bs_bs_banner

Political Psychology, Vol. 34, No. 3, 2013

doi: 10.1111/pops.12000

Political Conservatism and Left–Right Orientation in 28 Eastern

and Western European Countries
Anna Aspelund
University of Helsinki, Finland

Marjaana Lindeman
University of Helsinki, Finland

Markku Verkasalo
University of Helsinki, Finland

The relationship between political conservatism and left–right orientation was examined in 15 Western Euro-
pean and 13 former communist Central and Eastern European countries using the data from European Social
Survey Round 3 (N = 46,103) and Round 4 (N = 50,601). Cross-culturally validated values were used to measure
the two potential aspects of conservatism: resistance to change and acceptance of inequality. Both of these
aspects were positively related to right-wing orientation in Western countries. In the former communist
countries, the relationships were positive, negative, and nonexistent; they differed between the countries and
varied between 2006 and 2008. The results indicate that conservatism can be related to left-wing or right-wing
orientation depending on the cultural, political, and economic situation of the society in question. The results
also show that despite the shared communist past, former communist Central and Eastern Europe is a diverse
region that should be treated as such also in research.
KEY WORDS: conservatism, left–right, values, Europe, post-communist societies

Political conservatism has been under extensive scrutiny in political psychology in the past 10
years. Several studies have identified a conservative belief cluster that is described by resistance to
change and acceptance of inequality and that characterizes right-wing ideology in the United States
and in several Western European countries (Altemeyer, 1998; Duckitt, 2001; Jost, Glaser, Kruglan-
ski, & Sulloway, 2003; Thorisdottir, Jost, Liviatan, & Shrout, 2007). Its opposite, liberalism,
characterizes left-wing orientation in the Western world and is typified by open-mindedness, mental
flexibility, and endorsement of social and economic equality (e.g., Jost et al., 2003).
Several authors have pointed out that the relationship between resistance to change, acceptance
of inequality, and left-right political orientation might be different in societies that are politically
different from the United States and Western Europe (e.g., Greenberg & Jonas, 2003; Van Hiel,
Duriez, & Kossowska, 2006). Nonetheless, the evidence is scarce and inconsistent. Soon after the
collapse of communism in Russia, resistance to change was indeed a characteristic of left-wing

409
0162-895X © 2013 International Society of Political Psychology
Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ,
and PO Box 378 Carlton South, 3053 Victoria, Australia
410 Aspelund et al.

ideology (McFarland, Ageyev & Abalakina-Paap, 1992; McFarland, Ageyev & Djintcharadze,
1996). In a more recent study, however, resistance to change predicted right-wing orientation, and no
connection was found between acceptance of inequality and left-right orientation in a group of
former communist Central and Eastern European countries (Thorisdottir et al., 2007). In Poland,
both positive, negative, and no relationships have been found between left–right orientation and
different manifestations of conservative thinking (Kossowska & Van Hiel, 2003; Van Hiel & Kos-
sowska, 2006; Van Hiel, Kossowska, & Mervielde, 2000).
We propose that the relationship between resistance to change, acceptance of inequality, and
left-right orientation in former communist Central and Eastern Europe can differ from that in the
West. We also propose that the reason why corresponding findings obtained in former communist
Central and Eastern Europe have been inconsistent may lie partially on (a) former communist Central
and Eastern Europe being a politically diverse region and partially on (b) the lack of cross-cultural
validity of typical measures of conservatism. These issues will be discussed below.

Diversity in Former Communist Central and Eastern Europe

In much of the past research in political psychology, former communist Central and Eastern
Europe has been considered a relatively homogeneous region. This is, however, not justified con-
sidering that despite some shared history there is considerable diversity in the political landscape
across the region.
Contrary to a common assumption, communism did not completely reshape the ideological life
of societies affected by it, but equally, if not even more significant than the shared communist past
are the differences between the countries before and during the communist era in socioeconomic
development, religion, social class structure, state of democratization, and strength of political
movements played an equal if not a more significant role (e.g., communist vs. other) (Cirtautas &
Schimmelfennig, 2010; Evans, 2006; Kitschelt & Smyth, 2002; Pop-Eleches, 2007; Whitefield,
2002). Postcommunist political and economic development has also progressed differently in dif-
ferent former communist countries. For example, the development of democratic political systems
and free market economy has progressed rapidly in some countries, whereas others are still strug-
gling with the provision of democratic rights (Gilley, 2006). Consequently, support for preserving
traditions and status hierarchies may mean different things in each country.
The above findings indicate that many factors could affect attitudes towards equality, social
justice, competitiveness, and redistribution (i.e., aspects of the acceptance of inequality) as well as
towards what constitutes tradition in each former communist country. It is difficult to predict which
of the factors are most significant, but overall it seems likely that in former communist countries, the
relationships between left-right orientation, resistance to change, and acceptance of inequality are
less consistent than they are in the West.

