Whose merit and which redistribution? Deservingness and varieties of redistributive preferences in the Global South

• In Event: 40420 - Section on Political Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 5: Neoliberal Politics 2

Abstract

A growing body of literature put forward discourses of meritocracy as key to the ways people think about poverty, inequality, and privilege. Nevertheless, little is known about (1) how discourses about elite and poor merit relate to each other, and (2) how these discourses relate to preferences for different types of redistribution. In this paper, we call for more varied conceptualizations and measurements of both belief in merit and support for redistribution. Empirically, we draw on an original survey with business, civil service, and political elites in Brazil and South Africa to demonstrate how these two dimensions of merit —deserving elites and undeserving poor— are tied to support to different forms of redistribution. We found that, among elites, the relationship between perceiving elite merit and blaming the undeserving poor is not as strong as most of the literature tends to assume. We also found that these discourses play different roles in the two countries when it comes to shaping support for varieties of redistribution – in Brazil, the belief in the merit of the elites is particularly central in shaping the rejection of tax policies, while in South Africa the perceived undeservingness of the poor explains the rejection of cash-based redistribution but also in-kind direct transfer policies.

Authors

• Graziella Moraes D. Silva, Geneva Graduate Institute IHEID

• Livio Silva Silva-Muller, Harvard University