Marc Hooghe – Free University of Brussels, BelgiumWhen the television set first made its appearance in American households during the 1950s, some expected that the new medium would provide a major boost to civic engagement and political awareness. After all, for the first time in history all citizens would get the opportunity to witness important public events and to follow the debates in parliament.Half a century later, the tide has clearly turned for television. Several authors now argue that (...) the spread of television is one of the major causes for the decline of public life and social cohesion. Putnam considers television to be a key culprit for the gradual erosion of social capital within American society. In other research, it is stated that watching television cultivates feelings of insecurity and leads to the spread of distrust, while television is also accused of strengthening a more cynical outlook toward politics and society, in what has been labeled a “video malaise” diagnosis.Proponents of the video malaise argument, however, differ with regard to the causal mechanism they invoke to explain the negative effects of television. In his study on the decline of civic engagement in the United States, Robert Putnam relies on a time replacement effect by suggesting that the spread of television, by itself, could be responsible for as much as a quarter of the observed decline: the time spent on television is no longer available for other, more civic activities and for political participation.Other authors invoke attitudinal effects: maybe television does not affect behaviour, but it could lead to the development of specific value patterns among its audience. Opinions differ on the question whether a more negative and cynical style of covering political news is to be blamed for this effect or rather the increasing amount of entertainment programmes on commercial television.Other authors have argued against this pessimistic assessment of the influence of television. Several arguments are put forward to counter the video malaise claim. First of all, empirical evidence about the alleged negative effects of watching television is not unequivocal: most studies do not reveal significant or strong effects.Although bivariate analysis often shows a clear relation between television viewing behaviour and civic attitudes, after introducing control variables, these effects are usually quite moderate, suggesting the occurrence of self-selection effects, rather than socialization effects.Other studies show that television can also have positive effects: watching the television news is positively associated with political interest and with a more positive outlook toward the political system. Recent experiments demonstrate quite convincingly that exposure to political information on television can boost political knowledge and engagement levels.The basic argument here is that we should not only look at how many hours people spend in front of their television set, but that we should also pay attention to the kind of programmes they are watching: while amusement programmes may have negative effects, we expect a more positive outcome from news and current affairs programmes. Still other authors have argued that not only the content of the programmes is important, but also the channel people prefer.While public broadcasting could or should stimulate civic attitudes, commercial stations will show a tendency to broadcast a totally different kind of programmes, resulting in less civic-minded value patterns among its audience. Swedish and Belgian studies, at least, show marked differences in the value patterns of people preferring public broadcasting versus those who prefer commercial stations.These different arguments have resulted in an animated debate between authors like Robert Putnam, stressing the negative effects of prolonged television viewing, and others like Pippa Norris or Kenneth Newton, claiming that watching the television news is positively associated with political interest and political participation.Bringing empirical evidence into this debate is notoriously difficult. The first, and major problem is that it is almost impossible to rely on longitudinal research in order to detect television effects. Communication research therefore routinely relies on laboratory experiments, raising the question whether the results of this kind of experiment can be generalized into real world circumstances.A second problem is that thus far, we do not have access to survey data in which all three possible factors were questioned simultaneously. In fact, only in a few Western societies is the audience reached by public broadcasting large enough to be represented in a satisfactory manner in a general population survey.In this article we will rely on a 1998 Flemish population survey, which included questions about the time people spend in front of their television set, and the kind of programmes they prefer, but also the station they tune in to regularly. This survey also included various questions on participation in voluntary associations, which allows us to test Putnam’s claim that the medium exerts a negative influence on social capital by reducing civic participation, thus diminishing the time people are exposed to the experience of these ‘learning schools of democracy’.Furthermore, Belgian society offers an ideal setting to test the thesis on the importance of commercial vs. public broadcasting: the television market in the country is divided almost evenly between the public broadcasting service and various commercial stations.The survey therefore offers all the necessary material for trying to disentangle the causal mechanisms between watching television and civic attitudes and behaviour.The survey was based on official population records, resulting in 1341 face-to-face interviews, and it proved to be representative for the Dutch-speaking population of Belgium.With the results of this survey, we try to test the alleged causal mechanisms between television and civic attitudes, focusing first on Putnam’s claim that prolonged television watching reduces civic participation. Secondly, we address the claim that television has a direct impact on civic attitudes. Then we go on to analyze the impact of the programmes our respondents preferred, and the relation with the kind of station they prefer. (shrink)

