Cultural Identity

Cultural identity - from embracing value systems to recognizing a “local knowledge”; interpretive anthropology contributions to a contextual explanation of left-right orientations in the contemporary Romanian political parties Motto: “Adev•rul doctrinei relativismului cultural (sau istoric – e acela•i lucru) este c• nu putem niciodat• s• în•elegem perfect imaginarul altor popoare sau al altor timpuri ca •i cum ar fi al nostru. Falsitatea ei este c• din aceast• cauz• nu putem s• îl în•elegem deloc” (Geertz, C. 1993, p. 44). With the people for the people, and against those who think human rights are a joke, or better yet a Machiavellian way to get reach, oh so ”liberally” reach.

Rationalist approaches in studying culture. Even though most of the times it did not take the central role (that of variable to be explained through the discovery of its determinant factors), culture was not completely missing from social studies following a rationalist approach. More often, studies interested in describing and explaining differences between countries or communities reserved this central role to concepts such as: the level of economic development, the stability of political systems, or degree of democratization. The cultural particularities became of interest in such an approach especially in the situations in which the other determinant factors of, for example, economic growth, failed to explain all the observed differences between the cases studied. Whether coming from political science or management, the studies interested in investigating cultural variables from a rationalist perspective have several common characteristics: the definition of culture as a system of values, operationalization of these values through indicators that are common for all the cultures studies, and a preference for survey as data collection method. One insightful and very influential example of the rationalist approach to culture is the 1996 Granato, Inglehart and Leblang study where culture is defined as “a system of basic common values that help shape the behavior of the people in a given society.” (Granato, J., Inglehart, R., Leblang, D. 1996, p. 608). They distinguish between societies that are more inclined to manifest achievement motivation and societies that consider other values to be more important and worthy of being taught to children. The values investigated pertain to religion, obedience, parcimony, determination, postmodern values (environment protection, tolerance for minorities) and are measured with large sample surveys representative for the population of the countries studied. A slightly different definition offers Hofstede - “culture is the collective programming of thinking that distinguishes between the members of a group or category from people that belong to other groups or categories” (give reference p. nr.). However, in terms of the cultural characteristics studied here, the mere replacement of “values” with “dimensions of the thought programming” does not change in essence the approach in studying culture. The five cultural dimensions – power distance, uncertainty avoidance,

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individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity and short term/long term orientation – are defined and measured quite similar to the way Inglehart defines and measures what he calls cultural values. Much like Inglehart, Hofstde and his collaborators’ preferred research methods are based on surveys. Both in the IBM study and subsequent inquiries on cultural variables, the questionnaire items are asking people to choose from a series of predefined choices the ones that are closer to their individual values. In the rationalist approach, the specific culture of a country is identified by placing the aggregated responses of people on the scales of the indicators used – cultural dimensions and their corresponding values. Often, the classification is completed with attempts to test the connection of the cultural indicators to other factors in causal relations. The nature of explanation in social sciences after the postmodern critique of the universality of the western rationalist discourse

According to Clifford Geertz, the change in the way of studying culture belongs to an entire process of “reconfiguration of social thinking” (Geertz, C. 1993, p.20). This consists in challenging the strit delimitation of the field of social sciences in relation with the humanist sciences both in what concerns the distribution of the adequate investigation methods and the issues to be studied. Actually, as Geertz points out, this tendency does not limit to scientific investigation. One of the striking characteristics of the contemporary social life is the continuous reconfiguration (and even oblivion sometimes) of the barriers that distance or geographic location could hold to the social action. Whether we talk about economic globalization or the impressive developments in the access to information due to the digital communication, the geographic limitations seem to become less and less relevant or at least to have a more limited impact on social actions compared to the 20th century. The way this tendency manifests in the academic life is of particular interest for this study. What Geertz is pointing to, is quite an irreverence towards the limits that restrict what is appropriate for a particular literary or scientific field in the literary or academic publications. Moreover, he considers that the difficulty with which may of the recent literary and academic publications can be categorized in the classic domains of social sciences and humanities is enough of a general ad distinct phenomenon to suggest that we are facing not only a redesigning of the cultural map – with the moving of a few controversial boundaries […] – but an alteration of the principles that fundament the mere map building. Something is happening with our way of thinking about the way we think. (Geertz, C. 1993, p. 20). With regard to the social sciences, this change affects the essence of the investigative approach – the nature of scientific explanation. The recent research aiming at studying social actions seem to distance from the explanations which consist in identifying its determinant factors, the relative intensity of the causal relationships between these factors and the emergence or the nature of the studies social action its effects. Such a way of

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modeling the social action allows predictions and implicitly the control of the effects of a social action by manipulating its determinant factors. Now, the essential change here is that the goal of scientific explanation is no longer the control the social action but the interpretation of it. The contribution of postmodern critique to acknowledging the contextual, cultural (i.e. historical, geographical, political) determinations of the scientific explanations and , implicitly, of the worldviews that generated those explanations overshadows the importance of discovering the cause-effect relationships and reorients the explanation towards the interpretation of the social action. The postmodern disapproval of the universality of a particular scientific discourse localizes the cause-effect explanations, it makes it dependent of the place, time and sometimes even the politics in which that particular explanation was written. The anthropological addition to the postmodern critique is that even the object to be explained (in particular the social action) may be just as non-universal as the attempts to explain it. The social action does not mean the same thing in different cultural contexts. Even if on the surface, it seems to be the same thing – for example respecting the law – the meaning of it says Geertz, may be quite different in a Islamic, Indian or western culture. What does an interpretative explanation look like? Reorienting the scientific explanation from control to hermeneutics/interpretation has consequences on both its nature and the methodology used in constructing it. The analogies inspired by the natural sciences in an ambition to create a “social physics” (Geertz, C.1993, p.23) are replaced by analogies inpired from literature or theater, from the humanities in general. The explanation becomes “connecting the action with its meaning rather than connecting behavior to its determinats” (Geertz, C. 1993, p.34).

