The Two Faces of Public Opinion Heterogeneity: The Case of Popular Attitudes toward Distributive Justice

• In Event: 154 - Regular Session. Public Opinion

Abstract

Past studies on distributive justice have shown there is no single but rather multiple principles and dimensions in people’s conception of distributive justice. These studies, however, did not successfully identify how the configuration of such multiplexity of distributive justice beliefs differs across people and exhibits individual-level heterogeneity. Taking a novel methodological approach that employs two kinds of person-oriented classification methods (i.e., relational and latent class analysis), this article maps the associative structure of public opinion on distributive justice at the individual-level. For empirical analysis, this study focuses on the case of China, the country whose high level of economic inequality is regarded as one of the most important sources of social discontent that may lead to social and political instability. The analysis shows that only a small number of people possess well-organized, coherent belief structures regarding various issues of distributive justice, while the majority has incoherent, compartmentalized beliefs. It also shows that about half of the survey respondents express egalitarian attitudes, but the size of individuals with well-organized, coherent beliefs among them is very small. These findings suggest that there is a discrepancy between what is commonly perceived as “public opinion” and people’s actual beliefs and ideas on distributive justice.

Author

• Dong Kyun Im, University of Seoul