In studies on political decision-making, attention is often limited to domestic factors. However, this study demonstrates that international considerations can play a key role in the decision-making process. Since 1980, competence for environmental policy in Belgium is shared by the national government and the three autonomous regions. The 134 most important environmental measures which have been issued in Flanders since 1980, were studied, and international influence proved to be considerable. In 78 cases, the measure was brought into being due to (...) the environmental policy of the European Community. In 39 cases, there were influences from other sources of international environmental policy. This left only 17 measures which had no clear connection with international environmental policy. It seems that policy scholars have not yet fully realized the extent of this shift of power from the national to the international level, and have rather neglected the international decision-making process. (shrink)

An analysis of recent environmental legislation in Belgium shows that only small part of it originated from direct pressure by the environmental movement. Although in recent years environmental groups were admitted to a number of advisory committees, this did not really made them a more powerful politica!l orce. Four reasons can be given for this relative weakness: 1) like all new social movements, the movement bas a weak organisational structure; 2) it's focus is on local disturbances to the environment; 3) (...) it's disruptive potential is limited, especially on the national level; 4) it has little format access to the decision making process. The main consequence of it's activities is an innovation of political culture. The movement is succesful in defining and constructing environmental problems, and forcing them on the public and political agenda, but it lacks the power to steer the decision making process on the issues it has created. (shrink)

In the spring of 1990, Belgian Parliament adopted a partial liberalization of abortion. Belgium is one of the last western countries to take such action. Public awareness on the issue fully developed in the early seventies, as abortion came to be regarded as a life-style issue. The rift between opponents and advocates of legal change coincides with the cleavage between catholics and non-believers in Belgian society, and this makes abortion a potentially disruptive issue for the political system. Therefore, Government avoided (...) taking any decisions, and refered the question to a special commission, and later to Parliament. This resulted in a process of non-decisionmaking, which seems typical for the way a consensus democracy, like Belgium, tries to defuse highly disputed issues. The fact that abortion ultimately was partially liberalized, seems to reflect the dramatic changes that secularization bas brought to Belgian society the past decades. (shrink)

An analysis of survey data on membership, pillarisation, voting behaviour and attitudes.Belgian society is traditionally portrayed as heavily pillarised, i.e. having a system of exclusive linkages between voluntary associations and political parties, resulting in the formation of a catholic, a socialist and a liberal 'pillar' within society. Recently, several authors have questioned the validity oft his model. Our survey of the Flemish population, however, shows that pillarisation is an enduring feature of Flemish society. Membership of voluntary associations, trade unions and (...) health insurance organisations remains ideologically motivated, and shows a high degree ofconsistency in this respect. Integration into a 'pillar' exerts a strong influence on voting behaviour, although this effect weakens in younger generations. Pillars also have significant, but weaker effects on attitudes like individualism, trust and solidarity. In the social capital research tradition, these differential effects of membership are often neglected. Although there are signs that pillarisation weakens in Fiemish society, the system certainly has not disappeared. (shrink)

The proliferation of the use of Internet has led to speculations that the interactive possibilities offered by this technology will lead to a democratisation of political communication. It is argued that citizens will enjoy more opportunities to discuss polities with other citizens and to express their opinions toward the political system. In this casestudy, we examine the political use of internet at the time of the Belgian local elections of 8 October 2000. Building on the coding scheme developed by Pippa (...) Norris, we distinguish interactive and institutional communication through the Internet, in which we expect that interactive communication has a democratie potential, while the institutional communication shows atendency to strengthen existing power relations. The data show that during this election campaign the Internet has been used mainlyfor institutional purposes, not for interactive applications. Therefore our conclusion is that, especially in small languageareas, the democratic potential of Internet remains limited. (shrink)

Despite the fact that numerous political parties in Western democracies include separate youth chapters, these have not been studied systematically in political research. There are two reasons to study youth chapters : we know youth participation has strong and enduring political socialisation effects, while several authors have expressed concern about a decline of political engagement among adolescents. Our assumption is that youth chapters fulfil two functions within a party : recruitment of members and ideological innovation. Given the structural evolution toward (...) cartel parties, both functions have become partly obsolete. Youth chapters of Flemish political parties have indeed lost 70 percent of their members since the 1970s. A survey among city councillors confirms the recruitment,function of,youth chapters : 41 percent of them started their political career in youth chapters. The demise of youth chapters therefore can be seen as a clear indication of a structural transformation of political parties. (shrink)

