I’m sad to hear that Ronald Inglehart has died. Hero worshipping is worse than useless, and great man/woman theories are just very bad sociology of knowledge. Having said that, Inglehart had an impact on the field of comparative political sociology that is hard to overestimate. He was enormously productive, and his work is cited far…
Here is a nice little conundrum for you: Can you say something relevant about politics, parties and political culture while staying absolutely neutral? And what do you do when your editor thinks you’ve crossed the line while you fail to see their point? Also featuring Red Hesse (or maybe not).
Today is Oscar Gabriel’s retirement/leaving do. Unfortunately, I could not make it to the party, but I wrote a chapter for the super-secret Festschrift that should by now be in his hands. The chapter (in German) deals with an old favourite of his (and mine): cultural-attitudinal differences between East and West Germany (or rather between…
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Image via Wikipedia"][/caption] Fails/Pierce 2010 article in Political Research Quarterly 2010 is easily the most interesting paper I have read during the last Academic Year (btw, here are my lecture notes). Ever since the 1950s, mainstream political science has claimed that mass attitudes on democracy matter for the stability of democracy,…