David Weisstanner
Biographic Data
| ID | 358743 |
|---|---|
| NAME | David Weisstanner |
| GIVEN NAMES | David |
| FAMILY NAME | Weisstanner |
| SIGNATURE | WEISSTANNER D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Aarhus University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4245-898X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 295 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Winning with equality: How left-wing parties attract votes but amplify electoral cleavages
Rising awareness about equal rights has opened a debate whether parties can balance emphasising both economic equality and equal rights as a successful electoral strategy. Using a novel dataset of 47,439 crowd-coded party manifesto statements and national election surveys from six countries (1970-2019) that allow us to analyze the electoral consequences of emphasising economic equality and equal rights, we examine how distinct equality concepts h…
Why Some Want Something for Nothing: Three Explanations for Unfunded Spending Demand
Several studies have documented ‘something for nothing’ (SFN) attitudes among citizens: preferences for increased government spending and lower taxes. Such a demand for unfunded public spending may generate unsustainable fiscal pressures. However, it is unclear what causes SFN attitudes at the individual level. While previous research emphasizes the role of political information, we explore how SFN attitudes also represent a rational response to …
Managing the Artificial Intelligence Revolution: Perceived Risks and Social Policy Preferences Among Firm‐Level Decision Makers
This paper examines the political and policy implications of artificial intelligence (AI) from the perspective of managers in Danish firms. We investigate how managers perceive AI's impact on the workplace, their preferences for social and regulatory policies to address AI's societal effects, and how information about AI's economic consequences and regulation influences these preferences. Utilising a novel firm‐level survey in Denmark with experi…
The Electoral Appeal of Symbolic Class Signalling Through Cultural Consumption
This letter investigates the electoral effects of symbolic class signalling through ‘cultural consumption’ in contemporary politics. We explore how politicians referring to an activity related to class-specific ‘cultural consumption’ – drinking beer in a pub or listening to classical music with a glass of wine – appeals to voters. We argue that symbolic class signalling has gained in importance due to the political realignment along the cultural …
Political mobilisation and socioeconomic inequality in policy congruence
In recent years, scholars have observed that political parties’ policy positions frequently fit the preferences of well‐to‐do voters better than those of the less well‐to‐do; a phenomenon known as policy congruence inequality. While the existence of inequality in policy congruence is well‐established, we currently only have a modest understanding of the causes of it. We develop an argument proposing that the political mobilisation of citizens wit…
Stagnating incomes and preferences for redistribution: The role of absolute and relative experiences
Stagnating incomes have been a widespread concern in advanced democracies over the past decades. However, despite a turn towards dynamic frameworks, the consequences of stagnation on political support for the welfare state are still unclear. This study introduces the distinction between ‘absolute’ and ‘relative’ income stagnation – that is, experiencing stagnating incomes over time (without reference to other groups) and in relative comparison to…
Covid-19 and welfare state support: The case of universal basic income
The COVID-19 pandemic has revived discussions about universal basic income (UBI) as a potential crisis response. Yet despite favorable circumstances, little actual policy change in this area was observed. This article seeks to explain this absence of policy change and to reflect on the prospects for introducing UBI schemes after the pandemic in European democracies. I argue that public opinion on UBI provides few electoral incentives to push for …
Rising income inequality and the relative decline in subjective social status of the working class
The declining ‘subjective social status’ of the low-educated working class has been advanced as a prominent explanation for right-wing populism. The working class has certainly been adversely affected by rising income inequality over the past decades, but we do not actually know if their perceived standing in the social hierarchy has declined correspondingly over time. This article examines trends in subjective social status in two ‘most likely c…
Objective Conditions Count, Political Beliefs Decide: The Conditional Effects of Self-Interest and Ideology on Redistribution Preferences
How can we explain variation in demand for redistribution among cross-pressured voters? We argue that redistributive preferences reflect an interaction between material self-interest and political ideology. The self-interest argument predicts growing opposition to redistribution as income increases, while the argument of ideologically driven preferences suggests that left-leaning citizens are more supportive of redistribution than right-leaning c…
Cross-Class Embeddedness through Family Ties and Support for Income Redistribution
There is long-standing evidence within the literature of class cleavages in social policy preferences. We re-evaluate class cleavages in support for redistribution by specifically focusing on the role played by cross-class embeddedness: the idea that individuals can be embedded in multiple social classes through family ties. Stronger affinity to the working class is hypothesized to be associated with stronger support for redistribution. We constr…
Redistributive preferences: Why actual income is ultimately more important than perceived income
An emerging consensus claims that ‘subjective’ (mis)perceptions of income inequality better explain redistributive preferences than actual ‘objective’ conditions. In this article, we critically re-assess this view. We compare perceived and actual income positions as predictors for preferences for redistribution. We argue that perceived income is partly endogenous to actual income and its effect on preferences conditional on ideology. Using an ori…
Occupational Social Class and Earnings Inequality in Europe: A Comparative Assessment
While there is renewed interest in earnings differentials between social classes, the contribution of social class to overall earnings inequality across countries and net of compositional effects remains largely uncharted territory. This paper uses data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions to assess earnings differentials between social classes (as measured by ESeC) and the role of between-class inequality in overall…
