Cultural Value Orientations and Christian Religiosity: On Moral Traditionalism, Authoritarianism, and their Implications for Voting Behavior
| DOI | 10.1177/0192512107079636 |
| Author | Willem De Koster,Jeroen Van Der Waal |
| Published date | 01 September 2007 |
| Date | 01 September 2007 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
de Koster & van der Waal: Cultural Value Orientations and Christian Religiosity 451
International Political Science Review (2007), Vol. 28, No. 4, 451–467
DOI: 10.1177/0192512107079636 © 2007 International Political Science Association
Sage Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, and Singapore)
Cultural Value Orientations and Christian
Religiosity: On Moral Traditionalism,
Authoritarianism, and their Implications
for Voting Behavior
Willem de Koster and Jeroen van der Waal
Abstract. Drawing upon problems of interpretation in political
sociological research, this article questions the common practice of
lumping together moral traditionalism and authoritarianism. First, it is
demonstrated that of the two only moral traditionalism relates to religious
orthodoxy. Second, the well-established strong correlation between both
value orientations proves to be caused, in the case at hand solely by the
circumstance that nontraditionalism and nonauthoritarianism go hand
in hand; moral traditionalism and authoritarianism are almost unrelated.
Third, moral traditionalists are shown to vote for Christian right-wing
parties, whereas authoritarianism more commonly leads to a vote for a
secular right-wing party. Fourth, whereas moral traditionalism proves
decisive for the voting behavior of Christians, it is authoritarianism that
underlies the non-Christian vote. These fi ndings from The Netherlands
(consistent with theories on cultural modernization) lead to the con-
clusion that attention should be paid to the distinction between these
orientations because this aids the interpretation of research fi ndings,
and because authoritarianism will probably gain a more central role in
politics at the cost of moral traditionalism.
Keywords: • Authoritarianism • Christian religiosity • Cultural conservatism
• Moral traditionalism • Voting behavior
Introduction
In his classical work Political Man, Lipset (1959) distinguished economic values from
noneconomic, cultural values, arguing that political values have a bi-dimensional
structure. This distinction has been validated time and again in empirical studies
(see, for instance, Fleishman, 1988; Houtman, 2003; Middendorp, 1991), leading
452 International Political Science Review 28(4)
to a general consensus that economic and cultural values differ fundamentally
(compare Evans and Heath, 1995; Evans et al., 1996; Heath et al., 1994). Although
this is a valuable insight, insuffi cient attention has been paid to the nature of the
cultural dimension: it seems customary in political sociological research to lump
together value orientations and opinions on divergent cultural issues without a
clear theoretical justifi cation. Mainly on the basis of empirical arguments, cultural
issues are considered interchangeable:
research based on nationally representative data sets, collected among the
Dutch population in 1975, 1980, 1985, and 1990, has demonstrated that the
so-called F-scale for authoritarianism is strongly related to more conventional
measures of cultural conservatism. Examples are intolerance regarding
homosexuals, a preference for the maintenance of traditional gender roles,
family traditionalism, harsh attitudes toward criminals, and a willingness to
limit political freedom of expression (Middendorp 1991: 111). Those fi ndings
indicate that there is ample reason to reject too neat a distinction between
authoritarianism and culturally conservative political values. Indeed, their
strong correlation suggests that it makes more sense to consider them highly
interchangeable concepts. (Houtman, 2001: 163)
Achterberg (2004: 337–8) shows the same lack of attention for differences
between cultural issues: he describes the contrast between cultural conservatism
and cultural progressiveness as a confl ict about “typical cultural issues such as
‘law and order’, ‘rights of suppressed minorities, homosexuals and women’ [and]
‘traditional moral values’.” Similarly, Flanagan and Lee (2003: 239–40) designate
items such as one’s view on freedom of speech, the clarity of good and evil, and
sexual freedom as “libertarian items.” This practice is also found in the work of
Evans et al. (1996: 99–100, 112; see also Heath et al., 1994: 130), who compose
a cultural scale of, among other things, opinions regarding stiffer sentences,
traditional moral values, and law obedience.
The use of cultural issues in present-day research practice (for more ex-
amples, see Achterberg and Houtman, 2006; Houtman, 2003) seems, in short, to
be based on the notion that a morally traditional value orientation (a conservative
stance on moral issues such as gender relations, sexuality, life, and death) does not
differ from an authoritarian stance (which implies aversion to cultural diversity
and a rigid conception of social order).
However, this common practice proves to cause problems. For example, De
Witte and Billiet (1999) experienced problems of interpretation: contrary to their
expectations, a conservative cultural value orientation did not predict a vote for
the Christian Democrats in Flanders. While discussing their research fi ndings,
they blamed their operationalization of cultural value orientations:
the indicators for cultural conservatism were rather “though” [sic] ones,
referring to ethnocentrism and authoritarianism mostly. “Softer” indicators,
such as moral attitudes and child rearing practices, were lacking ... we might
have observed different results, if we had been able to use more moderate
indicators of cultural conservatism in our study. Future research should try
to do so. (De Witte and Billiet, 1999: 113, 115)
This recommendation suggests that moral traditionalism is somehow con-
nected to a Christian worldview, whereas authoritarianism is not. In this article,
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