Cross-Cultural Validity of Measures

Right-wing conservative attitudes are often measured with the Right-Wing Authoritarianism
(RWA) scale or Social Dominance Order (SDO) scale. RWA and SDO have been characterized as
broad social attitudes that underlie conservative ideology and represent the two broad dimensions
defining a psychological space in which Western right-wing conservative ideologies can be arranged:
group-based superiority (in the case of SDO) and social cohesion and collective security (in the case
of RWA) (Altemeyer, 1998; Duckitt 2001; see also Eysenck, 1954; Lipset, 1981).
Using measures that merge all or some of the components of conservatism (resistance to change,
acceptance of inequality, right-wing orientation, or any other) a priori is potentially problematic
when studying conservatism in cultures that may differ notably from the Western one. Doing so, one
Conservatism and Left–Right 411

Figure 1. Schwartz’s model of relations between values (Caprara, Schwartz, Capanna, Vecchione, & Barbaranelli, 2006).

would be searching for only those conservatives who fit the Western idea of conservatism and lose
sight of all other potential forms of conservatism that may be more relevant in other cultures. To
avoid these problems, basic human values are here used as measures of resistance to change and
acceptance of inequality.
In his theory of values, Schwartz (1992, 1994) has identified 10 motivationally distinct types of
values which form a quasi-circumplex structure with two dimensions (Figure 1): conservation
(versus openness to change) and self-enhancement (versus self-transcendence). Prioritizing conser-
vation values is related to high RWA scores, self-enhancement values are related to high scores on
SDO, and both conservation and self-enhancement values correlate with right-wing political pref-
erence in Western samples (Barnea & Schwartz, 1998; Caprara, Schwartz, Vecchione, & Bar-
baranelli, 2008; Cohrs, Maes, Moschner, & Kielmann, 2007; McKee & Feather, 2008). For example,
McKee and Feather (2008) found that high SDO scorers valued power (r = .49) but not universalism
(r = -.56) and that high RWA scorers valued both tradition (r = .42) and conformity (r = .46). In
other words, the two value dimensions together seem to capture the same right-wing conservative
ideological cluster in the Western world as do RWA, SDO, and other traditional measures. However,
because the two value dimensions can be assessed independently and because the value model and
its measurement have been validated across more than 200 samples in more than 60 countries (e.g.,
Schwartz, 1992, 1994; Schwartz & Bilsky, 1990; Schwartz et al., 2001), the universal value approach
has a clear benefit over using traditional measures when studying ideology in non-Western settings.

The Present Study

The study was designed to test two hypotheses and to address two research questions. In line
with previous studies, we expected that resistance to change is related to right-wing orientation in
Western European countries (Hypothesis 1) and that acceptance of inequality is related to right-wing
orientation in Western European countries (Hypothesis 2). In addition, we analyzed the relationships
between left-right orientation and resistance to change (Question 1) and between left-right orienta-
tion and acceptance of inequality (Question 2) in former communist Central and Eastern European
countries.
412 Aspelund et al.

Method

Participants

Data from the European Social Survey (ESS), Round 3 (N = 46,103, 54% females) and Round
4 (N = 50,601, 55% females), was used. The ESS data is gathered by individual face-to-face
interviews and participants in each country form a representative sample of the adult (15 years and
older) population of the specific country.
ESS Round 3 (2006) data was collected in 2006–2007 from 25 participating countries, and ESS
Round 4 (2008) data was collected in 2008–2009 from 31 countries. Twenty-eight of these countries
were selected for analysis: 15 Western European countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland,
France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,
and the United Kingdom) and 13 former communist Central and Eastern European countries
(Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania,
Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine). Most countries were included in both Round 3 and Round
4 data, with the exceptions of Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Greece, and Lithuania.
In ESS3, the number of participants per country varied between 1,505 and 2,916 and participant
age ranged from 15 to 101 years, the average being 46.3 years. In ESS4, the number of participants
per country varied between 1,286 and 2,751 and reported participant age ranged from 15 to 123
years, the average being 47.5 years.

