Dissertation

Essays on Economic Inequality and Public Opinion

Merola, Vittorio E

2016

Overview

This dissertation consists of three self-contained essays on the study of economic inequality and public opinion. The first essay explores the question of why inequality is positively associated with beliefs in economic fairness. By incorporating behavioral research, in particular a dual-motives framework, the essay provides a behavioral model for how people process and select information about inequality. As inequality increases, the information becomes more threatening for the people at the bottom, and becomes more important for the people at the middle of the economic distribution. This is demonstrated using experimental evidence in Sweden, and has important implications for how we think about information and perceptions about inequality, as well as support for social welfare policies more broadly. The second essay provides a framework by which to understand how social identities and groups affect economic views, such as expectations of mobility, class perceptions, beliefs in meritocracy, and affinity toward economic groups. Utilizing a similar dual-motives assumption, the essay highlights how groups can provide heuristic information, as well as a motivational impetus; both of which shape economic perceptions and beliefs. The implication is that perceived social distance between economic groups should strongly influence economic views, which is demonstrated using an incentivized laboratory experiment, based on economic redistribution. Inequality within and between groups thus has the potential to affect peoples economic perceptions and expectations, even if such beliefs are objectively biased, which brings attention to the importance of the structure of inequality in the formation of individual economic views. The third essay, meanwhile, demonstrates how greater inequality also results in a more authoritarian population, in particular among the poor. The theory developed emphasizes how inequality increases feelings of powerlessness among the economically less fortunate, which results in their greater psychological insecurity. Such an insecurity is often manifest through increased demands for order and stability – the key goals associated with an authoritarian disposition – which implies a greater sensitivity and opposition to immigration, as well as social and cultural change. This is demonstrated using both experimental and cross-national observational evidence, and has implications for the role of inequality in social conflict and democratic consolidation, as well as broader debates about modernization and the influence of economic conditions in public opinion. In short, the dissertation advances our understanding of the motivational and information effects of economic inequality on public opinion, and highlights the often neglected, yet powerful, ways in which inequality impacts political behavior.

• Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
• Subject: Political science
• ISBN: 1369489595, 9781369489590