Corporatism may be seen as variety of capitalism in which specific structural prerequisites such as unionization, centralization, and strong states combined with bargaining and concertation produce certain economic outputs. Corporatism may also be seen as a variety of democracy in which interest groups are integrated in the preparation and/or implementation of public policies. Departing in the last position, we measure the strength of Scandinavian corporatism by the involvement of interest groups in public committees, councils, and commissions. Corporatism in relation to the preparation of policy has gone down in all three Scandinavian countries whereas corporatism in implementation processes are more varied among the three countries.Résumé Le corporatisme peut être envisagé comme une forme de capitalisme, dans lequel des conditions préalables structurelles spécifiques, comme le syndicalisme, la centralisation, et des Etats forts, associés à la négociation et à la concertation produisent certains résultats économiques. Le corporatisme peut également être vu comme une forme de de´mocratie, dans laquelle des groupes d'intérêts forment un ensemble cohérent pour la préparation et la mise en oeuvre des politiques publiques. Partant de cette dernière considération, nous mesurons la force du corporatisme existant en Scandinavie, par l'engagement des groupes d'intérêt dans les comités publiques, les conseils et les commissions. Le corporatisme dans le cadre de la pré-paration des politiques a été retenu dans les trois pays scandinaves, tandis que les procédés de mise du corporatisme recouvrent une variété plus étendue dans ces trois pays.Zusammenfassung Korporatismus könnte als eine Form des Kapitalismus angesehen werden, in der bestimmte strukturelle Vorraussetzungen wie gewerkschaftliche Organisierung, Zentralisierung und ein starker Staat kombiniert mit Tarifverhandlungen and Konzertierung bestimmte ökonomische Ergebnisse bewirken. Korporatismus könnte auch als eine Form von Demokratie angesehen werden, in der Interessengruppen in die Vorbereitung und/oder Implementierung von politischen Maßnahmen integriert sind. Ausgehend von der letzteren Position haben wir die Stärke des skandinavischen Korporatismus anhand der Involvierung von Interessengruppen in öffentlichen Ausschüssen, Gremien und Kommissionen bewertet. Korporatismus in Verbindung mit der Vorbereitung von Maßnahmen hat in allen drei skandinavischen Ländern abgenommen, während Korporatismus in Implementierungsprozessen in den drei Ländern vielfältiger geworden ist.Resumen El corporativismo puede verse como una variedad del capitalismo en la que determinados requisitos previos estructurales, como la unionización, la centralización y los estados fuertes combinados con la negociación y la concertación, producen determinados resultados económicos. El corporativismo también puede verse como una variedad de democracia, en la cual se integran grupos de interés para la preparación o la aplicación de políticas públicas. Partiendo de la última postura, evaluamos la fuer...

Denmark, Norway and Sweden are still among the most corporatist democracies in the world. Although corporatism has declined in Scandinavia over the last decades, it still exists, albeit at a lower level. Based on comparative and longitudinal data, we argue that this is a consequence of the disruption of some of the prerequisites to corporatist exchange. Neither governments nor the relevant interest groups in Scandinavia control what their exchange partner desires to the same extent as they did during the heyday of corporatism. Despite the involvement of different factors in the three countries, the main pattern is the same. Consequently, the character of state–interest group relations in Scandinavia is not as distinctive as it used to be.

In this paper we examine how individual predispositions in terms of the Big Five personality traits affect attitudes toward immigration. This allows us go beyond the assumption that individuals react to situational factors in a uniform way, which underlies established theories of attitudes toward immigration focusing mainly on economic and cultural threat. Adding personality traits to the explanation of attitudes toward immigration allows us to develop a more full understanding of attitude formation beyond situational factors as well as more insight into how individuals react differently based on their personality when confronted with the same situational triggers. We examined the question of how personality influence attitudes toward immigration using a Danish survey experiment and show that personality traits display direct as well as conditional effects on opposition towards immigration. As expected, we find that that Openness and Agreeableness have strong effects on attitudes toward immigration; individuals scoring high on these two traits are significantly more willing to admit immigrants compared to individuals scoring lower on the traits. We also find evidence that individuals react differently to economic threat depending on their score on the trait Conscientiousness; individuals scoring high on Conscientiousness have a greater tendency to oppose low-skilled immigration than individual scoring lower on this trait. This result implies that the influence of situational factors may critically depend on personality traits. More generally, the results suggest that the literature on political attitude formation may benefit from including more differentiated models of man.2

Recent studies have shown that variation in political attitudes and participation can be attributed to both genes and the environment. This finding raises the question of why genes matter to participation, and by which pathways. Two hypotheses suggest that feelings of civic duty and sense of political efficacy intermediate the relationship between genes and political participation and, thus, that these traits have a common heritable component. If so, how robust are the relationships across cultural contexts? Utilizing two new twin studies on political traits, one in Denmark and one in the United States, we show that the heritability of political participation and political efficacy is remarkably similar across cultures. Moreover, most of the covariation between efficacy and political participation is accounted for by a common underlying genetic component.

This article examines the foundations of democratic citizenship along three dimensions: generalised trust in other people; norms of citizenship; and participation in organisations. Contrary to previous research, which mainly focuses on situational factors, this article scrutinises how individual predispositions, in terms of personality traits, influence the three dimensions of democratic citizenship. In accordance with recent research, personality is conceptualised according to the Big Five personality model encompassing the five traits Openness (to experience), Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. Based on a nationally representative Danish survey, which includes a 60-item Big Five personality inventory, we show that personality traits to a considerable extent influence all three dimensions of democratic citizenship. Furthermore, for norms of citizenship and organisational involvement, the personality traits have differential impacts contingent on the norm and type of organisational involvement in question.