Upcoming article on the relationship between cultural participation and political orientation

Finnish INVENT Team members Sara Sivonen and Semi Purhonen will be publishing an article called “Politics and cultural participation: The associations of party preference and conservativeness with high and popular cultural participation in Finland” in Sosiologia later this autumn (article in Finnish).

The article examines the association between politics and cultural participation in contemporary Finland from the perspective of change over time. It asks how party preference and conservative political attitudes are associated with high and popular cultural participation, whether these associations hold when controlling for the major sociodemographic factors, and whether the associations have changed in recent years. Nationally representative, comparable surveys from 2007 and 2018 are used as data. Based on regression modeling, the results show that both party preference and conservativeness are associated with cultural participation, whether high or popular. Conservativeness is clearly a stronger factor, reducing participation in both high and popular culture. However, differences in participation were also found across supporters of different parties. The associations of conservativeness and, especially, party preference with cultural participation decreased – but did not disappear – after controlling for sociodemographic factors. Overall, the link between politics and cultural participation has remained rather stable from 2007 to 2018.