The European Values Study, in collaboration with the World Values Survey and European Social Surveys, is organising the conference “Navigating values under pressure” that will take place on November 8, 2024, at GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Cologne (Germany).
European societies find themselves confronted with a loss of certainty about their future. Widespread hopes for perpetual economic wealth, ever-extending individual liberties and physical well-being, indestructible political stability, and being safe from military threats have been shattered by the cumulated experience of economic crises, a pandemic, increasingly catastrophic impacts of climate change, and military aggression in the rather immediate neighbourhood.
The severity of the recent, ongoing, and likely future changes in political, economic, and environmental conditions now raises the question of how stable established values are and how much they pose constraints on the attitudes that more directly guide individual short-term preferences and actions. Cross-national repeated studies, i.e. the EVS, WVS, and ESS, as well as other surveys, provide well-suited data sources for answering such questions.
The European Values Study, in cooperation with the World Values Survey Association and the European Social Survey ERIC, organizes a conference to reflect on these issues and specifically invites contributions that ask questions such as:
- Whether, in a backwards-looking perspective, we have already observed value change that occurs faster than a generational replacement would have led us to expect.;
- From a forward-looking perspective, what is the baseline for further changes to expect under the current and upcoming changes?;
- How strong is the relationship between foundational values and political or social attitudes, especially under societal crisis and stress?
Outside that focus, we also welcome other contributions using EVS, WVS, and ESS data, regardless of the specific topical area, that allows European societies to be taken stock of before the new data collection waves of the values studies.
The call for abstracts has been launched in July and welcomes proposals until mid-September 2024.
The conference will be an on-site event. No registration fee is requested, but registration is necessary (a registration form will be available after 15/09/2024).