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4th LSCR International Workshop. Day 6

by Victoria Remezkova

The sixth day of the 4th LCSR International Workshop was opened with a public honored lecture delivered by Ronald Inglehart (University of Michigan, LCSR, St.Petersburg). Professor Inglehart told about societal determinants of the ‘long peace’, a period that followed the World War II that was marked by the absence of wars between the major powers. Among the most often cited explanations of the ‘long peace’ are the theory of democratic peace, the growth of countries economic interdependence, and the spread of knowledge society due to globalization.  Inglehart argued that the previous theories missed an important factor for maintaining the ‘long peace’. He posits that increasing existential security in modern societies leads to decline in violence both on micro- and macro-level. People who live in relatively secure and wealthy conditions become more tolerant and happier. Therefore, they express less support for violent methods of conflict resolution and demonstrate decreasing willingness to fight for their countries.

Professor Inglehart’s lecture was followed by a plenary session on value changes where Peter Schmidt (University of Giessen, Germany) told about the variance in attitudes towards homosexuality among individuals and on country level. He found out that individual openness for change and devotion to Universalist values (in S. Schwartz’s terms) result in higher tolerance. At the country level similar effect is caused by the national legislation – the more permissive it is to people with non-traditional sexual orientation the more tolerant values are expressed by the citizens of this country.  

After lunch the working session on gender inequality has started. First, Natalia Soboleva (LCSR, Moscow) presented her project on gender attitudes in post-crisis Europe. Then Veronika Kostenko (LCSR, St. Petersburg) gave a talk on patterns of gender inequality in 47 European countries. The session was closed with a report on attitudes towards gender inequality in the Arab countries based on a just published second wave of the Arab barometer project delivered by Musa Shteiwi (Center for Strategic Studies, University of Jordan).

The last session of the day focused on religiosity. Anna Shirokanova (Belarus State University, Minsk) presented the results of her study of Islamic work ethic. Then Olga Popova (Institute for East and Southeast European Studies, Germany) talked about the impact of parent religiosity on children’s health. Afterwards, Adrian Wojcik (Center for Research on Prejudice, University of Warsaw) made a report on religious sources of pro-environmental attitudes. In conclusion, Kirill Zirkov (LCSR, St. Petersburg) presented his new project on construction and validation of universal instrument for measuring religiosity in cross-national surveys.   

By Victoria Remezkova