About the project

While the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic obvi­ous­ly pos­es major health and eco­nom­ic chal­lenges for cur­rent soci­eties, it has also cre­at­ed social and polit­i­cal ten­sions. The oppo­si­tion to gov­ern­ment mea­sures, the denial of basic facts, and the spread of con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries have been just some of the neg­a­tive reac­tions to the pan­dem­ic. Even though the major­i­ty of the pop­u­la­tion trusts the infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by gov­ern­ments and sup­ports their actions, the cur­rent cir­cum­stances offer a spe­cial oppor­tu­ni­ty to explore whether and to what extent such a cri­sis sit­u­a­tion has an impact on the core val­ues of a civ­il soci­ety. Are basic polit­i­cal con­vic­tions influ­enced by this cri­sis? Are there short-term or long-term shifts in fun­da­men­tal val­ues or, on the con­trary, do cur­rent expe­ri­ences even strength­en exist­ing val­ue profiles?

 

This col­lab­o­ra­tive research project between sci­en­tists from Leuphana Uni­ver­si­ty Lüneb­urg (Prof Dr Chris­t­ian Welzel), Otto-von-Guer­icke-Uni­ver­si­ty Magde­burg (Prof Dr Jan Del­hey), Jacobs Uni­ver­si­ty Bre­men (Prof Dr Klaus Boehnke, Dr Franziska Deutsch & Prof Dr. Ulrich Küh­nen), Uni­ver­si­ty of Edin­burgh (Dr Jan Eich­horn) and our non-prof­it, Berlin-based think tank d|part aims to find answers to these ques­tions. Under the lead­er­ship of Prof Dr Chris­t­ian Welzel, vice pres­i­dent of the World Val­ues Sur­vey, a pan­el study has been ini­ti­at­ed in nine coun­tries so far (Brazil, Ger­many, Geor­gia, Greece, Great Britain, Japan, Swe­den, South Korea and Aus­tria). Fol­low­ing the ini­tial data col­lec­tion, a sec­ond sur­vey of the par­tic­i­pants will be con­duct­ed in a few months, when the cri­sis sit­u­a­tion may have ebbed somewhat.

 

Under the direc­tion of Dr Jan Eich­horn d|part is respon­si­ble for the dis­sem­i­na­tion of the results with sup­port by the Robert Bosch Foun­da­tion. Ini­tial results will not only be pre­sent­ed to the research com­mu­ni­ty, but also in an acces­si­ble way to the wider pub­lic through this funding.

 

In addi­tion, the Volk­swa­gen Foun­da­tion fund­ed a research project for which the inter­dis­ci­pli­nary team of researchers from Jacobs Uni­ver­si­ty Bre­men, the Otto von Guer­icke Uni­ver­si­ty Magde­burg, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Edin­burgh, and Leuphana Uni­ver­si­ty Lüneb­urg is inves­ti­gat­ing the ques­tion: What impact does the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic have on moral val­ues and social ori­en­ta­tions in a soci­ety? d|part will be the prac­tice part­ner again and respon­si­ble for the dissemination.

 

The project team engages in a prospec­tive pan­el study, start­ed by com­par­ing atti­tudes of 2,000 respon­dents each in Great Britain and Ger­many. The two coun­tries were cho­sen because they are com­pa­ra­ble in terms of eco­nom­ic para­me­ters, but dif­fer great­ly in the way they deal with the pan­dem­ic and its con­se­quences. Project lead­ers are Pro­fes­sor Jan Del­hey, Franziska Deutsch, and Jan Eichhorn. 

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