Group Belongingness and Redistribution Preference: A Survey Experiment in Japan

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Abstract

Redistribution of wealth and resulting (in)equality of society are deemed key elements of democracies as scholars argue that they relate closely to important phenomena including regime change (Acemoglu and Robinson, 2005; Boix, 2003), conflict (Cederman et al., 2013; Østby, 2008), and voting (Meltzer and Richard, 1981; Lupu and Pontusson, 2011), among many others. This suggests that the origin and the cause of redistribution preference have a great importance for us in order to fully understand how democracies work around the globe.

Previous studies claim that group belongingness plays an important role in shaping redistribution preference at the individual level. A causal mechanism suggested in this line of research is that people are willing to help others if they are in their own group, which is driven by shared experiences and perception of similarity in that group. One approach to study groups is to scrutinize difference in individuals with respect to their race, ethnicity, and religion (e.g., Habyarimana et al., 2007). Scholars investigate whether individuals prefer redistribution to people with same race (e.g., Gilens, 2009) or non-migrant citizens (e.g., Rueda and Stegmueller, 2019). In this paper, I attempt to provide an additional piece of evidence that supports this argument by conducting a survey experiment in Japan while focusing on another factor that differentiates people---nationality.

In the case of Japan in which the population is relatively homogeneous with respect to race, ethnicity, and religion (or at least the majority of people seem to believe that way), we need to study the role that other factors might play in distinguishing a majority of citizens from others. In the survey experiment that I design, participants are randomly grouped into two treatment groups and one control group. One treatment group receives information about livelihood assistance to Japanese citizens in general. Another treatment group receives information about livelihood assistance targeted to foreigners in Japan. Lastly, the control group receives no information. Information that participants in the treatment groups receive is in the form of actual newspaper article that was published a few years before the experiment was conducted. All participants, then, are prompted to answer a question regarding their redistribution preference. I conducted this survey experiment in January 2021 and present the results. I expect that those who receive information about livelihood assistance targeted to foreigners are least likely to support redistribution.

Author

• Katsunori Seki, University of Tsukuba