Tim Reeskens

Values are important building blocks of ideologies and regularly referenced in political debates all over the world. They are also abstract, requiring some process of translation to connect them with behaviours or preferences over policies. However, it is still unclear how this translation takes form or how it differs across contexts, like different countries and cultures. With this paper, we introduce a large-scale and high-quality dataset of news and political manifestos in multiple languages, that was annotated and curated by values scholars according to the Schwartz (1992), Schwartz et al. (2012) theory of human values. Moreover, each expression of values annotated in the texts included a second layer of identification expressing the degree of fulfilment of the value in the text, specifically whether the value was (partially) attained or (partially) constrained. The final dataset comprises 2,648 annotated texts in nine languages, totalling 74,231 sentences. The dataset can be used to investigate the expression of values in the news articles and political manifestos that were annotated and as training materials for the development of automated values detection methods, using natural language processing algorithms.

An important question in understanding the war in Ukraine is whether Russian President Putin's claim that Russians and Ukrainians are ‘one people’ or whether the statement made by European Union Commission President von der Leyen, echoing Ukrainian government's position, that Ukraine is ‘one of us’ receives more support. In our contribution, we assess the societal values endorsed in Ukraine, and test whether they resemble those of Russia or Western Europe. After reviewing arguments brought by the ‘Clash of Civilizations’, Modernization, Social Identity, and Nation Building theories, we analyze the most recent data from the European Values Study and World Values Survey (2017-2021). Constructing an EU-values index, including gender equality, individual freedom, and liberal democracy, among others, we show that while values in Ukraine are closer to Russia than virtually any European Union country, there are clear differences that are especially salient among younger age cohorts. Further, we refute Huntington's claim that Ukraine is a ‘cleft’ country by showing that regional variation within Ukraine is rather minimal. We conclude with an interpretation of these findings in light of political debates and prominent theoretical approaches to studying values.

Including a large number of predictors in the imputation model underlying a multiple imputation (MI) procedure is one of the most challenging tasks imputers face. A variety of high-dimensional MI techniques can help, but there has been limited research on their relative performance. In this study, we investigated a wide range of extant high-dimensional MI techniques that can handle a large number of predictors in the imputation models and general missing data patterns. We assessed the relative performance of seven high-dimensional MI methods with a Monte Carlo simulation study and a resampling study based on real survey data. The performance of the methods was defined by the degree to which they facilitate unbiased and confidence-valid estimates of the parameters of complete data analysis models. We found that using lasso penalty or forward selection to select the predictors used in the MI model and using principal component analysis to reduce the dimensionality of auxiliary data produce the best results.

We use representative longitudinal panel data from the Dutch European Values Survey (EVS) to study whether the COVID‐19 pandemic shifted opinions about how a woman's full‐time employment impacts family life. The data was collected before the COVID‐19 pandemic in 2017 and in May 2020. The analysis focuses on groups whose unpaid and paid work situation changed abruptly with the COVID‐19 pandemic: parents with coresident children, and those who experienced a change in paid workload that clashes with traditional gender role expectations, namely women whose workload increased and men whose workload decreased or who stopped working. We found that groups that faced an abrupt change in their paid and unpaid work routines that clashed with their previously held gender attitude changed their gender attitude in alignment with the new paid or unpaid work situation. For women in couple households with children, this meant that they saw a halt in their progression toward gender egalitarian attitudes. For those who experienced a change in paid workload that clashes with traditional gender role norms, it meant stronger progression toward gender egalitarian attitudes. The results are interpreted on the basis of cognitive dissonance theory and exposure theory and placed in the context of previous findings.

The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has granted national governments far-reaching political powers to implement drastic non-pharmaceutical interventions to curtail the spread of the virus. For these measures to be effective, governments should be granted widespread political legitimacy. This is established when populations’ expectations from governments are in line with public support for these governments. In this chapter, we investigate changes in political legitimacy during the coronavirus crisis in the Netherlands. Amidst of the pandemic, we collected unique, representative data among LISS-panel respondents that supplemented the European Values Study 2017. We demonstrate that the Dutch public (temporarily) lowered their democratic aspirations thereby longing for strong leadership while simultaneously increasing their trust in the incumbent Government, which, combined, resulted in more political legitimacy. Because of an outspoken period effect, expectations are, however, that this legitimacy will not be long-lived in the new common.

Background: Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, governments, health experts, and ethicists have proposed guidelines about ICU triage and priority access to a vaccine. To increase political legitimacy and accountability, public support is important. This study examines what criteria beyond medical need are deemed important to be perceived of priority COVID-19 healthcare access. Method: Two conjoint experiments about priority over ICU treatment and early COVID-19 vaccination were implemented in a probability-based sample of 1461 respondents representative of the Netherlands. Respondents were asked who should receive treatment out of two fictitious healthcare claimants that differed in in age, weight, complying with corona policy measures, and occupation, all randomly assigned. Average marginal coefficient effects are estimated to assess the relative importance of the attributes; attributes were interacted with relevant respondent characteristics to find whether consensus exists in this relative ranking. Results: The Dutch penalize those not complying with coronavirus policy measures, and the obese, but prioritize those employed in ‘crucial’ sectors. For these conditions, there is consensus among the population. For age, young people are prioritized for ICU treatment, while the middle-aged are given priority over a vaccine, with younger respondents favoring healthcare for elderly claimants, while older respondents favor support for young cohorts. Conclusion: People who have no control over their social risk and are able to reciprocate to society are considered as more deserving of priority of COVID-19 healthcare. Our findings provide fair support for the implemented ethical guidelines about ICU-treatment and COVID-19 vaccines.

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, governments, supported by health experts and ethicists, released guidelines about which groups should receive priority access to both (intensive) care and vaccines as resources are limited. To achieve political legitimacy, support from the general public is important, as deservingness theory informs us that not all groups are equally perceived as deserving of assistance. Relying on a probability-based sample representative of the Dutch population (N = 1,601), participants were offered two choice-based conjoint experiments that measured what deservingness criteria matter most in respectively priority access to intensive care, and priority access to a COVID-19 vaccine. The results foremost show that noncompliance with government measures aimed at preventing the spread of the coronavirus impedes perceived deservingness. By contrast, being employed in the ‘crucial’ sector (i.e. health care and to a lesser extent education), leads to a higher perceived priority. Having an unhealthy BMI leads to less support for priority access to intensive care and vaccines. Age shows mixed patterns: public opinion would give less priority to elderly patients for intensive care. These results indicate that, control and reciprocity over need are important criteria to determine people’s deservingness of COVID-19 health care. We discuss our findings in light of ongoing ethical discussions.