Measures

Left-right political orientation was based on self-reported placement on a single left-right scale
(0 = left, 10 = right).
Resistance to change and acceptance of inequality were measured using sum scores of conser-
vation (vs. openness to change) and self-enhancement (vs. self-transcendence) values, respectively.
Both value variables were based on the 21-item Schwartz Portrait Value Questionnaire (PVQ,
Schwartz et al., 2001) that was included in the ESS data. PVQ contains items such as “Tradition is
important for her/him” (1 = “very much like me,” 6 = “not like me at all”). Norms and equations (by
Verkasalo, Lonnqvist, Lipsanen, & Helkama, 2009), which produce linear transformations of the
original data, were used to calculate the participants’ scores on the conservation and self-
enhancement dimensions. The same weights were used for data from all countries to produce scores
that are comparable to each other (M = 100, SD = 10).

Results

To test Hypotheses 1 and 2, correlations between left-right orientation, resistance to change, and
acceptance of inequality were calculated for each country (Table 1 and Table 2). The results con-
firmed Hypothesis 1 in that resistance to change was related to right-wing orientation in all 14
Western European countries in 2006 and in 13 countries in 2008. In addition, the majority of the
results supported Hypothesis 2: acceptance of inequality was associated with right-wing orientation
in 10 of the 14 Western European countries in 2006 and in 12 countries in 2008.
In former communist Central and Eastern Europe, the results were different. The relationships
between resistance to change and right-wing orientation were positive, negative, and nonexistent.
Furthermore, no relationship between acceptance of inequality and left-right orientation was found
in the majority of the former communist countries in 2006. In 2008, acceptance of inequality was
related to right-wing orientation in six countries and to left-wing orientation in two countries.
Conservatism and Left–Right 413

Table 1. Correlations between Left-Right Orientation (Scale:

0 = Left, 10 = Right), Resistance to Change, and Acceptance of
Inequality in Western Europe

Country Resistance to Change Acceptance of Inequality

2006 2008 2006 2008

Austria .19** – .09** –
Belgium .09** .07** .10** .09**
Denmark .17** .18** .19** .18**
Finland .12** .11** .11** .12**
France .23** .21** .06* .09**
Germany .15** .10** .12** .13**
Greece – .17** – .09**
Ireland .18** .19** .01 .04
Netherlands .21** .14** .10** .11**
Norway .10** .08** .16** .20**
Portugal .08** .07** .02 .01
Spain .20** .20** .00 .08**
Sweden .07** .03 .18** .20**
Switzerland .22** .21** .09** .09**
UK .13** .10** .02 .07**
*p < .05. **p < .01.

Table 2. Correlations between Left-Right Orientation (Scale:

0 = Left, 10 = Right), Resistance to Change, and Acceptance of
Inequality in Central and Eastern Europe

Country Resistance to Change Acceptance of Inequality

2006 2008 2006 2008

Bulgaria -.24** -.22** .21** .11**
Croatia – .18** – -.05
Czech Rep. – -.18** – .14**
Estonia -.08** -.13** .01 .02
Hungary -.02 -.03 .01 .07*
Latvia -.05 .00 .02 -.07*
Lithuania – -.01 – -.07*
Poland .11** .01 -.06* .01
Romania -.16** -.05 .00 .03
Russia -.04 -.03 .07* .03
Slovakia -.10** -.08** .05 .07**
Slovenia .17** .11** .02 .09**
Ukraine .11** -.09** .04 .12**
*p < .05. **p < .01.

Because the relationships between left-right orientation and the two facets of conservatism
differed between 2006 and 2008 in some countries, we tested the significance of the differences
between the two correlation coefficients. The size of the correlations between left-right orientation
and resistance to change differed significantly between 2006 and 2008 in the Netherlands, z = 2.11,
p < .05, Poland, z = 2.88, p < .01, Romania, z = 3.86, p < .001, and Ukraine, z = 6.19, p < .001. The
correlations between left-right orientation and acceptance of inequality obtained in the two datasets
differed significantly in Bulgaria, z = 2.92, p < .01, Poland, z = -2.00, p < .05, and Ukraine,
z = -2.47, p < .05.
414 Aspelund et al.

The correlations between resistance to change and acceptance of inequality varied between -.09
and .25 in Western European countries and between .13 and .51 in Central and Eastern European
countries.