Cultural system – local knowledge as a contextually determined pattern of interpretation of reality

Differences between cultures, between localized systems of knowledge become visible during the attempts to intercultural understanding, and they do so by creating difficulties. When a person that belongs to a particular culture is in a position to observe a social action in a cultural context that is different from his own, he will have difficulties in evaluating that situation especially because the evaluation criteria he will be using belong to the culture he is coming from and not to the culture he is evaluating. Such cross cultural encounters are of course not new, they have existed long before the post-modern orientation in social sciences. However, quite new, (in - what else than - relative terms) is taking in consideration these difficulties as opportunities to interpretation rather than automatic evaluation of difference as something that is less or under developed. Common sense as domain of cultural expression. Even if it is perceived by the ones who are practicing it as a natural attribute, inherent and defining of the normal behavior, an attribute that accompanies without any cognitive effort the behavior of a common

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person, the common sense is, according to Geertz, a cultural product. To be exact, Geertz claims that the common sense is a system of knowledge comprised of practical information about the environment in which a particular community lives, knowledge that is socially and historically determined. Communities belonging to different cultures will have different knowledge that they will consider truth that o not need any argumentation since these are truth that belong to the domain of the common sense. The Robert Edgerton study that Geertz is referring to offers an example of such differences. Edgerton compares the different reactions that are dictated by the common sense, actually generated by the different common senses characteristic to the three cultures studied – North American, Navajo and Pokot. Since the systems of practical knowledge on which the common sense rules are based are different in the three cultures, the reactions that these rules are dictating are also different. And this even though each of the members of the three different communities feel that his/her reaction is natural and the only possible way to respond to extreme phenomena such as genetic malformations. According to the author, these reactions are rejection and corrective measures in the American culture, reverence and even mystical gratitude in Navajo culture, and the indifference with which one accepts an error that renders the affected individual as completely useless to the community in the Pokot culture. In all these different cultures, the systems of practical knowledge on which the common sense rules are based are different and hence the different reactions to what appears to be the same stimulus. There is however something that the localized systems of knowledge have in common. Acording to Geertz, these common features of all different common senses are that: they are perceived as natural by the ones who inhabit them, they have a predominantly practical character, they lack depth, they have no well thought-out method, and they are accessible. Intercultural understanding requires translation between different cultural systems, and an analysis of the symbolic expressions of the reality interpretation patterns could help If the cultural determination of the meaning given to social action and, consequently, its interpretation becomes an important variable in explaining any social action, the relevant question for comparative or intercultural studies is: to what extent is intercultural knowledge possible? The existence of differences in the attribution of meaning makes intercultural understanding problematic. That, of course, if in the attempt to understand other cultures one does not start from the assumption that his own way of understanding the world is the only one, and thus all the differences he encounters are just errors that await correction. Such an universalistic pretension has already been cautioned against by the observers of cultural relativism. However, accepting that cultural differences could be caused by other factors than delays or advancements in development does not mean that understanding between cultures is not at all possible. ”The truth about the cultural relativism (or historical – it’s the same thing) is that we can never completely understand the imaginary of other people or of other times as if it were ours. Its falsity is that because of that we cannot understand it at all” (Geertz, C. 1993, p.44).

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The imaginary of other cultures (their perspective on the world) can be known to the extent to which it is translated. Translation is (in Geertz terms) the understanding by which the imaginary of a certain time or culture can be understood without making it less different in the process (Geertz, C. 1993, p48). Such an understanding would need a partial access to “the interpretative implications of the social actions for both cultures, would also need localizing the thinking and emotional instabilities that a different interpretation generates, and, finally the social framing of these interpretations” (Geertz, C. 1993, p.45). What is the most adequate method of studying a local perspective and what exactly from it is cross-culturally translatable? Geertz is somewhat skeptical about the ability of the observers of a different culture to manifest an exceptional sensibility that would allow them to “think, feel and perceive like a native [of the observed culture]” (Geertz, 1993 2, p.56). Such an exacerbation of sensibility would be necessary for the empathic understanding to really work, even though the empathic approach has been the way of acquiring intercultural knowledge that was traditionally accepted by the anthropological community. Actually, Geertz is just as skeptical about the extent to which the object of anthropological or ethnographical knowledge – i.e. the way of thinking of different cultures – is inter-culturally intelligible. The content of the native representations, what they perceive, remains, in his opinion, inaccessible to an ethnographer. She can only observe and understand (and consequently study) only the mechanisms by which the perceptions and the representations of the natives are constructed. Following this believe, in studying local communities from Java, Bali or Morocco, he does not attempt to identify himself with a member of any of these communities, he rather tries to identify some of the mechanisms of interpretation that are specific to the local way of thinking. The ways of constructing representations of reality are different not only from a western understanding but also different from one another (Geertz, C.1993, 2, p.59). To summarize, the method adopted by Clifford Geertz in understanding a different culture is the analysis of “symbolic forms – words, images, institutions, behaviors” that the members of the local communities use in constructing their representations about themselves, about the others and about the world (Geertz, C. 1993, p58). The Study of cultural systems is, in this perspective, the study of systems of meanings attributed to social actions and it takes place in two steps: 1. identifying the interpretive implications of the social action for the particular culture studied, and 2. socially framing these interpretations. Going through both steps requires, in Geertz’ opinion, “a continuous dialectical zigzag between the most local of the local details and the most global of the global structure” (Geertz, C. 1993, p.69). This process will finally allow a simultaneous perception of both levels. The elements of the local culture – automated emotions and behaviors, uncritically accepted believes – take different forms in different cultures due to the different systems of meaning in the local knowledge.

