Data, Measures and Methods
Politics, economics, ethics and religion in French academia Abel Franc¸oisa,b,*, Cal Le Gallc and Raul Magni Bertonb,d a
Universite´ Lille 1 (LEM), Villeneuve d’Ascq Cedex, France. LIEPP, Paris, France. E-mail:
[email protected] c University of Salzburg (SCEUS), Salzburg, Austria. E-mail:
[email protected] d Sciences Po Grenoble, PACTE, Univ. Grenoble-Alpes, Saint-Martin-d’He`res, France. E-mail:
[email protected] b
*Corresponding author.
Abstract The aim of this note is to present the main results of a survey carried out in 2011 which gathers information on French academics’ opinions and attitudes toward politics, economics, religion and ethical beliefs. The sample of respondents is large (N = 2,000) and the survey allows a comparison between academics and the overall French population by replicating questions of traditional surveys (EVS and Dynegal). We observe that French academics are considerably more left-wing, more hostile to free-market economy and more atheist than French citizens. Interestingly, a significant share of academics tends to adopt ethical guidelines that are similar to those of religious people. French Politics (2016). doi:10.1057/s41253-016-0002-9 Keywords: France; survey; academics; attitudes; politics
Introduction The aim of this research note is to provide information on French academics’ opinions and attitudes in four areas: politics, economics, religion and ethical principles. Thanks to an online survey carried out in France in 2011 which gathers information on more than 2000 academics, we show that French academics are, on average, more leftist, more hostile toward free-market economy, less religious and more deontological than their fellow citizens. This research note is based on a more analytical work developed by Franc¸ois and Magni-Berton (2015). Ó 2016 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3419 www.palgrave.com/journals
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This note adds to the literature dedicated to the study of academics’ attitudes and opinions by providing new data. So far, this literature has focused on three areas: political attitudes, economic attitudes and religious attitudes. First, studies in the US demonstrate that professors tend to be more liberal than the overall population in a number of political and social issues (Lazarsfeld and Thielens, 1958; Ladd and Lipset, 1976). Moreover, academics’ voting behaviour and political affiliation are depicted as systematically more liberal and leftist than those of the average citizen (Fosse and Gross, 2012; Gross, 2013). Similar patterns have been identified in other counties such as the UK (Halsey and Trow, 1971) or Canada (Brym and Nekhaie, 1999; Nakhaie and Brym, 2011). In France, apart from historical studies (Caute, 1964; Judt, 1992), no large-n study has investigated academics’ opinions and attitudes systematically, yet. On the other hand, academics’ attitudes toward economic liberalism and free trade amongst academics have been covered more extensively in the French case (Rios and Magni-Berton, 2003; Boudon, 2004). Our data confirm that French academics are strongly anti-capitalist compared to the French population, which is known to be more hostile to capitalism than European citizens (Franc¸ois, 2013). Third, academics are traditionally perceived as more atheist than the overall population. The argument fostered to explain this difference is the thesis of the conflict between science and religion, which argues that scientific practice decreases religious beliefs (Draper, 1874; Ecklund, 2010). This argument has been confirmed empirically by Ecklund and her coauthors (2010 and 2011). In a study gathering information on 1700 academics in both natural and social sciences, they show that scientists tend to be much more atheists than their fellow Americans (approximately 34 per cent against 4 per cent). In the French case, atheism is much more widespread than in the US, but there is still no evidence regarding the extent to which French academics share this characteristic. Finally, no study has investigated how academics view morality. Our survey provides the first data to tackle this issue. After a brief description of our survey, we show and comment some of our more relevant results about French academics’ opinions and attitudes toward politics, economics, religion and moral principles.
