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Abstract In the public debate in the Netherlands the left-libertarian cultural revolution is increasingly denounced as the cradle of 'gedogen', i.e., refraining from legal action against rule violations, especially with respect to soft drugs. This assumes that primarily conservatives and constituencies of right-wing parties oppose the toleration of illegal activities. On the basis of a representative survey among the Dutch population (N=1.892) we have established that this assumption is untenable. Even though constituencies of right-wing political parties and conservatives are most likely to oppose toleration of rule violations in general, this does not imply that they also oppose most fiercely the toleration of specific rule violations. They do oppose rule violations by marginal individuals most often – i.e., unemployed workers defying their obligation to apply for a job and aliens remaining illegally in the Netherlands –, but they oppose the toleration of rule violations by official agencies least often – i.e., the toleration of noise pollution by airport Schiphol and the eavesdropping of police suspects without the formal approval of the examining judge. Hence, the connection between the Dutch 'gedoog' policy and the tolerant culture of the Sixties is wrong; there is no such thing as a general disapproval of tolerating refraining from legal action.

For over a century scholars and practitioners have conceived of rehabilitation as the progressive mirror image of repression. Elaborating on previous warnings and anomalous findings, a representative survey of the Dutch population (N=1,892) points out that this received view is flawed. When measured separately, no significant correlation exists between support for rehabilitation and support for repression, rehabilitation is equally popular among the constituencies of conservative and progressive political parties, and no negative relationship exists between rehabilitation and authoritarianism. Abolition rather than rehabilitation proves to constitute the progressive opposite of repression. By way of conclusion, we discuss the remarkable persistence of the myth cracked in this paper, even in the face of convincing earlier contradictory evidence.

Paper prepared for the workshop Collapsing Cultural Canons: Elite Culture, Popular Culture, and Politics in Late Modernity Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Marseille, France, October 28-29, 2004

Paper prepared for the workshop Collapsing Cultural Canons: Elite Culture, Popular Culture, and Politics in Late Modernity Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Marseille, France, October 28-29, 2004

The traditional class approach to politics maintains that the working class 'naturally' votes for left-wing parties because those represent their economic interests. This traditional working class voting pattern has however become less typical, giving rise to today's 'Death of Class Debate' in political sociology. Against this background, we study why so many people, working and middle class alike, today vote for parties that do not represent their 'real class interests'. Critically elaborating on Lipset's work on working-class authoritarianism and Inglehart's on post -materialism, we first confirm that 'natural' voting perfectly complies with the logic of class analysis. 'Unnatural' voting, however, is not driven by economic voting motivations and class, but by cultural voting motivations and cultural capital. Right wing working class voting is thus caused by its cultural conservatism that stems from its limited cultural capital. Voting for the two small leftist parties in Dutch politics underscores the significance of this cultural explanation: those with limited cultural capital and culturally conservative values vote for the Socialist Party ('old left') rather than the Greens ('new left'). The spectre of the rightist working class that haunts today's political sociology can thus be dispelled by breaking the traditional monopoly of the one-sided class approach and give a complementary cultural approach its proper place in the explanation of voting.

Analysis of a dozen semi-structured interviews with Dutch New Age trainers demonstrates that the modern 'ethics of authenticity' underlies contemporary society's anti-institutional mood. All institutions, be they traditional or modern, or so our respondants argue, prevent one from being true to oneself. Institutional pressure for conformity to social roles, they maintain, causes feelings of alienation, mental and physical illness, malicious types of sexuality, violence and many other problems. Although the ethics of authenticity thus produces a demonization of institutions, it simultaneously, and in quite a paradoxical way, exerts considerable institutional pressure itself. Politicians, media stars and others are today morally expected to be authentic: to be true to themselves and express their emotions in public.

By means of a re-analysis of the most relevant data source (Nieuwbeerta & Ganzeboom 1996), this paper criticizes the newly grown consensus in political sociology that class voting has declined since World War II. An increase of crosscutting cultural voting, rooted in educational differences, rather than a decline of class voting proves responsible for the decline of the traditional class-party alignments. Moreover, income differences have not become less, but more consequential for voting behavior during this period. It is concluded that the new consensus has been built on quicksand. Class is not dead – it has been buried alive under the increasing weight of cultural voting, systematically misinterpreted as a decline of class voting, due to the widespread application of the Alford index.

By means of a re-analysis of the most relevant data source - the international social mobility and politics file - this paper criticizes the newly grown consensus in political sociology that class voting has declined since World War II. An increase of crosscutting cultural voting, rooted in educational differences

By means of a reanalysis of the most relevant data source—the International Social Mobility and Politics File—this article criticizes the newly grown consensus in political sociology that class voting has declined since World War II. An increase in crosscutting cultural voting, rooted in educational differences rather than a decline in class voting, proves responsible for the decline of traditional class-party alignments. Moreover, income differences have not become less but more consequential for voting behavior during this period. It is concluded that the new consensus has been built on quicksand. Class is not dead—it has been buried alive under the increasing weight of cultural voting, systematically misinterpreted as a decline in class voting because of the widespread application of the so-called Alford index.

By means of a re-analysis of the most relevant data source – the International Social Mobility and Politics File – this paper criticizes the newly grown consensus in political sociology that class voting has declined since World War II. An increase in cross

While it is widely acknowledged that politics and politicians have fallen from grace among large parts of the public in western democracies, it is less clear what the latter's political discontents are about. To find out, we performed an interpretative content analysis of the letters to the editor of the largest popular Dutch newspaper in the 2000s (2000–2009). It yielded three empirically grounded discourses of political discontents about 'the state'—shorthand for the government, its agencies, officials, judges, politicians and political parties—'the incompetent state', 'the alienated state' and 'the corrupted state'. The relevance of these findings is subsequently discussed in the light of research on political distrust

Imprisonment rates are presumed to have risen in the west, and it is argued by certain social scientists that this can be explained by a comprehensive process of economic neoliberalisation. In this paper, we develop an alternative explanation, focussing on the rise of a 'new political culture'. Longitudinal cross-national analyses are performed to test the tenability of these theories. First, it is demonstrated that some countries have been witnessing a trend of penalisation, but that there is no overall trend. Second, economic explanations for variations in imprisonment rates prove to be untenable. Third, it is shown that a new-rightist demand for social order, which is not found to be inspired by economic neo-liberalisation, provides a better explanation. This leads to the conclusion that high incarceration rates can be understood as being part of a right-authoritarian politico-cultural complex.