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What does left-right orientation mean in the Romanian post 89 political context? In the following section of this paper I will apply the local knowledge theoretical framework to a political problem: that of cultural determination of the meaning of left right orientations on the political arena. The study uses the example of two countries – Romania and US – in which being on the left or on the right side of the political scale takes different meanings that find their expression in different symbolic aspects of social life. The interest in studying this issue was prompted by the hypothesis emerged during a visit in the US that it might just be the case that the meanings of political left and right could be if not completely reversed at least remarkably different in the two cultural contexts. The study uses comparative data from World Values Survey (2005) on values related to the left-right orientation of Romanian and US political parties and their electors to have a measure of the hypothesized difference in meaning. The explanation of these differences, however, stems from the local knowledge understanding of culture rather than from a value system model of it. The peculiarities of left-right politics in Romania and how are they reflected by the World Values Study There are structural differences between the electoral systems of the two countries. The most relevant for the question of this study is the number of political parties competing for electoral support and, at least in theory, to better represent the citizens who are offering this support. One would expect that left-right orientations to be a constant, a common sense type of knowledge that would rather help politicians and citizens interested in politics to share experiences or collaborate in a cross-cultural setting such as supra national organizations for example. However, the WV data shows a rather different situation, one that serves as an example for the theoretical view presented above according to which common sense as a stage for local knowledge is only common to the people inhabiting a certain culture and ceases to be as such when approached by people living in different cultures with their own, respective, common sense. There are three groups of variables pertaining to the attitudes of electors that I have analysed using results from World Values Survey 2005. The first is composed by the basic measures for the issue of the study: a self placement on the left-right scale and the political party preference. The second group of variables refers to attitudes that in a “common sense” approach, but also in academic literature are associated with preferences for the left or the right ends or the political spectrum: attitudes about equality, materialism/post-materialism, ownership of business by the state, how much responsibility government should assume in solving social problems, whether hard wok guarantees success, the importance of people having real voice in political decision. The third group is composed of variables that are measures of progressive values in a cultural context. These emancipative (or self-expression) values as Inglehart, their author calls them, are measures of eagerness to move the society forward and they are capturing the directions that the current political discourse sees progress: tolerance and not conformity, gender equality and not patriarchy, autonomy and not authority, participatory inclusion in

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political decision and not order and security (Inglehart, 2009). The reason these last group of variables are in this study is because another “common sense” idea is that there is a certain correspondence between the notions of left/right and liberal/conservative. The correlation being in the sense that left orientation is associated with a liberal, progressive attitude, while the right orientation is more inclined to embrace and conserve traditional values. In what follows two types of comparisons will be made for each of these variables. One comparison is between the electors of the political parties which have declared their position on the left-right scale within each of the two cultures. There are three main political parties at the moment in Romania: PNL (National Liberal Party) and PDL (Democratic Liberal Party) which place themselves to the right of the political scale, and PSD (Social Democratic Party) which is the main contender to the left of the political spectrum. The second comparison is between the two cultures and aims to test whether there are indeed cultural differences in the values preferred by the supporters of the left or right wing parties in Romania and in the US. Left and right self placement of electors, attitudes on equality, ownership of business by the state, responsibility of the government, hard wok and success, materialism. On the left-right self placement scale a score of 1 means the most left oriented while the score ten is the measure for the highest right orientation. As one can notice in Figure No.2, there are no big surprises here, neither within nor between the two cultural cases studied. Electors placed themselves congruent to the orientation of the party they are supporting. Figure No. 2 – Average values on the self positioning on political scale for the groups of electors of political parties Romania US

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Figure No. 3 – Average values on the income equality, ownership of business by the state, responsibility of the government, hard wok and success for the groups of electors of political parties

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When we are considering the congruence between the orientation of the political party preferred by the groups of electors and the types of values they are expected to embrace if they are supporting a left or a right oriented party, for this group of variables there is one case in which responses of Romanian electors differed significantly from the responses of American electors. It is the case of hard work. While the left oriented electors in US disagree with the idea that only hard work can guarantee success, the left oriented electors in Romania do not share the same opinion and are closer to the responses given by their right oriented counterparts in the US. Figure No. 4 – Average values on the materialist/post materialist scale for the groups of electors of political parties

Figure No. 4 shows the most striking response so far, which was given by the electors of the PSD, the Romanian main party that places itself on the left of the political scale. Scores on the materialist/post-materialist scale range from the 0 materialist to 5 postmaterialist. While the left oriented counterparts in the US declare themselves as less attached to the materialist values the PSD supporters are the most materialist from the Romanian electors. On the emancipative values variables (see Figure No. 5), there are again results that show rather incongruence between the responses of Romanian and American electors. Before mentioning this incongruence, one result may call for attention – the fact that on the gender equality scale, the highest gender equality score on the Romanian electors had the electors of a Conservative party. There are two items here on which again the PSD supporters contradict the expectation from a left oriented electorate. They are the most intolerant from the Romanian electors (even more intolerant than the supporters of the nationalist party Great Romania). Significance tests performed for all the comparisons presented above showed only two instances in which differences between the groups compared were not statistically significant. Both were on the Romanian sample and they were related to the materialist scale and gender equality scale variables. (see ANOVA tables in the Annexes). 10

Figure No. 5 – Average values on the gender equality, tolerance, autonomy, and voice for the people in political decision scales for the groups of electors of political parties

