The Impact of Political Cleavages, Religiosity, and Values on Attitudes towards Nonprofit Organizations

Abstract

Individual, micro-level attitudes towards nonprofit organizations (NPOs) can have many potential determinants. In this study, we explore the impact of three categories of potential determinants of attitudes towards NPOs: Political cleavages (the cultural integration vs. demarcation cleavage and the economic integration vs. demarcation cleavage); religiosity and spirituality; and values (the survival vs. self-expression value dimension). Based on a representative survey in Switzerland, we estimate the impact of those factors for five different attitudinal dimensions and six different NPO types. The Bayesian model estimates show that all three categories of determinants have small to moderate impact. The effects of religiosity, spirituality, the self-expression value dimension, and of economic integration are generally positive. The effects of the survival value dimension and of cultural demarcation are generally negative, with the exception of the NPO type of professional associations.

Keywords

• NPO
• nonprofit sector
• political attitudes
• religiosity
• values