https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/43821 Wed, 29 Apr 2026 10:31:32 GMT 2026-04-29T10:31:32Z https://refubium.fu-berlin.de:443/bitstream/id/e8f21182-e12e-4883-a4c9-876eada7cf17/ https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/43821 https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/33606 Between Dialogue and Denunciation: The World Council of Churches, Religious Freedom, and Human Rights during the Cold War Bouwman, Bastiaan While the historiography on the religious Cold War has tended to focus on Christian anticommunism, the World Council of Churches (WCC) sought to transcend the Cold War while simultaneously advancing religious freedom in the Soviet Union. This article connects the WCC's ecclesiastical diplomacy to the wider story of human rights, from which religion has too often been excluded. The WCC's quest for Christian fellowship led it to integrate the Russian Orthodox Church into its membership, but this commitment generated tensions with the rise of Soviet dissidence. Moreover, the WCC's turn towards the left and the Third World contrasted with newly ascendant voices for human rights in the 1970s: Amnesty International's depoliticised liberalism, evangelical anticommunism, and the Vatican under John Paul II. Thus, the WCC, an early and prominent transnational voice for human rights, ran afoul of shifts in both the Cold War and the politics of protest. Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/33606 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/35766 China’s growing digital reach: explaining citizens’ high approval rates of fintech investments in Southeast Asia Rabe, Wiebke; Kostka, Genia Recent years have witnessed a rise in global investments in the digital economy. The growing digital reach of Chinese tech companies is responsible for at least part of this transformation. Yet, little is known about how host country citizens view China’s increasing stature in the digital sphere. Focusing on Chinese investments in mobile payment platforms (CIM), this article explains citizens’ levels of approval of Chinese outward investments in the digital economy. Based on online surveys conducted in four selected Southeast Asian countries – Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines – this research shows that citizens of these four countries perceive the benefits of CIM to outweigh the risks, with approval rates to be higher for Thailand and Malaysia, and lower for Indonesia and the Philippines. We find these high levels of approval for CIM to be significantly associated with perceived personal benefit, such as price reductions and an increase in purchasing choices. By contrast, country-level factors, such as geopolitical concerns about China, do matter in some contexts, but overall show less explanatory influence. These results shed light on citizens’ views of different types of foreign investments and of China, and support previous arguments on the separation between consumer behavior and politics. Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/35766 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/37985 Contesting Europe: Eurosceptic Dissent and Integration Polarization in the European Parliament Börzel, Tanja A.; Broniecki, Philipp; Hartlapp, Miriam; Obholzer, Lukas This article provides a comprehensive analysis of Eurosceptic contestation within the legislative arena of the European Parliament (EP) from 2009 to 2019. Under what conditions do Eurosceptics vote differently from their Europhile peers? The literatures on European integration, party competition and policy types lead us to expect variation in Eurosceptic contestation across policy areas. Drawing on roll-call votes in the EP, we introduce two new measures of such contestation: Eurosceptic dissent, that is, the extent to which Eurosceptics diverge from the Europhile plurality, and integration polarization, that is, the extent to which Eurosceptics and Europhiles oppose each other as cohesive camps. Our two indicators show that Eurosceptic contestation is particularly pronounced when the EP votes on cultural, distributive and constituent issues. When voting on redistributive policies, in contrast, dissent and polarization are curbed by national and ideological diversity. Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/37985 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/41398 Deepening the divide: Does globalization increase the polarization between winners and losers of globalization? Ollroge, Rasmus Does globalization increase polarization in attitudes toward international trade, immigration, and international organizations? Research from a variety of fields and disciplines assumes this relationship, but empirical studies are few. In this study, I examine whether globalization increases the attitudinal divide between education groups, with education being one of the main characteristics of social stratification distinguishing winners from losers of globalization. I use data from three waves of the National Identity Module of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) from 1995 to 2013 covering 29 countries (n = 79,101) to analyze between- and within-country interactions between the level of globalization and education in explaining attitudes toward globalization. The results show that while the attitudinal divide between educational groups is larger in countries with higher levels of globalization (between effect), polarization decreases as the level of globalization increases within countries (within effect), as persons with lower and medium levels of education become more positive toward globalization under increasing levels of globalization. The results are consistent across a wide range of robustness checks, including controlling for occupational class as a further distinction between winners and losers of globalization. The findings suggest that the expectations about a widening attitudinal divide between winners and losers of globalization should be treated with more caution. Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/41398 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z