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There are several questions that the survey results presented above are raising and they all pertain to the fact that on several of the indicators, the responses of PSD electorate was not quite what one would expect from a left political orientation. The main question is whether these noticed inconsistencies are due to an immaturity of the electorate - one could think of that possibility especially since on several other left orientation issues the responses were quite in the line of expectation. An alternative possibility is that these inconsistencies are underlined by a structural characteristic that is more than a mere lack of political experience. The last part of this study uses the local knowledge approach to offer an explanation for the rather intriguing results that show the left party Romanian supporters to be the most materialist and the most intolerant of the Romanian electors. The Table No.1 below presents a comparative analysis of the two local cultures and the author’s take on translating the cultural meaning of the left-right orientation. The table summarizes the symbolic expressions of the meaning attributed to manifesting political attachment to the left or the right parties on the political stage. The main idea suggested by this analysis is that inconsistencies revealed by the survey data are actually consistent to the cultural characteristics of the contemporary Romanian society: a divided society in which independent individual success is rare and in which the patterns of social interaction have yet to free from the duality of the projected image and the truth. There is a recent history that could account for the resistance of these characteristics, the landmark of it being the 1989 moment. From the perspective of a politically uninvolved local, the division was rather clear just before 1989 and in the years immediately following the revolution. The two obvious opposing groups were, on the one hand, the privileged of the communist regime and on the other hand the rest of the population. Of course, things were never that simple, they just appeared to be as such, especially if you put in a black box the roles played by various groups within the party elite, within the army and the various secret services. To a regular citizen such a black box could not be avoided as information on these roles or actors was scarce and had mainly the form of a dangerous folklore that needed to be whispered or, better yet, shunned altogether for safety reasons1. In retrospect2, it seems that in the early nineties, it was fairly easy to pick your side on the political arena. You could have felt closer, for example, to nostalgic communists and ready to support their strong arm actions against “dangerous and highly undesirable in terms of social morality” opponents. The alternative would be to support these opponents – who, at that time, could have been described in categorical terms as they were mainly students, intellectuals, political dissidents of the communist regime. There were, also, other communism discontents, who would not be easily assigned to any of these afore mentioned categories. Now, if this were a logical exercise, we would expect the 1

The main formal channels of mass communications were at the time the extremely censured Romanian TV and radio stations. Of course accessible to a lower audience but still present werethe illegal radio stations like Romania Libera or BBC, as well as video cassettes for the non political messages coming from the west. 2 To keep in line with the theoretical approach I am embracing in this paper I have to admit possible personal influences on this reconstructed recollection of Romanian average citizen politics twenty years after

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nostalgics to not have stood a chance in the early elections. In a logical unfolding of this argument, if some people regretted the old regime they probably had reasons to, they probably were not so worse off during it after all, they were probably the privileged. The non-privileged were the majority of the population who suffered severely from the policies of communist rulers. These policies3 - from planned economy to family planning - invaded public and private lives of most Romanians. In such a situation, the logical expectation would be that the majority would vote against any party and any candidate even remotely resembling the old Communist Party elite. What really happened was quite the opposite. In the 1990 and 1992 elections, the population voted overwhelmingly for Ion Iliescu (a Moscow schooled member of communist elite at the time in disgrace) and the political party supported him. Why would that happen? One possible answer could be that the public can make a choice against its own interest when there are no channels of communication available for all the alternatives. When communication media are only channeling one side of the debate the public is deprived of the minimum necessary for a critical evaluation, and it fails to distinguish between a projected image and a true one. In the early nineties, the obvious interest of the people was to put behind the communist past. The contenders to the post communist party were the historical parties which had then the prestigious figures of politicians who lived in democracy before communism and who were imprisoned during it. How could the majority of Romanians who wanted to break with their past not to prefer to be represented by the politicians who were clearly against everything that this past represented? They did not hear this message. The only mass media voice in place at the time was portraying Iliescu’s opponents as socially inadequate using the same strategy that one could see happening in the main news TV channels during the 2009 presidential elections. Maybe one of the most perverse techniques of discrediting someone is to turn their qualities against them. In the early nineties the obvious opponents of communist dictatorship, who have had experienced living in democracy and could have represented a key for taking the country through the reforms needed to bring it out of the Eastern block were presented by the media as the agents of the corrupt west. The result of not hearing two sides of the story was that even though the majority of the population dreamed of the western life style and democracy could not realize the

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Especially in the late eighties the picture was really gloomy on what today would be called standard of living criteria: rationed food, empty stores that were active only on the rare occasions in which they received supplies and had to face street long queues of customers, heating quotas, an average of two hours of TV airing a day, of which often half was taken by Ceausescu’s absurd speeches, rationed electrical power (the blackouts became increasingly frequent and the authorities explanation for them was consideration for a “rational” use of energetic resources, actually the rationality and patriotism were called in to account for the sacrifices population had to make in order for the country to put an end to foreign debt and progress towards the promised bliss of the new man in the new society); the social life happened in the family and with close friends and this was the main venue the reach Romanian soul could express itself. Reading books was extremely popular as not many other entertainment means were available. In a way, the Romanians social life in communism was quite post-materialist – no prospects of wealth accumulation took the issue out of the daily concerns and redirected interests to enjoying friends and family and culture at least until late eighties, when the unbearable economic harshness threatened to put an end to this last resistance too. Writers and theatre actors were the true pop culture icons – this was easily noticed 1989 when dissident writers and not successful singers were taken by the population as their representatives.