Survey Method The data that we provide in this note is a result of a 6-month work which was carried out from February to July 2011.1 During this period of time, we released an online questionnaire that we publicized largely to the French academic community. We targeted a large number of French Universities, research institutes and academics’ associations. Within this questionnaire, we asked academics about their sociodemographic features, but also about their careers. We also asked questions about their beliefs, values and opinions regarding politics, economics and religion. Ó 2016 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3419
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To ease the comparison between academics and the French population and other subpopulations, a high number of questions have been picked from international and national surveys, i.e., the European Value Survey in 2008 (N = 3071)2 and the 2013 ‘‘Dynegal’’ study (N = 4000).3 Overall, we gathered information on more than 2000 academics coming from every academic discipline in both natural and social sciences. Hence, the quality of the sample is good, notably because it is normally distributed across all the different scientific disciplines. This allows us to compare French academics’ attitudes and opinions with the rest of the French population, and also across disciplines.
French Academics and Politics Our survey first offers information on academics’ attitudes and opinions toward politics. Our data show that academics clearly display different opinions than the overall French population. First, we included questions on self-positioning along the left–right scale to have insights as to where academics position themselves on this traditional political dimension, in comparison with other populations. Figure 1 compares academics’ self-positioning on the left–right scale with French citizens’ self-positioning on this scale. Our data show that French academics are clustered on the left wing of the political spectrum (mean = 3.8), while French citizens are located at the centre of the scale in both surveys. Indeed, data from the Dynegal survey display a mean of 5 points, while individual data from EVS display a mean of 4.9 points. Furthermore, the mode and the median in the academic population show that they position themselves more on the left side of the scale than the overall population (3 vs. 5, respectively). Besides, even within the disciplines where academics position themselves more on the right, leftist attitudes are still more widespread than in traditional leftist categories in the overall population such as workers (mean of 4.7), unemployed (mean of 4.9) or civil servants (mean of 4.6).4 Indeed, means range from 2.8 points in language sciences and sociology, to 4.4 points in chemistry, law and literature (for details, see Table A1 in Appendix A). Data also show that academics belonging to social sciences are most likely to be on the left wing of the spectrum. Among them, political scientists are rather moderate with an average of 3.5, but are clearly more on the left when compared with the overall population of academics. In addition, our survey informs us as to how academics perceive revolution and conservatism. Indeed, we asked respondents to position themselves on political change based on a similar question used in the 2008 EVS. The question used is as follows: ‘‘On this card, there are three basic kinds of attitudes vis-a`-vis the society in which we live in. Please choose the one which best describes your own opinion’’. The first response category is: ‘‘The entire way our society is organized must be Ó 2016 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3419
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37.8
30
32.1
% of sample 20
academics mean: 3,8 France mean: 5 21.1 15.6 12.3 11.6
10
13.0
8.6 7.5 5.2
4.5
5.9 2.3
3.3 2.4 0.8 0.6
0
4.1 3.1
8.4
left
2
3
4
5
6
French academics
7
8
9
right
French population
Figure 1: Self-placement left–right. Sources: Academics opinions (2011) for academics population and Dynegal (2013) for French population.
radically changed by revolutionary action’’, the second is ‘‘Our society must be gradually improved by reforms’’, and the last is ‘‘Our present society must be valiantly defended against all subversive force’’. This question allows us to describe how French academics think about attitudes toward change and conservatism, which is also a characteristic of left–right positioning (Marks et al, 2006). Figure 2 shows that 23 per cent of French academics think that there is a need to change radically the whole organization of the society through revolutionary action, while French citizens are 16 per cent to display this opinion. This 7 percentage-points difference seems to be weak. However, such difference is rare among other subpopulations, including people who are generally more revolutionary such as youngsters, singles, workers and unemployed (MacCulloch, 2004). Indeed, 21 per cent of young people (18–24) display revolutionary attitudes; 22 per cent of respondents who have never been married or are in a registered partnership tend to be revolutionary; and finally 19 per cent of workers describe themselves as favouring political change by revolution. Only those who have experienced more than three years of unemployment display higher scores than Ó 2016 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3419
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80
Politics, economics, ethics and religion in French academia
70.4
20
75.9
15.9
0
23.0
revolution
reforms
13.7 1.1 statu quo
Here are three basic kinds of attitudes vis-à-vis the society in which we live in. Please choose the one which best describes your own opinion: 1/ The entire way our society is organized must be radically changed by revolutionary action 2/ Our society must be gradually improved by reforms 3/ Our present society must be valiantly defended against all subversive force
French academics
French population
Figure 2: Attitudes toward society evolutions. Sources: Academics opinions (2011) for academics population and EVS (2008) for French population.