Discussion

The results of this study confirmed the assumption that has been much speculated about but so
far has not been systematically studied: The relationship between left-right orientation, resistance to
change, and acceptance of inequality can be different in countries that are culturally and politically
different from the United States and Western Europe. The vast majority of the results for the 15
Western European countries were parallel, replicated in the 2008 data, and in line with previous
findings. However, the results for the 13 East European countries were different from those in the
West, differed between the countries, and varied more between 2006 and 2008.

Resistance to Change and Left-Right Orientation

The results confirmed Hypothesis 1 and the findings of several previous studies showing that
resistance to change is related to right-wing orientation in Western Europe (Thorisdottir et al., 2007;
Van Hiel & Kossowska, 2006).
In former communist Central and Eastern Europe, the relationships between resistance to
change and left-right orientation differed notably between countries. Four kinds of countries were
found: Western-like countries where resistance to change was related to right-wing orientation
(Croatia and Slovenia), countries where resistance to change was related to left-wing orientation
(Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, and Slovakia), countries where no associations were found
(Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, and Russia), and countries where the association had changed during
the two years from 2006 to 2008, either from positive to no association (Poland), from negative to
no association (Romania), or from positive to negative association (Ukraine).
Besides demonstrating differences between the former communist countries and the Western
world, the results show that the relationship between resistance to change and left-right orientation
varies between former communist countries as well. However, it is difficult to give straightforward
explanations for the results. One potential factor for the diverse results may be the postcommunist
economic and political development: Countries that are politically and economically more similar to
the West may be more likely to resemble the West even in this respect. Poland and Slovenia, where
resistance to change was connected to right-wing orientation, are both among the most developed
former communist countries politically and economically (Mishler & Rose, 2002; Spirova, 2008;
Vachudova, 2008). In Bulgaria and Slovakia, resistance to change was related to left-wing orientation
in both 2006 and 2008, which might be explained by their slow political development (Spirova, 2008;
Vauchudova, 2008), and in case of Bulgaria, by slow economic development as well (Mishler &
Rose, 2002).
Political and economic development is, however, definitely not the only contributing factor and
possibly not even the most important one for explaining variation in the relationships between
resistance to change, acceptance of inequality, and political orientation. Examples that cannot be
explained with this argument include the negative associations between resistance to change and
left-wing orientation in Estonia, between resistance to change and right-wing orientation in Croatia,
and the lack of association in Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, and Russia.
As suggested by an anonymous reviewer, what remains constant across conservative ideology
may not be resistance to change, but a type of essentialism: a view that there is some right way of
being and some right national or social identity that must be embraced. In some cases, change may
Conservatism and Left–Right 415

be required to achieve this right way of being. Consequently, resistance to change may lead one
person to value things as they are and another to want radical change to restore the more distant past.

Acceptance of Inequality and Left-Right Orientation

Hypothesis 2 was partially confirmed as a positive relationship between acceptance of inequality

and right-wing orientation that was found in most Western European countries. The results thus
confirm the findings of previous studies (e.g., Thorisdottir et al., 2007) that acceptance of inequality
is generally related to right-wing political orientation in Western Europe.
In the Central and Eastern European countries the results were more inconsistent. In Bulgaria,
acceptance of inequality was related to right-wing orientation. In Estonia and Romania, no relation-
ship between acceptance of inequality and left-right orientation was found. In Poland and Ukraine,
the association had changed during the two years from 2006 to 2008, either from weakly negative to
no association (Poland) or from no association to a positive association (Ukraine). For the rest of the
countries, the results were inconclusive as the correlation between acceptance of inequality and
left-right orientation was statistically significant one year (either 2006 or 2008) and not significant
the other, even though the difference between the two correlations was not significant. Overall, the
relationships were weak, and as such they converge with earlier findings showing that acceptance of
inequality is not related to left-right orientation in the former communist countries (Thorisdottir
et al., 2007).
One tentative explanation for the weak and inconsistent results is that the meaning of left and
right may not be the same for people in former communist countries as it is for people in the Western
world. Political experts in both Western and former communist countries emphasize economic or
class conflict in the definition of left versus right (Huber & Inglehart, 1995; Rohrschneider &
Whitefield, 2009). Nonetheless, there is evidence that for the average layman in former communist
countries, issues such as religion, ethnicity, or views on democratization are at least equally relevant
distinguishers of left versus right (e.g., Jou, 2010; McAllister & White, 2007). In addition, left-wing
political parties in postcommunist countries have been found to endorse economic policies that
would be considered right-wing in the West (e.g., decreases in government spending) and vice versa
(Tavits & Letki, 2009). To avoid misleading interpretations, future studies should take into consid-
eration the potentially different views about left and right among people and replace left-right
self-placements with more specific measures of positions on political issues. A longitudinal study in
some of the countries, possibly including some qualitative items, might also help to clarify the issue.