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contradiction between having that dream and rejecting the ones could accomplish it. In 1996, the newly independent TV channel PRO TV was the venue for the alternative

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Table no. 1 – Applying the intercultural knowledge model to understanding the left –right orientation in Romanian and US The left/right orientation believes

Symbolic expression of the meaning attributed to the left –right orientation Romanian political culture

American political culture

The social image of belonging to the power group

The liberal/conservative life style understandings of individual success

reflective

of

two

Interpretation of the meaning attributed to the left-right orientation The left/right distinction of parties in Romania is not based on ideas about political or social life. This distinction is between two groups: one group has inherited political power from the former communist party elite and wants to maintain this status quo, while the other group is formed by the contestants of the first, the people who are still striving to bring the country to a true modern democratic state. These groups’ boundaries are not fixed and have varied in size over the last twenty years - some people or political parties have changed sides or disappeared, or emerged on the political stage. However, it was always relatively easy for a local to recognize the core constituents of these opposing sides, to recognize who’s right and who is placing himself on the left.

The right/conservative orientation understanding is that an individual’s success is the result of his hard work and talent while the left oriented success understanding is that hard work and talent can lead to success if there are no social barriers to it (such as gender, poverty and belonging to a minority group – racial, ethnic, religious). These two understandings underlie the differences in relating to the other that determine a person to be rather in favor or abortion, poverty reduction, minority rights or not.

Social framing of the interpretation Two scars left by the communist regime are still vividly marking the Romanian social life: collectivism and the prevalence of “image” in social engagement. Whether in action or in reasoning about aspects of life (public or private), an individual is mainly guided by mere conformity to external queues rather than critical thinking and by the concern for projecting the correct image of unconditional compliance to what those queues are pointing to. There are probably several historical circumstances that have contributed to this cultural practice, the most recent is the unfortunate Romanian past of secrecy under the fear of repression sustained by the former communist regime

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The strong respect for individual rights in the American culture, whether it takes the more compassionate form of ensuring that no one if disadvantaged or it takes the strong version of reassuring the rules of fair competition maintains the environment in which individuals develop and maintain a high self-esteem.

message and the result was a change in the political power. What happens in the 2009 presidential elections is quite similar to the early 1990’s. In a country in which autonomy was systematically discouraged and more and more aspects of social and economic life succumb to the rule of cliques, Traian Basescu the candidate who displays independent behavior is stigmatized by the media for exactly that and is presented as a potential dictator. In this context, the electoral message of the other candidate to the presidency, Mircea Geoana, “We shall succeed together” is just another instance of the concern for image rather than solving problems. This message des not show concern with the problems Romania is now facing, it doesn’t even intend to touch upon these problems. This message is just a symbolic expression of the cultural practice of projecting the image that you are similar and thus ready and eager to belong to a certain group – in Mircea Geoana’s case, and for the momentary interests, to the western political left. It has nothing to do with the country he wants to be president of. Before uniting, Romanian people need truth and reconciliation, they need a social environment in which success could be achieved through the hard work and talent of autonomous individuals rather than the desire to surrender to power groups.

Bibliography Geertz C. (1993) Primordial Loyalties and Standing Entities: Anthropological Reflections on the Politics of Identities, lecture delivered at Collegium Budapest, Budapest, 13 December 1993. Geertz C. (1993) Local Knowledge, Basic Books Inc., Publishers, New York.

WORLD VALUES SURVEY 1981-2008 OFFICIAL AGGREGATE v.20090901, 2009. World Values Survey Association (www.worldvaluessurvey.org). Aggregate File Producer: ASEP/JDS, Madrid

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Descriptives 95%

Confidence

Interval for Mean Std.

Std.

