Explaining Social Policy Preferences: Evidence from the Great Recession
01 Feb 2013-American Political Science Review (Cambridge University Press)-Vol. 107, Iss: 01, pp 80-103
TL;DR: This paper found that the personal experience of economic hardship, particularly the loss of a job, had a major effect on increasing support for welfare spending, and this effect was appreciably larger among Republicans than among Democrats.
Abstract: To what extent do personal circumstances, as compared to ideological dispositions, drive voters’ preferences on welfare policy? Addressing this question is difficult because a person's ideological position can be an outcome of material interest rather than an independent source of preferences. The article deals with this empirical challenge using an original panel study carried out over four years, tracking the labor market experiences and the political attitudes of a national sample of Americans before and after the eruption of the financial crisis. The analysis shows that the personal experience of economic hardship, particularly the loss of a job, had a major effect on increasing support for welfare spending. This effect was appreciably larger among Republicans than among Democrats, a result that was not simply due to a “ceiling effect.” However the large attitudinal shift was short lived, dissipating as individuals’ employment situations improved. The results indicate that the personal experience of an economic shock has a sizable, yet overall transient effect on voters’ social policy preferences.
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TL;DR: The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion by John Zaller (1992) as discussed by the authors is a model of mass opinion formation that offers readers an introduction to the prevailing theory of opinion formation.
Abstract: Originally published in Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books, 1994, Vol 39(2), 225. Reviews the book, The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion by John Zaller (1992). The author's commendable effort to specify a model of mass opinion formation offers readers an introduction to the prevailing vi
3,150 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, it is shown how to find a user's guide to operate a product on the web. But this is not a good way to obtain details about operating certain products.
Abstract: dismantling the welfare state reagan thatcher and politics of retrenchment are a good way to achieve details about operating certainproducts. Many products that you buy can be obtained using instruction manuals. These user guides are clearlybuilt to give step-by-step information about how you ought to go ahead in operating certain equipments. Ahandbook is really a user's guide to operating the equipments. Should you loose your best guide or even the productwould not provide an instructions, you can easily obtain one on the net. You can search for the manual of yourchoice online. Here, it is possible to work with google to browse through the available user guide and find the mainone you'll need. On the net, you'll be able to discover the manual that you might want with great ease andsimplicity
1,110 citations
Journal Article•
806 citations
TL;DR: This article analyzed randomized online survey experiments providing interactive, customized information on US income inequality, the link between top income tax rates and economic growth, and the estate tax, finding that the treatment has large effects on views about inequality but only slightly moves tax and transfer policy preferences.
Abstract: We analyze randomized online survey experiments providing interactive, customized information on US income inequality, the link between top income tax rates and economic growth, and the estate tax. The treatment has large effects on views about inequality but only slightly moves tax and transfer policy preferences. An exception is the estate tax—informing respondents of the small share of decedents who pay it doubles support for it. The small effects for all other policies can be partially explained by respondents’ low trust in government and a disconnect between concerns about social issues and the public policies meant to address them. (JEL D31, D72, H23, H24)
648 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the impact of globalization on electoral outcomes in 15 Western European countries over 1988-2007 was investigated, using both official election results at the district level and individual level.
Abstract: We investigate the impact of globalization on electoral outcomes in 15 Western European countries over 1988–2007. We employ both official election results at the district level and individual‐level voting data, combined with party ideology scores from the Comparative Manifesto Project. We compute a region‐specific measure of exposure to Chinese imports, based on the historical industry specialization of each region. To identify the causal impact of the import shock, we instrument imports to Europe using Chinese imports to the United States. At the district level, a stronger import shock leads to (1) an increase in support for nationalist and isolationist parties, (2) an increase in support for radical‐right parties, and (3) a general shift to the right in the electorate. These results are confirmed by the analysis of individual‐level vote choices. In addition, we find evidence that voters respond to the shock in a sociotropic way.
