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Members States with electorates that are less concerned about globalisation and
follow largely materialistic value orientations.
The clear negative correlation with the scores on the dimension representing
more abstract concerns with climate change and global warming is also in accor-
dance with a dominance of materialistic perceptions which are not tending to
associate environmental issues and region inequalities with the character of the
“world risk society”. Similar negative correlations characterise the relationships of
the scores on the infrastructure component that specifies priorities given to technical
and social infrastructural policies. However, the negative correlations are not high.
There is an interesting low positive correlation (0.37) with the score on the landscape
and disaster component indicating an association with environmental perceptions
which characterise the public opinion in the new Member States.
4.6 Conclusions
It appears that the variations in public opinion represent important political diver-
gence across the enlarged EU with regard to the future orientations of the environ-
mental policies and the cohesion and regional policies of the EU27. It is also clear
that the shift from an industrial society toward a post-industrial society has been
resulting in current shifts in life styles and has important outcomes with regards
to perceptions of a relevant political agenda of the EU. Therefore, it is crucial to
understand that perceptions of environmental issues and issues of regional dispar-
ities articulated by citizens in current post-industrial societies tend to be different
from the material survival concerns of industrial societies. The post-materialist per-
ceptions articulated in the public opinion in the post-industrial societies tend to be
based less upon direct experience of material survival, but much more upon abstract
cognitive insights. The worldview is changing and reflects a change in what peo-
ple want out of life. Moreover, the post-materialist value orientation also tends to
be shaped by impacts of globalisation pressures on populations at local, regional
and national levels and at the EU level. Such pressures result in new perceptions of
the global system in terms of the “world risk society” and the EU is perceived as a
“regional risk society”. It seems that these tendencies are in part reflected by the pub-
lic opinion orientations considering climate change and global warming as crucial
environmental concerns perceiving the current EU as a “regional risk society” that
has to develop a political agenda that can be effective in the even wider context of the
global system. In contrast, the perceptions represented by the landscape and disas-
ters component seem to be more concrete and contextual and locally and regionally
constituted. The three components of public opinion on regional and cohesion policy
trend's document a complex pattern that suggests more conservative value orien-
tations and perceptions characterising more the industrial societies and less the
post-industrial societies. Only the public opinion orientation on research and inno-
vation, small businesses or environment and risk prevention tends to be a part of the
emerging post-industrial era. The dominant trend is still to maintain within regional
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