Lower

Upper

N

Mean

Deviation

Error

Bound

Bound

Minimum

Maximum

Other

69

12.1304

1.83842

.22132

11.6888

12.5721

6.00

16.00

US: Republican

385

11.7896

1.71843

.08758

11.6174

11.9618

6.00

16.00

US: Democrat

491

12.3238

1.69122

.07632

12.1739

12.4738

6.00

17.00

US: Independent

206

12.0097

1.57725

.10989

11.7930

12.2264

7.00

16.00

Total

1151 12.0773

1.70373

.05022

11.9788

12.1759

6.00

17.00

Self positioning Other

72

5.58

1.045

.123

5.34

5.83

3

10

in

384

6.95

1.790

.091

6.77

7.13

1

10

US: Democrat

498

4.91

1.650

.074

4.77

5.06

1

10

US: Independent

204

5.44

1.260

.088

5.26

5.61

1

10

Total

1158 5.72

1.836

.054

5.62

5.83

1

10

Autonomy

Other

75

.09

1.199

.138

-.18

.37

-2

2

Index

US: Republican

390

-.13

1.162

.059

-.24

-.01

-2

2

US: Democrat

502

.30

1.153

.051

.20

.40

-2

2

US: Independent

208

.24

1.077

.075

.09

.39

-2

2

Total

1175 .14

1.160

.034

.07

.20

-2

2

Post-

Other

74

1.99

.585

.068

1.85

2.12

1

3

Materialist

US: Republican

386

1.78

.606

.031

1.72

1.85

1

3

index 4-item

US: Democrat

500

2.07

.614

.027

2.02

2.13

1

3

US: Independent

208

2.08

.617

.043

1.99

2.16

1

3

Total

1168 1.97

.624

.018

1.94

2.01

1

3

Other

71

15.3944

7.18625

.85285

13.6934

17.0953

3.00

30.00

US: Republican

382

12.3272

6.43646

.32932

11.6797

12.9747

3.00

30.00

US: Democrat

486

16.4691

7.33457

.33270

15.8154

17.1229

3.00

30.00

US: Independent

203

15.2414

6.86618

.48191

14.2912

16.1916

3.00

30.00

Total

1142 14.7986

7.17673

.21237

14.3819

15.2153

3.00

30.00

Incomes more Other

74

5.42

2.393

.278

4.86

5.97

1

10

equal

US: Republican

388

7.01

1.958

.099

6.82

7.21

1

10

US: Democrat

496

5.74

2.204

.099

5.55

5.93

1

10

US: Independent

207

6.02

2.114

.147

5.73

6.31

1

10

Total

1165 6.19

2.201

.064

6.07

6.32

1

10

Other

75

3.96

2.089

.241

3.48

4.44

1

10

388

3.11

1.781

.090

2.94

3.29

1

10

gendereq

political US: Republican

scale

tolvconform

Private ownership

of US: Republican

17

US: Democrat

500

3.88

1.951

.087

3.71

4.05

1

10

US: Independent

208

3.69

1.974

.137

3.42

3.96

1

10

Total

1171 3.60

1.939

.057

3.49

3.71

1

10

Government

Other

75

5.08

2.624

.303

4.48

5.68

1

10

more

US: Republican

389

7.47

2.279

.116

7.25

7.70

1

10

responsibility

US: Democrat

497

5.11

2.576

.116

4.89

5.34

1

10

US: Independent

208

5.93

2.530

.175

5.59

6.28

1

10

Total

1169 6.04

2.688

.079

5.89

6.20

1

10

Other

75

3.91

1.994

.230

3.45

4.37

1

9

US: Republican

386

3.32

2.049

.104

3.12

3.53

1

10

US: Democrat

500

4.16

2.329

.104

3.95

4.36

1

10

US: Independent

205

4.06

2.323

.162

3.74

4.38

1

10

Total

1166 3.85

2.247

.066

3.72

3.98

1

10

Other

74

6.68

2.234

.260

6.16

7.19

2

10

389

7.77

2.243

.114

7.55

7.99

1

10

496

7.48

2.474

.111

7.26

7.69

1

10

US: Independent

207

7.33

2.471

.172

6.99

7.67

1

10

Total

1166 7.50

2.396

.070

7.36

7.63

1

10

Hard work

Democracy: People change

can US: Republican the US: Democrat

laws

in

referendums.

Descriptives 95%

Confidence

Interval for Mean

gendereq I would not vote

Std.

Std.

Lower

Upper

Minimu Maxi

N

Mean

Deviation

Error

Bound

Bound

m

mum

182

12.3956

2.53976

.18826

12.0241

12.767

6.00

17.0

1 Other

19

13.0000

2.10819

.48365

11.9839

14.016

0 10.00

1 RO: Partidul Democrat (PD) - 86

11.9186

2.51684

.27140

11.3790

Democratic Party 12.2712

2.01572

.26242

11.7459

(PNL) - National Liberal Party RO: Uniunea Democrata a 35 din

0 6.00

2

RO: Partidul National Liberal 59

Maghiarilor

12.458 12.796

2.67104

.45149

10.5110

Romania

12.346

17.0 0

8.00

5 11.4286

16.0

16.0 0

6.00

1

17.0 0

(UDMR) - Hun RO: Partidul Romania Mare 96

12.5208

(PRM) - Greater Romania Party

2.28025

.23273

12.0588

12.982 9

18

6.00

17.0 0

RO: Partidul Social Democrat 228 Roman

(PSDR)

-

12.3333

2.54879

.16880

12.0007

Social

12.665

5.00

9

18.0 0

Democrati RO: The ´Justice and Truth´ 265

12.5283

2.47720

.15217

12.2287

Alliance

12.827

5.00

9

RO: The Conservative Party PC

10

13.1000

1.79196

.56667

11.8181

14.381

0 9.00

9 Total

980

12.3643

2.46590

.07877

12.2097

12.518

I would not vote

15.0 0

5.00

9 Self

18.0

18.0 0

86

5.62

1.750

.189

5.24

5.99

1

10

positionin Other 14 g in RO: Partidul Democrat (PD) - 73 political Democratic Party

6.93

2.303

.615

5.60

8.26

2

10

6.88

2.048

.240

6.40

7.35

2

10

scale

7.35

2.092

.277

6.80

7.91

2

10

6.42

2.411

.553

5.26

7.58

1

10

5.66

2.490

.304

5.05

6.26

1

10

4.43

2.492

.195

4.04

4.81

1

10

6.73

2.180

.150

6.43

7.03

1

10

RO: Partidul National Liberal 57 (PNL) - National Liberal Party RO: Uniunea Democrata a 19 Maghiarilor

din

Romania

(UDMR) - Hun RO: Partidul Romania Mare 67 (PRM) - Greater Romania Party RO: Partidul Social Democrat 164 Roman

(PSDR)

-

Social

Democrati RO: The ´Justice and Truth´ 211 Alliance RO: The Conservative Party PC

8

5.25

1.832

.648

3.72

6.78

1

7

Total

699

5.99

2.436

.092

5.81

6.18

1

10

Autonomy I would not vote

240

-.13

1.080

.070

-.27

.01

-2

2

Index

20

-.20

1.196

.268

-.76

.36

-2

2

-.06

1.159

.111

-.28

.17

-2

2

-.33

1.021

.120

-.57

-.09

-2

2

-.05

.962

.148

-.35

.25

-2

2

-.06

1.012

.096

-.25

.13

-2

2

Other

RO: Partidul Democrat (PD) - 108 Democratic Party RO: Partidul National Liberal 72 (PNL) - National Liberal Party RO: Uniunea Democrata a 42 Maghiarilor

din

Romania

(UDMR) - Hun RO: Partidul Romania Mare 111 (PRM) - Greater Romania Party

19

RO: Partidul Social Democrat 290 Roman

(PSDR)

-

-.38

1.126

.066

-.51

-.25

-2

2

-.11

1.092

.063

-.23

.01

-2

2

Social

Democrati RO: The ´Justice and Truth´ 304 Alliance RO: The Conservative Party PC

11

.09

1.044

.315

-.61

.79

-1

2

Total

1198 -.18

1.094

.032

-.24

-.12

-2

2

I would not vote

211

1.62

.600

.041

1.54

1.70

1

3

Materialist Other 19 index 4- RO: Partidul Democrat (PD) - 100 item Democratic Party