In recent years, several authors have stated that emotions have come to play a more important role in political life, especially in political mass mobilisation. Ouring the 1990s, Belgium and other Western countries have indeed witnessed some spectacular examples of emotion-driven mobilisation. In this article, we argue that emotions are not an innovation in political mass-mobilisation. Various examples from the Belgian political history of the 19th and 20th centuries demonstrate that emotions have always been a key factor for explaining the (...) occurrence, the form and the outcome of political protest. The mobilising role of emotions cannot be considered as aquantitative innovation, and therefore the expression 'new emotional movements' does not seem warranted. We make the claim that these recent mobilisations are not typical because of their reliance on emotions, but rather because of their tendency toward de-institutionalisation. (shrink)

Mass media have been accused of cultivating anti-immigrant sentiments in Western societies. Most studies on this topic, however, have not made a distinction between the types of television program (information vs. entertainment) or television station (public vs. commercial). Adopting a comparative approach, we use data from the six waves of the European Social Survey (ESS, 2002–2012, n = 162,987) to assess the relationship between individual and aggregate level patterns of television consumption and anti-immigrant sentiments in European societies. Individual television viewing (...) time is positively associated with anti-immigrant sentiments, while frequent exposure to news and information programs is associated with lower levels of anti-immigrant sentiments. At the aggregate level we observe a positive effect of the total viewing time in society on anti-immigrant sentiments. In the conclusion we offer some suggestions on how this effect could be explained. (shrink)

The Belgian political system is generally portrayed as being closed for outsiders. In this article we ascertain how the system responded to the challenge of the new social movements. The Belgian political elite developed a response strategy, based on thematical openness and actorial closure. The issues of the new social movements were admitted on the political agenda, but the movements themselves were excluded from access to the decision making process. Only those actors were allowed which were willing to accomodate themselves (...) to the traditional elite consensus, based on neo-corporatism, pillarisation and a politically passive population. Confronted with this elite strategy, the new social movements were able to fulfil their agenda function, but they had little opportunity for introducing new cultural codes into the political decision making process. This lack of innovation enhances the legitimation crisis of the Belgian political system. (shrink)

One of Prof. Walzer's most fascinating contributions to the field of political theory is his introduction of the concept of `complex equality'.In Spheres of Justice, he defines this concept as follows: “In formal terms, complex equality means that no citizen's standing in one sphere or with regard to one social good can be undercut by his standing in some other sphere, with regard to some other good. Thus, citizen X may be chosen over citizen Y for political office, and then (...) the two of them will be unequal in the sphere of politics. But they will not be unequal generally so long as X's office gives him no advantage over Y in any other sphere – superior medical care, access to better schools for his children, entrepreneurial opportunities, and so on” .To achieve a situation of complex equality, Prof. Walzer proposes a system of blocked exchanges: it should be avoided that goods obtained in one sphere are exchanged to obtain goods in another sphere. For instance, the money person X has acquired in the economic sphere should not be used to `buy' power and influence in the political sphere.Prof. Walzer states that this system of complex equality will lead to a more egalitarian distribution of social goods. Maybe in each sphere distinct inequalities will persist, but given the plurality of spheres, eventually every person will acquire goods in one sphere or another. This line of reasoning reminds us to some extent of the traditional pluralist argument as it was formulated by Robert Dahl .Dahl asserts that in contemporary American society, no single group actually dominates political decision-making, since the power of even very influential groups is limited to a few policy arenas. Even underprivileged groups have enough access to proper channels to let their voice get heard in political decision-making. (shrink)

In recent years, the concept of social capital has become quite fashionable in social science research. Especially Robert Putnam’s ‘Making Democracy Work’ has provoked an enormous amount of research on this societal resource. It has become customary to make a distinction between network and attitudinal approaches of social capital, focusing on individual network positions and the role of civic attitudes respectively.We argue that these two approaches do not exclude one another: it is just as legitimate to study the larger societal (...) benefits of social capital as it is to study the individual benefits of networks positions . The question on how social capital can be generated seems more promising for future research, and here we can distinguish society-based approaches and institutional approaches . The available research demonstrates that day-to-day interaction can have significant effects on democratic attitudes, e.g., by a process of value convergence. There is, however, also considerable evidence to show the effect of institutions, boosting social capital levels by ensuring impartiality and transparency and by promoting income inequality.Both from a political science, as from a social perspective, we urge the scientific community to pay more attention to the question how social capital might be generated by the political system. (shrink)