academics on this matter (24 per cent). However, the mean difference across disciplines is important. Economists (16 per cent), physicists (17 per cent) and political scientists (18 per cent) are much less revolutionary than academics belonging to language sciences (48 per cent), geography (33 per cent) and literature (31 per cent). Therefore, the variance of preferences for revolution is higher among academics than between academics and the general population, so the mean of revolutionary attitudes might not be the best indicator to show a strong difference between academics and their fellow citizens. Nevertheless, figures also show that academics are particularly hostile to conservatism. While 14 per cent of the French believe that society should be defended against any changes, only 1 per cent of academics share this belief. Historians tend to be the most conservative on average with a mean of 6 per cent, but the difference with the overall population is still important (8 points difference). In contrast, anthropologists, geographers, earth scientists, IT specialists, sociologists, mathematicians and political scientists do not display any conservative attitudes in the sample. Furthermore, no other social group displays such weak conservative attitudes, even those who should display anti-conservative attitudes. For instance, 8 per cent of Unionists, 15 per cent of far leftist, 12 per cent of convinced atheists and Ó 2016 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3419
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76.7
0
20
44.1
8.4
14.4
unlucky
24.4
17.1 2.6 laziness
12.3 injustice
modern process
According to your opinion, why do people live in need ? 1/ Unlucky 2/ Laziness or lack of willpower 3/ Injustice in society 4/ Part of modern process
French academics
French population
Figure 3: Sources of inequality. Sources: Academics opinions (2011) for academics population and EVS (2008) for French population.
9 per cent of those who have participated in unofficial strikes display conservative opinions. Hence, the lack of conservative attitudes seems to be a specific feature of French academics. The last political dimension chosen deals with perceptions of poverty and its causes.5 As Figure 3 shows, laziness is much less chosen by academics (3 per cent) than by French respondents (17 per cent) to explain individual situations of poverty. Note that anthropologists, geographers, historians, linguists, sociologists, mathematicians and also political scientists never choose laziness as an explanation for poverty. Bad luck and modernity are also significantly less chosen. In fact, almost all academics explain poverty by injustices in our society (77 per cent against 44 per cent of the general population). Surprisingly, far-leftists (61 per cent), trotskyists (64 per cent), radical egalitarians (54 per cent) and people who are in the last decile of the income scale (47 per cent) tend to be less prone than academics to foster this explanation. Focusing on the different disciplines, the explanation based on injustice is almost unanimous among historians (94 per cent), while members of the literature discipline are more skeptical (63 per cent). In spite of these differences, academics, on the overall, clearly prefer this diagnosis of poverty in comparison with any other social groups.
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To sum up, French academics tend to be systematically more leftist than the overall population. Not only do they position themselves more on the left than their fellow citizens, but their opinions toward specific political issues also reflect this positioning. Indeed, academics do not display conservative attitudes, even when they position themselves on the right of the political spectrum. In addition, almost all of them consider poverty to be a result of social injustices in the society. Finally, political radicalism is more widespread among academics in comparison with the overall population, even though significant differences appear across disciplines.
