scholarly journals Crises and social policy preferences: The impact of Covid-19 in Britain

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anja Neundorf ◽  
Sergi Pardos-Prado
Keyword(s):  
Immigration Policy ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
Observational Research ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Global Spread ◽  
Welfare Attitudes ◽  
Unemployment And Health ◽  
The Impact

Do crises substantially change public support for taxes and spending, and why? We leverage the multifaceted character of the Covid-19 pandemic to test different theoretical micro-mechanisms usually confounded in observational research, or tested in isolation. Our randomized survey experiment provides four main findings. First, the economic and health dimensions of the crisis generated a substantial left-wing turn among the British public. Second, the effects are stronger on spending priorities (unemployment and health policies) than on who should pay for the welfare bill (progressivity of income and wealth taxes). Third, economic self-interested motivations are not relevant mechanisms to explain our findings. Fourth, framings associated with open borders and the global spread of the virus polarized welfare attitudes along immigration policy preferences. The generalizability of our findings, the prospects of redistributive conflicts after Covid, and the validity of established theories of welfare preferences in times of crisis are discussed.

scholarly journals Immediate rewards or delayed gratification? A conjoint survey experiment of the public’s policy preferences

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henrik Serup Christensen ◽  
Lauri Rapeli
Keyword(s):  
Political Trust ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Delayed Gratification ◽  
Distant Future ◽  
Temporal Aspect ◽  
Electoral Cycles ◽  
Societal Problems ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Previous Scholarship

Abstract Previous scholarship has focused primarily on how citizens’ form policy preferences and how those preferences are taken into account in democratic decision-making. However, the temporal aspect of policy preferences has received little attention, although many significant societal problems have consequences that extend far into the future. To fill the gap, we examine to what extent citizens are willing to support policies, when rewards can only be expected after several electoral cycles. Using a conjoint survey experiment, we demonstrate that while a slight tendency towards more immediate policy rewards is discernible, citizens are not as impatient as has been widely assumed. In contrast with previous research, political trust does not affect the impact of the time horizon of policy choice. Instead, we find that people with higher education are more likely to choose policies the benefits of which materialize in the distant future. These findings add to the growing evidence which suggests that citizens’ short-sightedness is not a very strong driver of democratic myopia.

scholarly journals Disentangling the relationship between sociotropic and egotropic trade attitudes: A survey experiment in Japan

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eddie Hearn
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Trade Policy ◽  
Observational Studies ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Careful Consideration ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractPublic support for protection is typically attributed to economic self-interest. Beyond pocketbook anxieties, a competing approach, however, contends that sociotropic attitudes dictate foreign policy preferences. Researchers, however, have faced difficulty in disentangling sociotropic attitudes from pocketbook concerns in observational studies. This article addresses this problem by utilizing a priming experiment to examine the relationship between socio and egotropic attitudes. In line with the predictions of the sociotropic framework, individuals are less certain about the egotropic effects of trade and sociotropic attitudes are found to influence egotropic perceptions by reducing uncertainty about the pocketbook effects of trade. In contrast, the study fails to find support for the hypothesis that individuals project egotropic concerns onto societal evaluations. The results of the study suggest that future research should pay careful consideration to the relationship between socio and egotropic attitudes when modeling and analyzing trade-policy preferences.

scholarly journals Economic Crisis and Attitudes Towards Democracy: How Ideology Moderates Reactions to Economic Downturns

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignacio Jurado ◽  
Rosa M. Navarrete
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Economic Crises ◽  
Democratic Representation ◽  
Satisfaction With Democracy ◽  
Economic Downturns ◽  
Democratic Performance ◽  
Ideological Identity ◽  
The Impact

This paper studies the extent to which economic crises bust different reactions depending on individual ideological identity. Our argument is that individual left-right identification shapes how citizens evaluate the functioning of democracy, and consequently, it moderates the impact of economic crises on democratic discontent. We argue that left-wing individuals’ views on democratic performance would be more heavily affected by economic results and strongly shaped by the (in)capacity of a democracy to represent its citizens in its reaction to the economic crisis. After testing our argument with data from the ESS, we provide evidence from a survey experiment conducted in Spain. Both analyses show that economic crises are relevant in explaining democratic dissatisfaction, but the strength of their impact depends on ideological identities. Economic results have a stronger effect on the satisfaction with democracy of left-wing individuals by negatively affecting their perception of the functioning of democratic representation.

scholarly journals Stereotypes and welfare attitudes: a panel survey of how ‘poor Carina’ and ‘lazy Robert’ affected attitudes towards social assistance in Denmark

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Troels Fage Hedegaard
Keyword(s):  
Financial Incentives ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Social Assistance ◽  
Social Benefit ◽  
Panel Survey ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Social ◽  
Welfare Attitudes ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact

What is the impact of a predominantly negative debate about social assistance on public and individual support for the social benefit? Over the course of a year the public debate about social assistance flared up twice in Denmark. The debates drew on classic stereotypes of the social assistance recipients lacking both the financial incentives and the will to work. According to theories of the impact of media on welfare attitudes, this had the potential to undermine public support. A two-wave panel survey, however, showed only a small drop in public support for spending on social assistance, in a comparison of attitudes before and after the debates. The small overall impact on public opinion, however, hid a polarization of attitudes on the individual level. This shows that there was not a uniform reaction to welfare debates, but that people tend to seek out a version of reality that is consistent with their values and self-interest. The article thus shows that people when faced with public debates on welfare policies will seek to confirm their personal biases and this limits the possibility for overall changes in public support.