Despite the fact that various authors have expressed concern about a general decline of civic engagement in Western societies, other indicators portray a transition from traditional and formal participation formats to more informal participation forms. This replacement thesis, however, entails the question whether these new forms can still be regarded as a form of political participation. The Alternative Food Circles in Belgium can be considered as a typical grass-roots example of 'political consumerism', which is portrayed as a contemporary alternative for (...) institutionalised politics. In a member survey, 163 members of the Circles were questioned about their motives to participate. They clearly paid little attention to influencing the political system, but notions of solidarity and social change were clearl y present. This form of political consumerism therefore cannot be considered a full form of political participation, but it clearly is a form of 'life style politics'. (shrink)

English summary: Marc Andre Wiegand analyzes the neo-Kantian premises of Gustav Radbruch's legal philosophy.

Standardly, epistemic peers regarding a given matter are said to be people of equal competence who share all relevant evidence. Alternatively, one can define epistemic peers regarding a given matter as people who are equally likely to be right about that matter. I argue that a definition in terms of likelihood captures the essence of epistemic peerhood better than the standard definition or any variant of it. What is more, a likelihood definition implies the truth of the central thesis in (...) the debate on peer disagreement, the so-called Equal Weight View, according to which we should give the opinions of our peers the same weight we give our own. Adopting a likelihood definition, however, does not end the debate on peer disagreement, because the alleged theoretical alternatives to the Equal Weight View, reinterpreted in the light of a likelihood definition, can in fact be shown to be compatible with this view—though the reinterpreted versions may appear less plausible than the original ones. (shrink)

The evidence that we get from peer disagreement is especially problematic from a Bayesian point of view since the belief revision caused by a piece of such evidence cannot be modelled along the lines of Bayesian conditionalisation. This paper explains how exactly this problem arises, what features of peer disagreements are responsible for it, and what lessons should be drawn for both the analysis of peer disagreements and Bayesian conditionalisation as a model of evidence acquisition. In particular, it is pointed (...) out that the same characteristic of evidence from disagreement that explains the problems with Bayesian conditionalisation also suggests an interpretation of suspension of belief in terms of imprecise probabilities. (shrink)

A commonly neglected feature of the so-called Equal Weight View, according to which we should give our peers’ opinions the same weight we give our own, is its prima facie incompatibility with the common picture of philosophy as an armchair activity: an intellectual effort to seek a priori knowledge. This view seems to imply that our beliefs are more likely to be true if we leave our armchair in order to find out whether there actually are peers who, by disagreeing (...) with us, force us to revise our beliefs. This article argues that the Equal Weight View should be spelled out in such a way that not only actual peer disagreement requires us to revise our beliefs, but also merely possible peer disagreement. This result is not a reductio ad absurdum of the view. Quite the opposite: it shows that the view is, contrary to appearance, compatible with our common way of doing philosophy. (shrink)

Unknown peers create a problem for those epistemologists who argue that we should be conciliatory in cases of peer disagreement. The standard interpretation of ‘being conciliatory’ has it that we should revise our opinions concerning a specific subject matter whenever we encounter someone who is as competent and well informed as we are concerning this subject matter (and thus is our peer) and holds a different opinion. As a consequence, peers whom we have never encountered and who are hence unknown (...) to us are not taken into account. This, however, appears odd; not only because it is an accidental matter which peers we happen to encounter and which not, but also because it would allow people to deliberately isolate themselves from any kind of intellectual exchange on the topic under consideration. The paper argues that we should take the problem of unknown peers seriously, and that disregarding the problem is an instance of the more general mistake of assuming that evidential quality and justified believability can be dealt with separately. Moreover, a solution to the problem of unknown peers is suggested. (shrink)