Conservatism and Its Measures in Cross-Cultural Settings

In this study, universal values were used as measures of conservatism and acceptance of
inequality. In line with previous studies on values and political orientation (e.g., Caprara et al., 2008;
Cohrs et al., 2007; McKee & Feather, 2008), the conservation (as a measure of resistance to change)
and self-enhancement (as a measure of acceptance of inequality) values were able to capture the
right-wing ideological cluster in Western European countries. However, in the former communist
Central and Eastern European countries, high resistance to change and acceptance of inequality had
a positive, negative, or no association to right-wing orientation. The relationship between resistance
to change and acceptance of inequality also varied notably between the countries. The results imply
that it would be important to theoretically and operationally set apart the different components of
conservatism, especially when doing research in cultures where the manifestation of conservatism
might be different from that in the West. The magnitudes of the correlations were rather low, which
may indicate that basic values are such abstract constructs that they are not necessarily fully
416 Aspelund et al.

expressed in political behavior. However, the obtained effect sizes (r’s ca .10 - .24) are well in line
with those typically observed in similar studies (e.g., Jost et al., 2003) and in social psychological
studies in general (Richad, Bond, & Stokes-Zoota, 2003), suggesting that values are in this respect
comparable to the more traditional measures of political attitudes.

Conclusion

In this study, resistance to change, acceptance of inequality, and left-right orientation were
analyzed separately in 28 Eastern and Western European countries in two different years with
measures that have high cross-cultural validity. The findings suggest that cultural tradition and the way
people understand the left-right continuum may shape the relationship between different aspects of
conservatism and left-right orientation. As such, the results help to elucidate why studies on the
relationship between conservatism and left-right ideology in countries outside the Western world have
yielded discrepant results. As a whole, the results imply that the former communist Central and Eastern
European countries cannot be grouped together simply because they share a communist past, and
similarly, that research conducted in any single country cannot be generalized to the entire region.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to Anna Aspelund, University of Helsinki,
P.O. Box 9, FI-00014, Helsinki, Finland. E-mail: anna.aspelund@helsinki.fi

REFERENCES

Altemeyer, B. (1998). The other “authoritarian personality.” Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 30, 47–91.
Barnea, M. F., & Schwartz, S. H. (1998). Values and voting. Political Psychology, 19, 17–40.
Caprara, G. V., Schwartz, S., Capanna, C., Vecchione, M., & Barbaranelli, C. (2006). Personality and politics: Values, traits,
and political choice. Political Psychology, 27, 1–28.
Caprara, G. V., Schwartz, S. H., Vecchione, M., & Barbaranelli, C. (2008). The personalization of politics. Lessons from the
Italian case. European Psychologist, 13, 157–172.
Cirtautas, A. M., & Schimmelfennig, F. (2010). Europeanisation before and after accession: Conditionality, legacies and
compliance. Europe-Asia Studies, 62, 421–441.
Cohrs, J. C., Maes, J., Moschner, B., & Kielmann, S. (2007). Determinants of human rights attitudes and behavior: A
comparison and integration of psychological perspectives. Political Psychology, 28, 441–469.
Duckitt, J. (2001). A dual-process cognitive-motivational theory of ideology and prejudice. Advances in Experimental Social
Psychology, 33, 41–113.
ESS Round 3 (2006). European Social Survey Data file edition 3.3. Norwegian Social Science Data Services, Norway—Data
Archive and distributor of ESS data.
ESS Round 4 (2008). European Social Survey Data file edition 4.0. Norwegian Social Science Data Services, Norway—Data
Archive and distributor of ESS data.
Evans, G. (2006). The social bases of political divisions in post-communist Eastern Europe. Annual Review of Sociology, 32,
245–270.
Eysenck, H. J. (1954). The psychology of politics. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Gilley, B. (2006). The determinants of state legitimacy: Results for 72 countries. International Political Science Review, 27,
47–71.
Greenberg, J., & Jonas, E. (2003). Psychological motives and political orientation—The left, the right and the rigid: Comment
to Jost et al. (2003). Psychological Bulletin, 129, 376–382.
Huber, J., & Inglehart, R. (1995). Expert interpretations of party space and party locations in 42 societies. Party Politics, 1,
73–111.
Jost, J. T., Glaser, J., Kruglanski, A. W., & Sulloway, F. J. (2003). Political conservatism as motivated social cognition.
Psychological Bulletin, 129, 339–375.
Conservatism and Left–Right 417