The impact of mass-level ideological orientations on immigration policy preferences over time

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 279-291
Author(s):  
Jens Peter Frølund Thomsen ◽  
Arzoo Rafiqi
Keyword(s):  
Immigration Policy ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Level Data ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Mass Level ◽  
Over Time

AbstractThis paper introduces a dynamic perspective on how (personal) political ideology shapes reactions to immigration policies at the mass level. Greater ethnic diversity and growing calls for multiculturalism represent a disproportionately greater challenge to rightists because they value conformity, tradition, and stability more than leftists. Consequently, we hypothesize that the impact of political ideology on opposition to immigration has become stronger over time. Analyses show that: (a) leftists were less opposed to immigration than rightists in both 2002 and 2014, and (b) rightists have become more opposed to immigration in the time between 2002 and 2014, whereas leftists’ reactions remained stable across this period. We tested our motivated reasoning hypothesis in a repeated cross-sectional (fixed effects regression) analysis of individual-level data from 18 countries (N = 55,367). The individual-level data on political ideology and immigration policy preferences is from the European Social Survey data sets fielded in 2002 and 2014.

Social Welfare Attitudes and Immigrants as a Target Population: Experimental Evidence

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Jake Haselswerdt
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Target Population ◽  
Observational Research ◽  
Social Welfare Policy ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Strongly Correlated ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
Geographic Context ◽  
Welfare Attitudes

What makes some Americans assume that social welfare programs will benefit immigrants rather than native-born Americans? How do these assumptions shape their attitudes about policy? Recent observational research has shown that immigration attitudes and social welfare attitudes are strongly correlated, but we lack evidence of exactly how this relationship works. In this pre-registered survey experiment, I study respondents’ assumptions about beneficiaries of a generic social welfare policy, and test the effects of different “threat” primes on the assumption that the policy benefits immigrants rather than native-born Americans. I find that a prime constructing immigrants as a fiscal threat increases the likelihood that a respondent will make this assumption, while a prime emphasizing cultural or demographic threat has no significant effect. These effects vary by geographic context, but not by relevant attitudes. Attitudes about immigration become an important predictor of policy approval when this assumption is triggered.

The impact of EU institutional advertising on public support for European integration

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 569-589
Author(s):  
Enrique Hernández ◽  
Roberto Pannico
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Panel Survey ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Reduced Costs ◽  
One Year ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu

Utilitarian theories propose that support for the EU is based on an instrumental calculus about the costs and benefits of European integration. Drawing on these theories, we analyze whether and how ads produced by European institutions affect public support for the EU. Our findings, based on a panel survey experiment, indicate that these ads increase support for the EU, and that ads emphasizing the policy benefits of European integration are more effective than ads emphasizing its reduced costs. However, these positive effects are short-lived, since they had disappeared one year after citizens were initially exposed to the ads. In a context of increasing negativity towards the EU, these findings, based on realistic treatments, have relevant theoretical and policy implications.

The Rise of Anti-Immigration Sentiment and Undocumented Immigration as Explanations for Immigration Policy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret E. Peters
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Immigration Policy ◽  
Illegal Immigration ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Undocumented Immigration ◽  
Macroeconomic Conditions ◽  
Mass Public ◽  
The Impact

This chapter examines whether anti-immigration sentiment and illegal immigration lead to immigration restrictions. It first considers the evidence for theories based on the macropolitical and macroeconomic conditions of the state, with emphasis on how democratization, growth, war, and state identities affect immigration policy. It then discusses four additional explanations for mass public support for immigration and/or other interest group activity on immigration: the role of workers, the effect of immigrants on the welfare state, nativism, and the impact of immigrants themselves. It also explores whether borders are increasingly restricted while enforcement lags in order to create an undocumented workforce that can easily be exploited. The findings support an interest-group-based argument for immigration policy, with firms as the most important interest group.

Interculturalism and the Acceptance of Minority Groups

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maykel Verkuyten ◽  
Kumar Yogeeswaran
Keyword(s):  
Minority Groups ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
Social Psychological Research ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Situational Effect

Abstract. Multiculturalism has been criticized and rejected by an increasing number of politicians, and social psychological research has shown that it can lead to outgroup stereotyping, essentialist thinking, and negative attitudes. Interculturalism has been proposed as an alternative diversity ideology, but there is almost no systematic empirical evidence about the impact of interculturalism on the acceptance of migrants and minority groups. Using data from a survey experiment conducted in the Netherlands, we examined the situational effect of promoting interculturalism on acceptance. The results show that for liberals, but not for conservatives, interculturalism leads to more positive attitudes toward immigrant-origin groups and increased willingness to engage in contact, relative to multiculturalism.

Wrestling with 9/11: Immigrant Perceptions and Perceptions of Immigrants

2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Brettell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Immigration Policy ◽  
Asian Indians ◽  
World Trade Center ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fort Worth ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
Immigrant Populations ◽  
Trade Center ◽  
The Impact

Soon after 9/11 a research project to study new immigration into the Dallas Fort Worth metropolitan area got under way. In the questionnaire that was administered to 600 immigrants across five different immigrant populations (Asian Indians, Vietnamese, Mexicans, Salvadorans, and Nigerians) between 2003 and 2005 we decided to include a question about the impact of 9/11 on their lives. We asked: “How has the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 affected your position as an immigrant in the United States?” This article analyzes the responses to this question, looking at similarities and differences across different immigrant populations. It also addresses the broader issue of how 9/11 has affected both immigration policy and attitudes toward the foreign-born in the United States. 

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