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Political awareness and support for redistribution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2017

Jason Jordan
Jason Jordan*
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Political Science & International Relations, Department of Political Science & International Relations, Drew University, New Jersey, USA
*
*E-mail: jjordan1@drew.edu
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Abstract

Traditional research on preferences for redistributive social policy suggest increasingly complex models of public opinion formation that envision individuals balancing normative concerns against sophisticated calculations of economic self-interest. This research largely ignores the large body of evidence demonstrating significant differences in levels of political awareness across the population that strongly influence the quality, structure, and determinants of political preferences. Analyzing public opinion data for 14 European countries reveals that large sections of the population do not appear to hold or express social policy preferences that are internally consistent or well-grounded in either their self-interests or ideological predispositions. At low levels of political awareness, little discernible connection exists between seemingly related preferences for redistribution, levels of social spending, left–right positioning, tolerance for inequality, or overall support for the welfare state. Moreover, income, a theoretically central causal variable, has no effect on attitudes toward redistribution when political awareness is low. These results pose a significant challenge to existing models of social policy preferences.

Keywords

public opinionwelfare statepolitical awareness
Type
Research Article
Information
European Political Science Review , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , February 2018 , pp. 119 - 137
Copyright
© European Consortium for Political Research 2017 

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Appendix A

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