Jou, W. (2010). Continuities and changes in left-right orientations in new democracies: The cases of Croatia and Slovenia.
Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 43, 97-113.
Kitschelt, H., & Smyth, R. (2002). Programmatic party cohesion in emerging post-communist democracies: Russia in
comparative context. Comparative Political Studies, 35, 1228–1256.
Kossowska, M., & Van Hiel, A. (2003). The relationship between need for closure and conservative beliefs in Western and
Eastern Europe. Political Psychology, 24, 501–518.
Lipset, S. M. (1981). Political man: The social bases of politics. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
McAllister, I., & White, S. (2007). Political parties and democratic Consolidation in post-communist societies. Party Politics,
13, 197–216.
McFarland, S. G., Ageyev, V. S., & Abalakina-Paap, M. A. (1992). Authoritarianism in the former Soviet Union. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 1004–1010.
McFarland, S. G., Ageyev, V. S., & Djintcharadze, N. (1996). Russian authoritarianism two years after communism.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 210–217.
McKee, I. A., & Feather, N. T. (2008). Revenge, retribution and values: Social attitudes and punitive sentencing. Social Justice
Research, 21, 138–163.
Mishler, W., & Rose, R. (2002). Learning and re-learning regime support: The dynamics of post-communist regimes.
European Journal of Political Research, 41, 5–36.
Pop-Eleches, G. (2007). Historical legacies and post-communist regime change. Journal of Politics, 69, 908–926.
Richard, F. D., Bond, C. F., & Stokes-Zoota, J. J. (2003). One hundred years of social psychology quantitatively described.
Review of General Psychology, 7, 331–363.
Rohrschneider, R., & Whitefield, S. (2009). Understanding cleavages in party systems. Issue position and issue salience in 13
post-communist democracies. Comparative Political Studies, 42, 280–313.
Schwartz, S. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20
countries. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 1–65.
Schwartz, S. (1994). Are there universal aspects in the structure and contents of human values? Journal of Social Issues, 50,
19–45.
Schwartz, S., & Bilsky, W. (1990). Toward a theory of the universal content and structure of values: Extensions and
cross-cultural replications. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 878–891.
Schwartz, S., Melech, G., Lehmann, A., Burgess, S., Harris, M., & Owens, V. (2001). Extending the cross-cultural validity of
the theory of basic human values with a different method of measurement. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 32,
519–542.
Spirova, M. (2008). The Bulgarian socialist party: The long road to Europe. Communist and Post-communist Studies, 41,
481–495.
Tavits, M., & Letki, N. (2009). When left is right: Party ideology and policy in post-communist Europe. American Political
Science Review, 103, 555–569.
Thorisdottir, H., Jost, J. T., Liviatan, I., & Shrout, P. E. (2007). Psychological needs and values underlying left-right political
orientation: Cross-national evidence from Eastern and Western Europe. Public Opinion Quarterly, 71, 175–203.
Van Hiel, A., Duriez, B., & Kossowska, M. (2006). The presence of left-wing authoritarianism in Western Europe and its
relationship with conservative ideology. Political Psychology, 27, 769–793.
Van Hiel, A., Kossowska, M., & Mervielde, I. (2000). The relationship between openness to experience and political ideology.
Personality and Individual Differences, 28, 741–751.
Van Hiel, A., & Kossowska, M. (2006). Contemporary attitudes and their ideological representation in Flanders (Belgium),
Poland and the Ukraine. International Journal of Psychology, 42, 16–26.
Vauchudova, A. (2008). Center-right parties and political outcomes in East Central Europe. Party Politics, 14, 387–405.
Verkasalo, M., Lonnqvist, J-E., Lipsanen, J., & Helkama, K. (2009). European norms and equations for a two dimensional
presentation of values as measured with Schwartz’s 21-item portrait values questionnaire. European Journal of Social
Psychology, 39, 780–792.
Whitefield, S. (2002). Political cleavages and post-communist politics. Annual Review of Political Science, 5, 181–200.
Copyright of Political Psychology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or
emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission.
However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.