How Do Different National Class Identities Affect Political Trust?

• In Event: Class, Identity, and Political Behavior

Abstract

The vast majority of recent studies on political inequality in Europe identifies the ‘working class’ as the social group that governments are least responsive to and that lacks descriptive representation in national parliaments (Alexiadou 2022; Elsässer and Schäfer 2022; Giger, Rosset, and Bernauer 2012; Hahn 2022; Mathisen et al. 2021). At the same time, it is a consistent empirical finding that people from lower social strata are significantly less likely to take part in political participation than people from upper classes (Schäfer 2015; Schlozman, Verba, and Brady 2012). Therefore, researchers of political inequality are recommending to increase descriptive representation of the working class in politics, increase membership in trade unions as an important vehicle for recruiting workers to become political candidates, improve political education, etc. (Elsässer and Schäfer 2022). However, when it comes to the substantive representation of the working class, empirical findings are mixed (Bailer et al. 2022; Borwein 2022; O’Grady 2019). One problem might be that the ‘working class’ is considered as one homogeneous group, when in fact it is not. Over time, the demographic composition of the working class has changed (entry and increasing number of pink-collar workers as well as a growing share of immigrants) and may vary significantly between countries. Furthermore, as Evans, Stubager and Langsæther (2022) point out, there are significant national differences on class identity, which refers to the perception on social and economic status of an individual or group, and how that status shapes their experiences and attitudes. They compare the cases of the United Kingdom and Denmark and hypothesise if class identity is taken as ‘cultural affinity’, then political preferences may shift towards more authoritarian or socially conservative policy demands. Whereas, when subjective class identification based on economic inequality, this leads to the development and manifestation of political preferences on economic redistribution. Hence, treating the working class as a homogeneous group in between-country and within-country comparisons may result in misleading conclusions. Therefore, I raise the research question whether these differences in demographic composition and class identity affect trust in political institutions of ‘the working class’. To analyse this, I draw on cross-national survey data from the European Social Surves (ESS) comparing attitudes of ‘the working class’ in a European comparative perspective. I expect workers drawing on a cultural understanding of class identity to have stronger levels of political distrust than workers having an economic understanding of class.

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Author

• Micaela Grossmann, University of Bamberg