French Academics and Free-Market Economy
% of sample 20 30
40
In our survey, several questions also aim at capturing academics’ opinions toward free-market economy. The first one deals with opinions about private property and is also present in the 2008 EVS survey. It is framed in a 1–10 scale, and the exact wording is as follows: ‘‘In your opinion, we should develop (1) industries’ and companies’ private property (10) industries’ and companies’ nationalizations’’. Hence, this item aims at describing attitudes toward private property and state
31
10
34
17 12
8
7
6
0
9
8
15 7
6
10 3 4
2
2 1
11
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
4
6
10
How would you place your views on this scale? 1 Private ownership of business and industry should be increased 10 Government ownership of business and industry should be increased
French academics
French population
Figure 4: Ownership of firms. Sources: Academics opinions (2011) for academics population and EVS (2008) for French population. Ó 2016 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3419
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property. Once again, Figure 4 shows that academics differ from the overall French population in their perception of private and state property. The percentage of respondents who locate themselves on the central position ‘‘5’’ is similar among the two populations. However, only 18 per cent of academics locate themselves beneath this point, while 37 per cent of the overall population does the same. Once again, we observe a huge difference between academics and their fellow citizens (20 points difference). In addition, more than half of academics endorse a more statist approach, while 29 per cent of the overall population endorses this opinion. These results show that French academics are systematically more prone to oppose private ownership in comparison with the overall population. Interestingly, economists and political scientists tend to favour private ownership, just slightly beyond the French population, while linguists are massively in favour of nationalizations. In order to have a wider perspective on how academics perceive the functioning of the economy, we use a more specific item. This item’s objective is to capture academics’ preferences toward the allocation of (rare) resources. This question is based on previous survey data and is traditionally known as the ‘‘snow shovels’’ or ‘‘water bottles’’ problem. More precisely, this item describes a situation of shortage which has to be resolved by choosing a mechanism of allocation of resources (market mechanism vs. statist mechanism). This survey has been originally developed by Kahneman et al (1986), Frey and Pommerehne (1993), Haucap and Just (2010) and Cipriani et al (2009), but we decided to take the question used by Goossens and Me´on (2010) which focuses on de-icing. Following Goossens and Me´on, we thus replaced snow shovels by de-icing salt. The framing of the question is as follows: ‘‘in a community, the local store sells de-icing salt for one euro per bag. It has a stock of 100 bags. On a morning following an unexpected cold-wave that resulted in black ice, the demand for salt is 200 bags. Please tick the way to allocate bags of salt that is the best according to you. (i) A price increase to two euro per bag; (ii) Selling bags at one euro per bag according to the principle of ‘‘first-come, first served’’; (iii) Selling bags at one euro per bag following a random procedure; (iv) The local authorities buy bags for one euro and distribute them according to their own criteria’’. The answers hence propose four ways to allocate a rare resource: a market mechanism, a mechanism by soft hazard, a mechanism by hard hazard and, finally, a bureaucratic mechanism implemented by local government. Our data show that the larger part of the respondents chooses the last mechanism of allocation (Figure 5), while a tiny proportion, around 3 per cent, favours the market mechanism based on a price increase. French academics thus reject the market mechanism and prefer governmental intervention to handle shortages. This observation confirms the first results on attitudes toward private property. Note that several observations can be made if we distinguish between research areas (see Table A1 in Appendix A). While economists are systematically the most Ó 2016 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3419
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In a community, the local store sells de-icing salt for one euro per bag. It has a stock of 100 bags. On a morning following an unexpected cold-wave that resulted in black ice, the demand for salt is 200 bags. Please tick the way to allocate bags of salt that is the best according to you.
3.4% 15.0%
7.1%
74.5%
A price increase to two euro per bag Selling bags at one euro per bag according to the principle of “first-come, firstserved” Selling bags at one euro per bag following a random procedure The local authorities buy bags for one euro and distribute them according to their own criteria.
Figure 5: Preferred way for allocating a rare resource. Source: Academics opinion (2011)..
favourable group toward private ownership, they are not among the first to favour the market mechanism. Surprisingly, 19 per cent of the political scientists prefer the market mechanism as a process of allocation, while only 14 per cent of the economists do so. That does not mean that political scientists prefer the governmental administrative solution, however. Indeed, only 54 per cent chose this option, which corresponds to the lower proportion across domains.