1.79

.535

.123

1.53

2.05

1

3

1.62

.663

.066

1.49

1.75

1

3

1.70

.628

.077

1.55

1.85

1

3

1.60

.695

.117

1.36

1.84

1

3

1.62

.577

.056

1.51

1.73

1

3

1.50

.564

.035

1.43

1.57

1

3

1.63

.606

.036

1.56

1.70

1

3

Post-

RO: Partidul National Liberal 67 (PNL) - National Liberal Party RO: Uniunea Democrata a 35 Maghiarilor

din

Romania

(UDMR) - Hun RO: Partidul Romania Mare 106 (PRM) - Greater Romania Party RO: Partidul Social Democrat 267 Roman

(PSDR)

-

Social

Democrati RO: The ´Justice and Truth´ 289 Alliance RO: The Conservative Party PC

11

1.55

.688

.207

1.08

2.01

1

3

Total

1105 1.60

.603

.018

1.56

1.64

1

3

204

7.25777

.50815

9.2775

11.281

3.00

30.0

tolvconfor I would not vote

10.2794

m

3 Other

20

11.5000

6.73170

1.5052

8.3495

5 RO: Partidul Democrat (PD) - 97

10.6392

7.00474

.71122

9.2274

12.050

11.1563

7.59536

.94942

9.2590

(PNL) - National Liberal Party RO: Uniunea Democrata a 36

13.053

3.00

7.97670

Romania

1.3294

10.8289

5

16.226

26.0 0

3.00

5 13.5278

25.0 0

9

RO: Partidul National Liberal 64

din

3.00

5

Democratic Party

Maghiarilor

14.650

0

30.0 0

3.00

7

26.0 0

(UDMR) - Hun RO: Partidul Romania Mare 104

8.3462

(PRM) - Greater Romania Party

5.75852

.56467

7.2263

9.4660

3.00

30.0 0

20

RO: Partidul Social Democrat 260 Roman

(PSDR)

-

7.6577

5.68970

.35286

6.9629

8.3525

3.00

Social

30.0 0

Democrati RO: The ´Justice and Truth´ 280

9.7321

6.88172

.41126

8.9226

Alliance

10.541

3.00

7

RO: The Conservative Party PC

11

12.2727

7.77291

2.3436

7.0508

2 Total

1076 9.5530

6.81653

.20781

17.494

0 3.00

6 9.1452

9.9607

30.0 25.0 0

3.00

30.0 0

Incomes

I would not vote

230

4.70

2.953

.195

4.32

5.08

1

10

more

Other

20

6.10

3.493

.781

4.47

7.73

1

10

equal

RO: Partidul Democrat (PD) - 108

5.15

2.935

.282

4.59

5.71

1

10

5.74

2.738

.327

5.09

6.40

1

10

4.74

2.643

.423

3.89

5.60

1

10

4.73

3.036

.294

4.15

5.31

1

10

4.30

2.958

.177

3.96

4.65

1

10

4.68

2.773

.161

4.36

5.00

1

10

Democratic Party RO: Partidul National Liberal 70 (PNL) - National Liberal Party RO: Uniunea Democrata a 39 Maghiarilor

din

Romania

(UDMR) - Hun RO: Partidul Romania Mare 107 (PRM) - Greater Romania Party RO: Partidul Social Democrat 279 Roman

(PSDR)

-

Social

Democrati RO: The ´Justice and Truth´ 296 Alliance RO: The Conservative Party PC

11

5.45

3.417

1.030

3.16

7.75

1

10

Total

1160 4.74

2.925

.086

4.57

4.91

1

10

I would not vote

223

4.67

2.916

.195

4.28

5.05

1

10

ownership Other 20 of RO: Partidul Democrat (PD) - 105 business Democratic Party

3.50

2.819

.630

2.18

4.82

1

10

4.61

3.046

.297

4.02

5.20

1

10

4.10

3.257

.398

3.31

4.90

1

10

4.14

2.809

.475

3.18

5.11

1

10

5.28

3.142

.301

4.69

5.88

1

10

Private

RO: Partidul National Liberal 67 (PNL) - National Liberal Party RO: Uniunea Democrata a 35 Maghiarilor

din

Romania

(UDMR) - Hun RO: Partidul Romania Mare 109 (PRM) - Greater Romania Party

21

RO: Partidul Social Democrat 279 Roman

(PSDR)

-

5.44

3.092

.185

5.07

5.80

1

10

4.13

2.976

.173

3.78

4.47

1

10

Social

Democrati RO: The ´Justice and Truth´ 295 Alliance RO: The Conservative Party PC

11

3.45

2.464

.743

1.80

5.11

1

8

Total

1144 4.69

3.064

.091

4.51

4.87

1

10

I would not vote

231

4.78

2.880

.189

4.41

5.16

1

10

ent more Other 20 responsibi RO: Partidul Democrat (PD) - 108 lity Democratic Party

6.25

3.370

.754

4.67

7.83

1

10

5.41

3.106

.299

4.81

6.00

1

10

5.94

3.148

.374

5.20

6.69

1

10

6.05

2.768

.455

5.13

6.98

1

10

4.42

2.907

.280

3.86

4.97

1

10

4.79

2.974

.176

4.44

5.13

1

10

5.40

3.053

.178

5.05

5.75

1

10

Governm

RO: Partidul National Liberal 71 (PNL) - National Liberal Party RO: Uniunea Democrata a 37 Maghiarilor

din

Romania

(UDMR) - Hun RO: Partidul Romania Mare 108 (PRM) - Greater Romania Party RO: Partidul Social Democrat 285 Roman

