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<p>The paper deals with the political aspects of the perception of science. The relevance of the topic is underpinned, among other things, by the public policy significance of trust in science and the links between national science and national identity. The literature relates the perception of science to ideological positions on the one hand, and to partisan bias on the other. The research underlying the study investigated the relationship between respondents’ attitudes towards science and their political preferences using a representative questionnaire sample of 1000 Hungarian respondents. In Hungary, characterised by a high degree of partisan polarisation, we expected the influence of party preference rather than ideological position on the perception of science. A detailed exploration of attitudes yielded more nuanced results than assumed: those who identified themselves as right-wing were less pro-science in general, but the utilitarian perception of science was influenced by party preference in addition to education, i.e. voters of the current government expected more utility and economic returns from science. The perception of science was also influenced by the level of political information. The study also relates the impact of partisan bias to the reception of science policy measures of the Orbán governments.</p>
</abstract>

The paper deals with the political aspects of the perception of science. The relevance of the topic is underpinned, among other things, by the public policy significance of trust in science and the links between national science and national identity. The literature relates the perception of science to ideological positions on the one hand, and to partisan bias on the other. The research underlying the study investigated the relationship between respondents’ attitudes towards science and their political preferences using a representative questionnaire sample of 1000 Hungarian respondents. In Hungary, characterised by a high degree of partisan polarisation, we expected the influence of party preference rather than ideological position on the perception of science. A detailed exploration of attitudes yielded more nuanced results than assumed: those who identified themselves as right-wing were less pro-science in general, but the utilitarian perception of science was influenced by party preference in addition to education, i.e. voters of the current government expected more utility and economic returns from science. The perception of science was also influenced by the level of political information. The study also relates the impact of partisan bias to the reception of science policy measures of the Orbán governments.

National Pride or Economic Utility? Attitudes towards Science in the Light of Political Polarisation <xref ref-type="fn" rid="j_pce-2024-0013_fn_001"><sup>1</sup></xref>

. Currently she is a senior research fellow at the Centre for Social Sciences and associate professor at Corvinus University of Budapest. Her main research interests are elite studies, political sociology and sociology of culture.

Politics in Central Europe

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

National Pride or Economic Utility? Attitudes towards Science in the Light of Political Polarisation 

The paper deals with the political aspects of the perception of science. The relevance of the topic is underpinned, among other things, by the public policy...

National Pride or Economic Utility? Attitudes towards Science in the Light of Political Polarisation ¹

Publicado en línea: 23 jul 2024

Páginas: 303 - 321

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/pce-2024-0013

Palabras clave
science scepticism, partisan bias, polarisation, science policy discourse

© 2024 Luca Kristóf., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

National Pride or Economic Utility? Attitudes towards Science in the Light of Political Polarisation 1

Publicado en línea: 23 jul 2024

Páginas: 303 - 321

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/pce-2024-0013

Palabras clavescience scepticism, partisan bias, polarisation, science policy discourse

© 2024 Luca Kristóf., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

National Pride or Economic Utility? Attitudes towards Science in the Light of Political Polarisation ¹

Palabras clave
science scepticism, partisan bias, polarisation, science policy discourse