Religion and Morality for French Academics Finally, Ecklund (2010) demonstrates that the US scientists tend to reject religion, at least in its traditional form. Indeed, a large amount of academics tend to have beliefs and religious feelings, but are not affiliated in a particular religion. Our data confirm these findings: French academics are considerably less religious than the French population. In addition, they display less religious attitudes than the US academics (Figure 6). To apprehend this phenomenon, we use the following question: ‘‘Independently of whether you go to church or not, would you say you Ó 2016 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3419
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50.0
37.0 31.0
19.0
18.0
0
20
% of sample 40
44.0
religious
agnostic
atheist
Independently of whether you go to church or not, would you say you are 1/ religious person 2/ not religious person 3/ convinced atheist
French academics
French population
Figure 6: Religious feeling. Sources: Academics opinions (2011) for academics population and EVS (2008) for French population.
are (1) A religious person, (2) Not a religious person or (3) A convinced atheist’’. Results unambiguously show the prevalence of the third choice: 50 per cent of French academics describe themselves as convinced atheists and more than 80 per cent declare themselves as not religious. This further corroborates observations made by the Rasic survey,6 led by Elaine Ecklund, which compares academics’ opinions toward religion in four nations: 51 per cent of French academics display atheist opinions. This is more than their colleagues in the US (34 per cent), in the UK (40 per cent) or in Italy (20 per cent), and much more than their fellow citizens (19 per cent). Again, the difference between French academics and the French population is considerable. If we compare with the most atheist subgroups such as youngsters and far-leftists (Bre´chon, 2006), academics still are systematically more atheists. Indeed, only 29 per cent of respondents who are less than 30 years old and whose parents were born in France are atheists, while only 32 per cent of far-leftists describe themselves as atheists. Figures in these subpopulations are even lower than the percentage of atheists in the least atheist French disciplines, i.e. Law (33 per cent) and political science (39 per cent). This suggests that being an academic, and especially a French academic, is a powerful explanatory variable to predict atheism. Ó 2016 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3419
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This widespread atheism should have consequences on academics’ moral principles. Indeed, lack of religiosity and atheism generally leads people to prefer less deontological options, i.e., based on clear guidelines about what is good and evil, and is predictive of behaviours which are more relative to circumstances than the other parts of the population (Magni-Berton, 2013). Paradoxically, in spite of their declared atheism, French academics are more prone to adopt a deontological morality than French citizens. Figure 7 shows that 69 per cent of French academics think that ‘‘there are absolutely clear guidelines about what is good and evil’’, while the mean drops to 56 per cent in the population. More surprisingly, 16 per cent of French academics believe that these guidelines ‘‘always apply to everyone, whatever the circumstances’’, while only 8 per cent of atheists within the overall population agree with this statement (Figure 8). More surprisingly, this distribution depicted by Figure 8 is even lower within people who declare themselves to be religious (14 per cent). This paradox remains among different scientific disciplines. For instance, lawyers and political scientists, which are the least atheists, are also the least prone to adopt deontological attitudes. By contrast, linguists, who are the most atheists with anthropologists and biologists, are the most deontologists.
52.9 44.3
% of sample 20 40
44.2 30.9
16.2
0
11.5
strict guidelines
adaptative guidelines
contextual guidelines
Here are two statements which people sometimes make when discussing good and evil. Which one comes closest to your own point of view? 1/ There are absolutely clear guidelines about what is good and evil. These always apply to everyone, whatever the circumstances 2/ There are absolutely clear guidelines about what is good and evil. However, deviating from these guidelines is sometimes justified by special circumstances 3/ There can never be absolutely clear guidelines about what is good and evil. What is good and evil depends entirely upon the circumstances at the time.
French academics
French population
Figure 7: Moral principles. Sources: Academics opinions (2011) for academics population and EVS (2008) for French population. Ó 2016 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3419
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French academics
40
58 42 43
42
53
52
51
48
20
% of subsample
60
French population
41 33
31 21
22
14
17
14
8
0
10 religious
agnostic
strict guidelines
atheist
religious
agnostic
adaptative guidelines
atheist
contextual guidelines
Figure 8: Religion and moral principles. Sources: Academics opinions (2011) for academics population and EVS (2008) for French population. For the questions, see Figures 6 and 7.