In the foundations of quantum mechanics Gleason’s theorem dictates the uniqueness of the state transition probability via the inner product of the corresponding state vectors in Hilbert space, independent of which measurement context induces this transition. We argue that the state transition probability should not be regarded as a secondary concept which can be derived from the structure on the set of states and properties, but instead should be regarded as a primitive concept for which measurement context is crucial. Accordingly, (...) we adopt an operational approach to quantum mechanics in which a physical entity is defined by the structure of its set of states, set of properties and the possible (measurement) contexts which can be applied to this entity. We put forward some elementary definitions to derive an operational theory from this State–COntext–Property (SCOP) formalism. We show that if the SCOP satisfies a Gleason-like condition, namely that the state transition probability is independent of which measurement context induces the change of state, then the lattice of properties is orthocomplemented, which is one of the ‘quantum axioms’ used in the Piron–Solèr representation theorem for quantum systems. In this sense we obtain a possible physical meaning for the orthocomplementation widely used in quantum structures. (shrink)

In quantum computation non classical features such as superposition states and entanglement are used to solve problems in new ways, impossible on classical digital computers.We illustrate by Deutsch algorithm how a quantum computer can use superposition states to outperform any classical computer. We comment on the view of a quantum computer as a massive parallel computer and recall Amdahls law for a classical parallel computer. We argue that the view on quantum computation as a massive parallel computation disregards the presence (...) of entanglement in a general quantum computation and the non classical way in which parallel results are combined to obtain the final output. (shrink)

Dieser Text geht der Frage nach, ob und, wenn ja, inwieweit sich Gedankenexperimente in der praktischen Philosophie in ihrer Struktur und ihrer epistemischen Signifikanz von Gedankenexperimenten in der theoretischen Philosophie oder in den Naturwissenschaften unterscheiden. Anhand einer allgemeinen Strukturanalyse von Gedankenexperimenten wird dabei aufgezeigt, dass bei Gedankenexperimenten in der praktischen Philosophie zwar häufig die angemessene Bewertung eines zugrunde gelegten Szenarios im Zentrum steht und nicht, wie zum Beispiel in theoretischen Philosophie oft, dessen angemessene Beschreibung, dass dieser Unterschied aber kaum Auswirkungen (...) hat auf die prinzipielle Anwendbarkeit – abgesehen von einer bisher übersehenen Konsequenz: Man darf in einem Gedankenexperiment nicht annehmen, dass moralische, ästhetische oder entscheidungstheoretische Prinzipien in unterschiedlichen möglichen Welten verschieden sind. Andernfalls käme dem Gedankenexperiment keinerlei epistemische Signifikanz zu. (shrink)

This paper delves into the striking parallels between the linguistic patterns of Large Language Models (LLMs) and the concepts of psychosis in Lacanian psychoanalysis. Lacanian theory, with its focus on the formal and logical underpinnings of psychosis, provides a compelling lens to juxtapose human cognition and AI mechanisms. LLMs, such as GPT-4, appear to replicate the intricate metaphorical and metonymical frameworks inherent in human language. Although grounded in mathematical logic and probabilistic analysis, the outputs of LLMs echo the nuanced linguistic (...) associations found in metaphor and metonymy, suggesting a mirroring of human linguistic structures. A pivotal point in this discourse is the exploration of “absolute metaphors”—core gaps in reasoning discernible in both AI models and human thought processes and central to the Lacanian conceptualization of psychosis. Despite the traditional divide between AI research and continental philosophy, this analysis embarks on an innovative journey, utilizing Lacanian philosophy to unravel the logic of AI, using concepts established in the continental discourse on logic, rather than the analytical tradition. (shrink)

Marc Hauser puts forth the theory that humans have evolved a universal moral instinct, unconsciously propelling us to deliver judgments of right and wrong independent of gender, education, and religion. Combining his cutting-edge research with the latest findings in cognitive psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, economics, and anthropology, Hauser explores the startling implications of his provocative theory vis-à-vis contemporary bioethics, religion, the law, and our everyday lives.

Burnout has important ramifications for employees and organizations and preventing burnout forms an ethical issue for managers. However, the role of the leader and especially the role of ethical aspects of leadership have received relatively little attention in relation to burnout to date. We conducted a survey among employees (N = 386) of a Dutch retail organization, nested in 122 teams with a leader. Our first contribution is that we empirically show the hypothesized opposing relationships of ethical and passive leadership (...) behavior with follower burnout. Furthermore, we examined two job characteristics as mechanisms that link these forms of leadership and burnout. Lastly, we show that the positive relationship of ethical leadership with burnout via role clarity (but not overload) is dependent on the degree of passive leadership the leader is perceived to display. Our results suggest that organizations should promote ethical leadership behaviors and limit passive leadership behaviors by stimulating leaders to be active in their role and use their social influence to promote ethical conduct. (shrink)