A New Social Conflict on Globalisation-Related Issues in Germany? A Longitudinal Perspective

We draw on cleavage theory to assess the emergence of a social conflict concerning globalisation-related issues among the German population between 1989 and 2019. We argue that issue salience and opinion polarisation are key conditions for a successful and sustainable political mobilisation of citiz...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 2023-12, Vol.75 (Suppl 1), p.205-234
Main Authors: Teney, Céline, Rupieper, Li Kathrin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abhandlungen
Cleavage
Globalization
Immigration
Liberalism
Methodology of the Social Sciences
Personality and Social Psychology
Population growth
Social conflict
Social Sciences
Sociology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We draw on cleavage theory to assess the emergence of a social conflict concerning globalisation-related issues among the German population between 1989 and 2019. We argue that issue salience and opinion polarisation are key conditions for a successful and sustainable political mobilisation of citizens and thus for the emergence of a social conflict. In line with globalisation cleavage theory, we hypothesised that issue salience as well as overall and between-group opinion polarisation on globalisation-related issues have increased over time. Our study considers four globalisation-related issues: immigration, the European Union (EU), economic liberalism, and the environment. While the salience of the EU and economic liberalism issues remained low during the observed period, we found a recent increase in salience for the issues of immigration (since 2015) and the environment (since 2018). Furthermore, our results point to rather stable attitudes on globalisation-related issues among the German population: We did not find any consistent evidence of an increase in overall or between-group polarisation over time. In conclusion, the idea of an emerging conflict around globalisation-related issues among the German population finds very little empirical support.
ISSN:0023-2653
1861-891X
DOI:10.1007/s11577-023-00884-5