Strains in Cascade: How Precarious Work Influences Worker’s Anti-establishment Tendencies.

• In Event: US Democracy: An Assessment

Abstract

This project examines how individuals' subjective economic concerns arising from their work arrangements provide a basis for endorsing anti-democratic attitudes. While narrative-driven accounts are prevalent, research on the economic antecedents of anti-democratic attitudes remains limited and inconclusive. To address this gap, I draw on an online survey of US workers that captures their work conditions, economic concerns, and political attitudes. The empirical results indicate that workers in precarious employment (i.e., precarity of work and at work) are more likely to experience economic worries, thereby exhibiting higher levels of anti-establishment orientations, including populist, conspiratorial, and black-and-white views. In addition, an experiment randomly assigning populist rhetoric with different ideological tones suggests that such workers are more vulnerable to like-minded rhetoric, and thus likelier to develop anti-democratic attitudes. This project contributes to political psychology by highlighting the role of economic concerns, distinct from symbolic or cultural threats. It also sheds light on the American political economy by discussing how inequitable economic structures, such as dualized labor markets, systematically influence workers' attitudes toward democracy.

Author

• Heon Lee, University of Delaware