual religiosity and voting choice has increasingly gained salience with the growth of radical right parties (RRPs) throughout Europe. Such electoral successes have progressively called for a reconceptualization of the effect of religiosity on voting behavior. On the one hand, the radical right family is tightly connected to conservative and traditionalist issues. On the other hand, religious voters tend not to massively support them, or at least most regular churchgoers seem to prefer more moderate alternatives. Indeed, more recent research shows an increase of religious mentions within conservative and RRPs’ political programs, as they use them in a traditionalist frame or by shaping an “us vs them” rhetoric against immigration, especially against Muslims.

Using the latest ESS wave dataset, our research aims to investigate the link between religiosity and support for RRPs across European countries by proposing a typology which combines both religious denomination and various other religious dimensions. Specifically, we focus on the role of “Cultural Christianity” in shaping support for RRPs. By cultural Christians we refer to people who identify as Christians (being them Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox) even though they do not practice their faith regularly nor they coherently follow religious commands; still they cling to religion as a repository of traditions and values.

In doing so, we aim to bridge a gap in the electoral behavior literature, which perhaps prematurely deemed religiosity as irrelevant, by shedding light on the category of people who identify as Christians albeit not practicing nor explicitly adhering to religious dictates. Additionally, capitalizing on the heterogeneous contexts offered by ESS dataset, we explore cross-national variations especially between Southern European countries and other ESS covered countries to reveal the presence of cultural differences.

Greece has been a steadfast participant in the European Social Survey (ESS) since its establishment in 2002, making consistent contributions across five rounds. The most recent completed round is the 10th. During the ten-year hiatus from 2011 to 2021, Greece, represented by the National Centre for Social Research, actively took part in the advancements in the ESS methodology. This included conducting research on event data and monitoring national contexts, thereby significantly enhancing the survey's methodology (Menold, N., Schaible, J., Stathopoulou, T., & Zuell, C. 2018).

The ten-year hiatus has also been marked by major changes in the Greek society as seen in the successive and overlapping crises due to the prolonged economic recession, the “refugee crisis” and the C19 pandemic. The impact of these “colliding” crises has already been apparent in the declining levels of trust, interest in politics and satisfaction with democracy, over time. Results from additional surveys conducted in Greece, such as the MIGEHAL study (Stathopoulou & Eikemo 2018), also indicate that the elevated levels of depression observed within the Greek population, particularly among women, may be linked to the enduring economic and social crises. The paper aims to explore the attitudinal shifts observed across the ESS rounds in Greece, providing essential context to comprehend the evolving social trends in the backdrop of these multifaceted challenges.

One thing that South European countries have in common is the low level of trust in political institutions. Giddens defined trust as the security deposited in a person or in the reliability of a system. For that reason, trust has been pointed out has a key factor in the legitimacy granted to the decisions made by authorities. Previous studies have shown that low levels of trust may have an instrumental origin, driven by self-interest, namely citizens' perception of the effectiveness of the political system in fundamental domains such as the economy, education, or healthcare. However, trust can also stem from cultural or symbolic factors related to ethical-normative principles dictated by values. Using data from ESS10, we analyzed the impact of these two dimensions on trust in national political institutions (political parties, politicians and national parliament) in five countries: Cyprus, Spain, Italy, Greece, and Portugal. The results suggest that instrumental factors are more determinant than symbolic ones.