Conclusion: Why So Many Differences? This research note shows the main results of the first large-n survey on French academics’ opinions and attitudes towards politics, economics, ethics and religion. In line with the international literature, the data show that academics are different from the overall population in their opinions. According to our descriptive statistics, academics display high level of anti-establishment beliefs – they are generally more prone to favour revolutionary solutions and tend to perceive more injustices – while they are more keen to promote statist regulation and systematically reject religion. Differences observed between academics and the general population are striking, but this research does not provide evidence that these beliefs are specific to this population. Of course, results are clear enough to suggest that academics may be viewed as a specific class of people, influenced by either similar social conditions or, simply, their practice of the intellectual activity (Kurzman and Owens, 2002). However, they also could be conceived as class-bound: after controlling for Ó 2016 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3419
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relevant features, they might resemble the overall population. This research note is only a first step to unravel this process and thus calls for further research.
Acknowledgments The authors would thank Nicolas Eber, Pierre-Guillaume Me´on, Nicolas Sauger and Pierre Bre´chon for their help on the survey design. All errors remain ours.
Notes 1 http://academicsopinions.wordpress.com/. 2 The European Values Study is an international survey that takes place every 9 years. For more details, see http://www.europeanvaluesstudy.eu/evs/surveys/survey-2008.html. 3 http://www.dynegal.org/. 4 Many empirical studies identify these categories as particularly prone to vote for left parties. See, for example, Sperber (2010). 5 Once again, the question is similar to the 2008 EVS. 6 The Rasic survey is a comparative survey on academics’ opinions which was carried out in 4 countries (USA, UK, France and Italy). It was realized in 2015 and information was gathered on 797 respondents.
References Boudon, R. (2004) Pourquoi les intellectuels n’aiment pas le libe´ralisme. Paris: Odile Jacob. Bre´chon, P. (2006) Valeurs de gauche, valeurs de droite et identite´s religieuses en Europe. Revue franc¸aise de sociologie 47(4): 725–753. Brym, R. and Nekhaie, R. (1999) The political attitudes of Canadian professors. Canadian Journal of Sociology 24(3): 329–353. Caute, D. (1964) Communism and the French Intellectuals. New York: Macmillan. Draper, J.-W. (1874) History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science. New York: D. Appleton. Cipriani, G. P., D. Lubian, and A. Zago. (2009) Natural born economists? Journal of Economic Psychology 30: 455–68. Ecklund, E.-H. (2010) Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think. New York: Oxford University Press. Ecklund, E.-H., Park, J.-Z., Sorrell, K.-L. (2011) Scientists negotiate boundaries between religion and science. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 50(3): 552–569. Fosse, E. and Gross, N. (2012) Why are professors liberal? Theory & Society. 41(2): 127–168. Franc¸ois, A. (2013) Les Europe´ens et l’e´conomie de marche´. Futuribles 395: 93–104. Franc¸ois, A. and Magni-Berton, R. (2015) Que pensent les penseurs ? Les opinions des universitaires et scientifiques franc¸ais. Grenoble: PUG. Frey, B. S., and Pommerehne, W.W. (1993) On the fairness of pricing: An empirical survey among the general population. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 20: 295–307.
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Goossens, A., and Me´on, P.-G. (2010) This is an economist’s argument! The impact of studying economics and other disciplines on the belief that market transactions make everyone better off. Working paper 10-012. Brussels, Belgium: Universite´ libre de Bruxelles, Centre Emile Bernheim. Gross, N. (2013) Why Are Professors Liberal and Why Do Conservatives Care? Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Halsey A.-H. and Trow M. (1971). The British Academics. London: Faber & Faber. Judt ,T. (1992). Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals 1944–1956. California: University of California Press. Haucap, J., and Just, T. (2010) Not guilty? Another look at the nature and nurture of economics students. European Journal of Law and Economics 29(2): 239–54. Kahneman, D., Knetsch, J. L. and Thaler, R. (1986). Fairness as a constraint on profit seeking: Entitlements in the market. American Economic Review 76(4): 728–41. Kurzman C. and Owens, L. (2002). The sociology of intellectuals. Annual Review of Sociology 28: 63–90. Ladd, E. and Lipset, S. (1976) The Divided Academy: Professors and Politics. Toronto: McGraw-Hill. Lazarsfeld, P. and Thielens, W. (1958) The Academic Mind. New York: Free Press. MacCulloch, R. (2004) The impact of income on the taste for revolt. American Journal of Political Science 48: 830–849. Magni-Berton, R. (2013) La morale fonde´e sur des principes. In P. Bre´chon, F. Gonthier, (eds.), Atlas d’Europe´ens. Valeurs communes et diffe´rences nationales. Paris: Armand Colin. Marks, G., Hooghe, L., Nelson, M. and Edwards, E. (2006) Party competition and European integration in the East and West. Different structure, same causality. Comparative Political Studies 39: 155–175 Nakhaie M.-R. and Brym R.-J. (2011) The ideological orientations of Canadian University Professors. Canadian Journal of Higher Education 41(1):18–33. Rios, D. and Magni-Berton, R. (2003) La Mise`re des Intellectuels, Paris: L’Harmattan. Sperber, N. (2010) Three million Trotskyists? Explaining extreme left voting in France in the 2002 presidential election. European Journal of Political Research 49(3): 359–392.
