At first view, the methodology of survey research may seem rather unsuitable to the study of such "holistic" phenomena as collective and social identities. That difficulty vanishes - at least partly - as soon as we consider social identity as the link between the individual and his belongings, as does the "social identity theory", developed from the work of Taffel and Turner. From there on, survey research may prove to be a useful device to cope with some main characteristics of (...) social identity: mainly its variability among groups and classes within a same society and its particular sensitivity to socio-political contexts. Survey research, combined with the social identity theory may help to test historical assumptions at a macro-social level. It may also give some ''flesh" and some additional realism to the micro-theories of social behaviour, which are too often limited by their conception of a strictly rational and interested agent. (shrink)

At first sight, the ecologist voters in Wallonia present some remarkable characteristics : they are much younger, better educated, less religious and less interested in polities than the 'average' voter.When one constructs three- or four ways cross-tables, the high level of education among ecologist voters appears mainly as a 'by-product' of their very low average age. On the contrary, general interest for politics and religious attitudes maintain an effect on their own. So the model that fits the data best is (...) the one that retains those three variables.Those characteristics bring some support to the idea that ecologist vote is mainly a protest vote. On the other side, it may be considered that Ecolo contributes to maintain in the 'electoral field' a potentialy abstentionist population. (shrink)