394 citations
References
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Book•
28 Aug 1992TL;DR: Zaller as discussed by the authors developed a comprehensive theory to explain how people acquire political information from elites and the mass media and convert it into political preferences, and applied this theory to the dynamics of public opinion on a broad range of subjects, including domestic and foreign policy, trust in government, racial equality, and presidential approval, as well as voting behaviour in U.S. House, Senate and presidential elections.
Abstract: In this 1992 book John Zaller develops a comprehensive theory to explain how people acquire political information from elites and the mass media and convert it into political preferences. Using numerous specific examples, Zaller applies this theory to the dynamics of public opinion on a broad range of subjects, including domestic and foreign policy, trust in government, racial equality, and presidential approval, as well as voting behaviour in U.S. House, Senate, and presidential elections. The thoery is constructed from four basic premises. The first is that individuals differ substantially in their attention to politics and therefore in their exposure to elite sources of political information. The second is that people react critically to political communication only to the extent that they are knowledgeable about political affairs. The third is that people rarely have fixed attitudes on specific issues; rather, they construct 'preference statements' on the fly as they confront each issue raised. The fourth is that, in constructing these statements, people make the greatest use of ideas that are, for various reasons, the most immediately salient to them. Zaller emphasizes the role of political elites in establishing the terms of political discourse in the mass media and the powerful effect of this framing of issues on the dynamics of mass opinion on any given issue over time.
5,393 citations
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5,137 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the prevailing view of international economic regimes is strictly positivistic in its epistemological orientation and stresses the distribution of material power capabilities in its explanatory logic.
Abstract: The prevailing model of international economic regimes is strictly positivistic in its epistemological orientation and stresses the distribution of material power capabilities in its explanatory logic. It is inadequate to account for the current set of international economic regimes and for the differences between past and present regimes. The model elaborated here departs from the prevailing view in two respects, while adhering to it in a third. First, it argues that regimes comprise not simply what actors say and do, but also what they understand and find acceptable within an intersubjective framework of meaning. Second, it argues that in the economic realm such a framework of meaning cannot be deduced from the distribution of material power capabilities, but must be sought in the configuration of state-society relations that is characteristic of the regime-making states. Third, in incorporating these notions into our understanding of the formation and transformation of international economic regimes, the formulation self-consciously strives to remain at the systemic level and to avoid becoming reductionist in attributing cause and effect relations. The article can therefore argue that the prevailing view is deficient on its own terms and must be expanded and modified. Addressing the world of actual international economic regimes, the article argues that the pax Britannica and the pax Americana cannot be equated in any meaningful sense, and that the postwar regimes for money and trade live on notwithstanding premature announcements of their demise.
3,295 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1981
3,161 citations
"Explaining Social Policy Preference..." refers background in this paper
...The article also adds to the ongoing research on the relative roles of ideology and material self-interest in the formation of individuals’ political preferences (e.g., Bartels 2008; Fiorina 1981; Gelman et al. 2007; Malhotra and Margalit 2010)....
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TL;DR: The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion by John Zaller (1992) as discussed by the authors is a model of mass opinion formation that offers readers an introduction to the prevailing theory of opinion formation.
Abstract: Originally published in Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books, 1994, Vol 39(2), 225. Reviews the book, The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion by John Zaller (1992). The author's commendable effort to specify a model of mass opinion formation offers readers an introduction to the prevailing vi
3,150 citations
"Explaining Social Policy Preference..." refers background in this paper
...Thus, the small minority of Democrats that were, to begin with, opposed to welfare expansion perhaps represents a hard 46 The reception-acceptance model (Zaller 1992) offers the clearest example of a framework that allows for such temporal dynamics in attitude change....
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...…the left and the right on issues such as equality, fairness, and the appropriate role of government are argued to be central factors underlying individuals’ welfare preferences (Alesina and Glaeser 2004; Bean and Papadakis 1998; Feldman and Zaller 1992; Fong 2001; Funk 2000; Linos and West 2003)....
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...46 The reception-acceptance model (Zaller 1992) offers the clearest...
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