(PSDR)

-

Social

Democrati RO: The ´Justice and Truth´ 295 Alliance RO: The Conservative Party PC

11

4.00

2.366

.714

2.41

5.59

1

8

Total

1166 5.09

3.017

.088

4.92

5.27

1

10

225

3.77

2.681

.179

3.42

4.12

1

10

20

3.25

2.712

.606

1.98

4.52

1

10

3.94

2.719

.263

3.42

4.47

1

10

2.65

2.134

.257

2.14

3.16

1

9

3.27

2.062

.322

2.62

3.92

1

9

3.27

2.758

.264

2.74

3.79

1

10

3.24

2.552

.152

2.94

3.54

1

10

Hard work I would not vote Other

RO: Partidul Democrat (PD) - 107 Democratic Party RO: Partidul National Liberal 69 (PNL) - National Liberal Party RO: Uniunea Democrata a 41 Maghiarilor

din

Romania

(UDMR) - Hun RO: Partidul Romania Mare 109 (PRM) - Greater Romania Party RO: Partidul Social Democrat 282 Roman

(PSDR)

-

Social

Democrati

22

RO: The ´Justice and Truth´ 295

2.99

2.284

.133

2.73

3.25

1

10

Alliance RO: The Conservative Party PC

11

4.45

3.236

.976

2.28

6.63

1

10

Total

1159 3.33

2.540

.075

3.18

3.47

1

10

199

8.52

2.236

.158

8.21

8.83

1

10

9.00

1.633

.375

8.21

9.79

5

10

8.68

2.049

.212

8.26

9.10

1

10

8.26

2.064

.256

7.75

8.77

2

10

8.71

1.442

.259

8.18

9.24

4

10

8.37

2.582

.259

7.86

8.89

1

10

8.30

2.507

.161

7.98

8.62

1

10

8.27

2.280

.138

8.00

8.54

1

10

Democrac I would not vote

y: People Other 19 can RO: Partidul Democrat (PD) - 93 change Democratic Party the laws in referendu ms.

RO: Partidul National Liberal 65 (PNL) - National Liberal Party RO: Uniunea Democrata a 31 Maghiarilor

din

Romania

(UDMR) - Hun RO: Partidul Romania Mare 99 (PRM) - Greater Romania Party RO: Partidul Social Democrat 241 Roman

(PSDR)

-

Social

Democrati RO: The ´Justice and Truth´ 274 Alliance RO: The Conservative Party PC

11

9.09

1.700

.513

7.95

10.23

5

10

Total

1032 8.41

2.289

.071

8.27

8.54

1

10

ANOVA

gendereq

Self positioning political scale

Autonomy Index

Between Groups Within Groups Total in Between Groups Within Groups Total Between Groups Within Groups Total

Sum Squares 62.842

of df 3

Mean Square F 20.947 7.336

3275.276 3338.118 920.546

1147 1150 3

2.856

2979.917 3900.463 43.066

1154 1157 3

2.582

1537.147 1580.213

1171 1174

1.313

23

306.849

14.355

Sig. .000

118.830

.000

10.936

.000

Post-Materialist index 4- Between item Groups Within Groups Total tolvconform Between Groups Within Groups Total Incomes more equal Between Groups Within Groups Total Private ownership of Between business Groups Within Groups Total Government more Between responsibility Groups Within Groups Total Hard work Between Groups Within Groups Total Democracy: People can Between change the laws in Groups referendums. Within Groups Total

21.007

3

7.002

433.171 454.177 3754.414

1164 1167 3

.372

55013.264 58767.678 412.880

1138 1141 3

48.342

5225.278 5638.158 142.938

1161 1164 3

4.501

4256.616 4399.554 1297.712

1167 1170 3

3.647

7141.234 8438.946 164.499

1165 1168 3

6.130

5718.328 5882.827 84.721

1162 1165 3

4.921

6602.765

1162

5.682

6687.486

1165

1251.471

137.627

47.646

432.571

54.833

28.240

18.816

.000

25.888

.000

30.579

.000

13.063

.000

70.568

.000

11.142

.000

4.970

.002

ANOVA Sum of Squares df

Mean Square

F

Sig.

Between Groups

71.208

8

8.901

1.469

.164

Within Groups

5881.742

971

6.057

Total

5952.950

979

Self positioning in political Between Groups

718.879

8

89.860

18.113

.000

scale

Within Groups

3423.099

690

4.961

Total

4141.977

698

gendereq

24

Autonomy Index

Between Groups

20.127

8

2.516

Within Groups

1412.929

1189

1.188

Total

1433.055

1197

4.362

8

.545

Within Groups

396.838

1096

.362

Total

401.200

1104

Between Groups

2206.960

8

275.870

Within Groups

47743.020

1067

44.745

Total

49949.980

1075

Between Groups

185.357

8

23.170

Within Groups

9728.018

1151

8.452

Total

9913.376

1159

367.682

8

45.960

Within Groups

10361.911

1135

9.129

Total

10729.594

1143

262.952

8

32.869

Within Groups

10337.859

1157

8.935

Total

10600.810

1165

Between Groups

165.672

8

20.709

Within Groups

7302.698

1150

6.350

Total

7468.369

1158

33.620

8

4.203

5369.073

1023

5.248

5402.694

1031

Post-Materialist index 4-item Between Groups

tolvconform

Incomes more equal

Private

ownership

business

Government

more Between Groups

responsibility

Hard work

Democracy: change

the

referendums.

of Between Groups

People laws

can Between Groups in Within Groups Total

25

2.117

.032

1.506

.151

6.165

.000

2.741

.005

5.034

.000

3.679

.000

3.261

.001

.801

.602