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Anthropology Astronomy Biochemistry Biology Chemistry Earth science Economy and management Geography History Informatics Law Literature Mathematics Mechanics Other social science Physics Political science Linguistic Sociology Overall
28.6 23.3 26.1 23.7 19.2 26.2 16.3
33.3 23.5 20.7 20.0 30.8 25.3 21.7 27.0
16.6 17.9
47.6 29.7 23.0
3.27 3.47 3.66 4.35 4.43 3.47 4.02 4.00
3.75 3.50
2.77 2.88 3.82
Revolution
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47.6 70.3 75.9
82.8 82.1
66.7 70.6 79.3 76.0 69.2 74.7 77.1 73.0
71.4 75.8 73.0 74.0 79.5 73.8 81.6
Reforms
4.8 0.0 1.1
0.6 0.0
0.0 5.9 0.0 4.0 0.0 0.0 1.1 0.0
0.0 0.8 0.9 2.3 1.3 0.0 2.0
Statu quo
Revolutionary attitude per cent of respondents
3.18 3.73 3.82 3.78 4.35 3.91 3.83
Average
Political placement
0.0 2.7 8.4
9.8 7.1
0.0 2.0 10.7 22.0 11.1 7.5 9.8 8.3
0.0 5.9 9.4 5.7 11.8 6.0 10.9
Unlucky
0.0 0.0 2.6
2.5 0.0
0.0 0.0 2.7 2.0 0.0 0.0 5.8 0.0
0.0 5.9 0.9 2.8 5.3 0.6 4.3
Laziness
78.3 91.9 76.7
76.7 85.7
80.0 94.0 75.0 64.0 63.0 81.3 70.5 77.8
90.5 79.8 76.9 80.1 65.1 80.8 73.9
Injustice
21.7 5.4 12.3
11.0 7.1
20.0 4.0 11.6 12.0 25.9 11.3 13.9 13.9
9.5 8.4 12.8 11.4 17.8 12.6 10.9
Modern process
Explanations of inequality per cent of respondents
Table A1: Detailed description of the outcomes by scientific domains
Appendix A
7.12 6.18 5.87
6.21 5.28
5.85 6.28 6.13 5.36 6.00 6.06 5.42 5.51
6.48 6.02 5.82 6.05 5.36 6.01 4.94
Average
Firms ownership
0.0 8.6 3.4
2.6 19.2
0.0 0.0 2.8 11.4 0.0 3.9 4.9 0.0
0.0 1.7 2.7 1.7 3.3 0.6 14.3
Price increase
18.2 8.6 15.0
14.1 7.7
0.0 6.1 13.9 6.8 8.7 23.4 13.6 22.9
4.8 18.8 17.0 18.0 17.8 15.4 8.2
Weak hazard
4.5 11.4 7.1
8.3 19.2
14.3 4.1 9.3 0.0 13.0 10.4 6.2 2.9
9.5 8.5 8.0 6.4 2.0 6.5 10.2
Strong hazard
Way for allocating rare resource per cent of respondents
77.3 71.4 74.5
75.0 53.8
85.7 89.8 74.1 81.8 78.3 62.3 75.3 74.3
85.7 70.9 72.3 73.8 77.0 77.5 67.3
Gvt rule
Politics, economics, ethics and religion in French academia
Anthropology Astronomy Biochemistry Biology Chemistry Earth science Economy and management Geography History Informatics Law Literature Mathematics Mechanics Other social science Physics Political science Linguistic
Table A1: (Continued)
18.8 17.1 15.2 14.0 25.4 19.5 16.3 18.2 26.1 12.0 30.8 14.3 9.1 22.4 43.3 15.0 22.2 19.0
Religious 12.5 30.6 28.6 23.6 30.3 33.8 39.5 36.4 30.4 34.0 35.9 42.9 42.4 33.6 13.3 33.3 38.9 19.0
Agnostic 68.8 52.3 56.2 62.4 44.4 46.8 44.2 45.5 43.5 54.0 33.3 42.9 48.5 44.1 43.3 51.6 38.9 61.9
Atheist
Religion per cent of respondents
15.8 15.3 17.5 12.6 19.6 15.0 12.8 28.6 26.5 11.8 22.2 8.7 11.7 12.9 11.1 21.8 10.7 40.9
Strict guidelines 63.2 60.2 49.1 56.3 51.0 52.1 61.7 42.9 57.1 54.5 46.7 52.2 44.2 53.2 61.1 48.7 53.6 40.9
Adaptative guidelines 21.1 24.6 33.3 31.0 29.4 32.9 25.5 28.6 16.3 33.6 31.1 39.1 44.2 33.9 27.8 29.5 35.7 18.2
Contextual guidelines
Moral principles per cent of respondents
Franc¸ois et al
Ó 2016 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3419
French Politics
15.4 18.6
