Social Construction in N Dimensions

• In Event: Policy Designs and Target Populations

Abstract

The theory of social construction as applied to public policy suggests that who a policy targets is as important as what the policy is supposed to accomplish: political representatives consider their constituents’ perceptions of a group when designing policy. In turn, policy that distributes benefits and burdens to certain target populations reinforces the public’s perception of these populations targeted by public policies. Schneider & Ingram (1993) defined two underlying components of a target population’s social construction: political power and deservingness. Big businesses are generally perceived as politically powerful and undeserving of government assistance, while disabled children are perceived as politically weak and deserving of help, for example. Voluminous research on the implications of social construction for public policy design and implementation have followed Schneider & Ingram’s pioneering paper.

Kreitzer & Smith (2018) measured these social constructions empirically using crowd-sourced survey data from the United States. Smith & Kreitzer (forthcoming) use a similar empirical strategy to evaluate the degree of consensus about the social constructions of politically relevant target populations. They find divergence in social constructions aligns with partisanship and intraparty conflict.

In this study, we deepen social construction theory by identifying latent patterns of variation in target populations’ perceived power and deservingness. What underlying factors contribute to the public’s perceptions of various groups’ power and deservingness? Beneath the explicit dimensions of power and deservingness are implicit understandings and perceptions of different groups that may vary across the public in unexpected ways.

Applying principal component and cluster analysis, we investigate the factors that underlie social constructions across 50+ groups within the general public. Preliminary analysis affirms Schneider & Ingram’s (1993) two main dimensions (power and deservingness), as well as Smith & Kreitzer’s (forthcoming) partisan patterns of social construction. However, we identify at least three more significant dimensions of social construction that present cross-cutting cleavages across partisan and demographic groups. The result is a more nuanced depiction of social construction that captures the complexity and diversity of American politics, while retaining the elegance of Schneider & Ingram’s foundational framework. Results carry important implications for understanding coalitional politics and the design and implementation of public policy.

Authors

• Samantha Zuhlke, University of Iowa

• Manny P. Teodoro, University of Wisconsin