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26 Comp. Pol. Stud. 3 (1993-1994)

handle is hein.journals/compls26 and id is 1 raw text is: For most parts of the 20th century, class and religious predispositions guided individuals' perceptions of the political space in Western Europe. Recently, however, analysts have noted the weakening of class and religious cleavages. Moreover, new social movements emerged in Western Europe, despite the inapplicability of traditional class and partisan cues to ecological issues. In light of the presumed lack of sophistication of mass publics, these developments raise the following question. What mental structures, if any, do individuals employ in evaluating competing Old and New Politics issues? In an attempt to answer the question, we analyze citizens' environmental belief systems in four West European countries. We find that environmental belief systems are substantially constrained by general political predispositions in Germany and the Netherlands. In contrast, environmental attitudes are significantly less constrained in France and Great Britain. These crossnational variations in belief systems constraint are attributed to varying activity levels of environmental elites. The implications of these findings for the sources of belief systems constraint and for the sophistication of mass beliefs are assessed. ENVIRONMENTAL BELIEF SYSTEMS IN WESTERN EUROPE A Hierarchical Model of Constraint ROBERT ROHRSCHNEIDER Indiana University S ocial cleavages structured individuals' perception of the political space in Western Europe for most parts of the 20th century (Lipset & Rokkan, 1967). Members of the working class, for instance, tended to derive issue positions from cues received from unions or leftist parties; religious believers often obtained cues from their respective church group. The influ- ence of established elites on the foundations of mass belief systems is also reflected in the level of attitudinal consistency: The more partisan segments of electorates, who are more exposed to political messages of party elites AUTHOR'S NOTE: I would like to thank Mark Peffleyfor the valuable suggestions he made in numerous discussions; he, Russell J. Dalton, Charly Davis, Ronald Langley, Richard G. Niemi, and Ellen Riggle made very helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. COMPARATIVE POLITICAL STUDIES, Vot. 26 No. 1, April 1993 3-29 O 1993 Sage Publications, Inc. from the SAGE Social Science Collections. All Rights Reserved.

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