30.8 31.3
53.8 50.1
15.2 16.2
54.5 52.9
30.3 30.9
Ó 2016 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3419
And the moral principles are captured using this question: ‘‘Here are three statements which people sometimes make when discussing good and evil. Which one comes closest to your own point of view? (i) There are absolutely clear guidelines about what is good and evil. These always apply to everyone, whatever the circumstances; (ii) There are absolutely clear guidelines about what is good and evil. However, deviating from these guidelines is sometimes justified by special circumstances; (iii) There can never be absolute clear guidelines about what is good and evil. What is good and evil depends entirely upon the circumstances at the time’’.
Information about religion is the repartition of the respondents in regard to the question: ‘‘Independently of whether you go to church or not, would you say you are (i) religious person; (ii) not religious person; (iii) convinced atheist’’.
The choice of a mechanism of allocation of a rare resource is given by the solution to this question: ‘‘In a community, the local store sells de-icing salt for one euro per bag. It has a stock of 100 bags. On a morning following an unexpected cold-wave that resulted in black ice, the demand for salt is 200 bags. Please tick the way to allocate bags of salt that is the best according to you. (i) A price increase to two euro per bag; (ii) Selling bags at one euro per bag according to the principle of ‘‘first-come, first served’’; (iii) Selling bags at one euro per bag following a random procedure; (iv) The local authorities buy bags for one euro and distribute them according to their own criteria’’.
The ownership of the firms is measured by the average response to the self-placement on the scale: ‘‘How would you place your view on this scale? (1) private ownership of business and industry should be increased (10) government ownership of the business and industry should be increased’’.
The perception of inequality causes is obtained through the question: ‘‘According to your opinion, why do people live in need in our country? (i) because they are unlucky; (ii) because they are lazy; (iii) because there is lot of unfairness in our society; (iv) because this is unavoidable given the evolutions of the modern world’’.
The revolutionary attitude is measured by the repartition of the respondents in accordance to the following question: ‘‘Here are three basics kinds of attitudes vis-a`-vis the society in which we live in. Please choose the one which best describes your own opinion: (i) the entire way our society is organized must be radically changed by revolutionary action; (ii) our society must be gradually improved by reforms; (iii) our present society must be valiantly defended against all subversive force’’.
The political self-placement is measured by the average of the answers to the standard 10-item scale from 1 far-left to 10 far-right
Sociology Overall
Politics, economics, ethics and religion in French academia
French Politics
