Rhetoric about Food Stamps and the Politics of Budget Cutting: Ideology as Social Problem Claims Making

• In Event: 594 - Section on Political Sociology Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 10. Rhetoric as Politics

Abstract

As the United States experiences high rate of poverty, this problem, along with how such a problem might be conventionally understood by the public, warrants deep scrutiny. This paper thus draws upon a largely constructionist approach to examine the potentially controversial existence of public programs, such as the SNAP (“food stamps”) program, designed to alleviate poverty and, specifically, hunger as a byproduct of poverty. Connecting the social constructionist understandings of Berger and Luckmann as well as of Spector and Kitsuse, with their emphasis on subjective claims making to Karl Mannheim’s sociological investigations into the nature of ideology, the paper then examines some of the details around the ideology of food stamps ans sees in this ideology both a racially and class divided society but also perceptual differences that are partisan in nature. The paper concludes by considering the possibility, however, that ideology could have a positive impact, such as by serving as a motivator and resource for collective action toward equality.

Author

• Thomas Michael Conroy, City University of New York-Lehman College