Inequality, Perceptions of Party Positions, and Public Policy Preferences

• In Event: Business, Labor, and the State

Abstract

Voters succumb to assimilation and contrasting effects when they assess the ideological positions of candidates and political parties, and these effects appear to worsen under conditions of economic inequality. To understand how inequality affects perceptions of ideological placement, we carry out survey experiments in Denmark, Italy, Mexico, and the US that randomize (i) exposure to inequality frames and (ii) nudges to the respondents to think of their own income position relative to the income of the richest (alternatively poorest) households in their country. These interventions induce variation in voter perceptions of the extent of inequality in the respondent’s country and of their relative income. We then explore respondents’ preferred redistribution schedules under different inequality frames, and how inequality perceptions affect support for candidates with different tax-and-spend proposals. This experiment helps ascertain (i) whether the level and type of inequality that individuals are exposed to cause shifts in redistributive preferences, (ii) whether inequality alters perceptions about the ideological location of candidates, and (iii) whether ideological perceptions change independently of respondents’ redistributive policy preferences or as a consequence of these changes.

Authors

• Guillermo Rosas, Washington University in St. Louis

• Taishi Muraoka, Academia Sinica

• Michael M. Bechtel, Washington University in St. Louis