TY - JOUR

T1 - A New Social Conflict on Globalisation-Related Issues in Germany? A Longitudinal Perspective

AU - Teney, Céline

AU - Rupieper, Li Kathrin

N1 - Funding Information: The authors would like to thank Emanuel Deutschmann, Stephan Dochow-Sondershaus, Swen Hutter, the participants of Steffen Mau’s colloquium at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, the participants of the KZfSS special issue authors’ workshop—in particular, Kathrin Ackermann—and the editors of the KZfSS special issues for their valuable comments on a previous version of this manuscript.

PY - 2023/12

Y1 - 2023/12

N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

KW - Attitudes

KW - German population

KW - Globalisation cleavage

KW - Issue salience

KW - Longitudinal analysis

KW - Opinion polarisation

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85158146121&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s11577-023-00884-5

DO - 10.1007/s11577-023-00884-5

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85158146121

VL - 75

SP - 205

EP - 234

JO - Kolner Zeitschrift fur Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie

JF - Kolner Zeitschrift fur Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie

SN - 0023-2653

ER -