Between-Class Earnings Inequality in 30 European Countries: A Regression-Based Decomposition
This article studies earnings inequality between social classes across 30 European countries. Class inequality in earnings is found across the board although there are some exceptions. However, the degree of class inequality varies strongly across countries being larger in Western and Southern European countries and smaller in Eastern and Northern European countries. Furthermore, we find that differences in class composition in terms of observed …
Has the middle secured its share of growth or been squeezed
In striking contrast to the notion that democracy is under threat because 'the middle' has been 'squeezed' over recent decades, Iversen and Soskice (2019 Iversen, Torben, and David Soskice (2019). Democracy and Prosperity: Reinventing Capitalism through a Turbulent Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press. [Google Scholar]) in their book, Democracy and Prosperity, present an optimistic account about the future of democracy. This paper exami…
Insiders under pressure: Flexibilization at the margins and wage inequality
The rise of flexible employment in advanced democracies has been predominantly studied in the insider-outsider framework of the dualization literature. However, against the background of rising income inequality, it seems questionable to assume that all labor market insiders are equally affected by flexibilization. This paper explores whether flexibilization increases wage inequality among labor market insiders. I argue that flexibilization expos…
Automation and the future of the welfare state: Basic income as a response to technological change
Technology entrepreneurs have endorsed a universal basic income (UBI) as a remedy against disruptions of the work force due to automation. The advancement of information technologies could thus drastically reshape welfare state policy, but its impact on citizens’ preferences about UBI is unexplored. We extend previous research on citizens’ preferences showing a link between job automation and demand for redistribution to the case of UBI preferenc…
The threat of social decline: Income Inequality and Radical Right Support
Income inequality and radical right parties have both been on the rise in Western democracies, yet few studies explore the linkages between the two - despite prominent arguments about voters feeling 'left behind'. We argue that rising inequality not only intensifies relative deprivation, but also signals a potential threat of social decline, as gaps in the social hierarchy widen. Hence, voters higher up in the social hierarchy may turn to the rad…
How redistributive policies reduce market inequality: Education premiums in 22 OECD countries
What explains the large cross-country variation in the wage premium for higher education? Economic analyses of wage differentials by education point to technological change and globalization, but we know little about the impact of different types of public policies. We argue that public education spending and tax-transfer policies contain the spread of 'education premiums' through material incentives (decommodification) and attitudinal responses,…
Macroeconomic conditions, inequality shocks and the politics of redistribution, 1990–2013
This paper explores common trends in inequality and redistribution across OECD countries from the late 1980s to 2013. Low-end inequality rises during economic downturns while rising top-end inequality is associated with economic growth. Most countries retreated from redistribution from the mid-1990s until the onset of the Great Recession and compensatory redistribution in response to rising unemployment was weaker in 2008-13 than in the first hal…
The fiscal benefits of repeated cooperation: Coalitions and Debt Dynamics in 36 Democracies
Do coalition governments really suffer from short time horizons in fiscal policymaking, as posited by standard political-economy models? This article focusses on coalitions that have created high levels of familiarity through shared governing experiences in the past and that are likely to cooperate again in future governing coalitions. I argue that such coalitions have incentives to internalise the future costs of debt accumulation and reach cred…
Choosing the path of austerity: How Parties and Policy Coalitions Influence Welfare State Retrenchment in Periods of Fiscal Consolidation
What are the conditions under which some austerity programmes rely on substantial cuts to social spending? More specifically, do the partisan complexion and the type of government condition the extent to which austerity policies imply welfare state retrenchment? This article demonstrates that large budget consolidations tend to be associated with welfare state retrenchment. The findings support a partisan and a politico-institutionalist argument:…
How the Euro divides the union: The effect of economic adjustment on support for democracy in Europe
As often pointed out in the literature on the European debt crisis, the policy programme of austerity and internal devaluation imposed on countries in the Eurozone's periphery exhibits a lack of democratic legitimacy. This article analyses the consequences these developments have for democratic support at both the European and national levels. We show that through the policies of economic adjustment, a majority of citizens in crisis countries has…
The threat of social decline: Income Inequality and Radical Right Support
Income inequality and radical right parties have both been on the rise in Western democracies, yet few studies explore the linkages between the two - despite prominent arguments about voters feeling 'left behind'. We argue that rising inequality not only intensifies relative deprivation, but also signals a potential threat of social decline, as gaps in the social hierarchy widen. Hence, voters higher up in the social hierarchy may turn to the rad…
Choosing the path of austerity: How Parties and Policy Coalitions Influence Welfare State Retrenchment in Periods of Fiscal Consolidation
What are the conditions under which some austerity programmes rely on substantial cuts to social spending? More specifically, do the partisan complexion and the type of government condition the extent to which austerity policies imply welfare state retrenchment? This article demonstrates that large budget consolidations tend to be associated with welfare state retrenchment. The findings support a partisan and a politico-institutionalist argument:…
How the Euro divides the union: The effect of economic adjustment on support for democracy in Europe
As often pointed out in the literature on the European debt crisis, the policy programme of austerity and internal devaluation imposed on countries in the Eurozone's periphery exhibits a lack of democratic legitimacy. This article analyses the consequences these developments have for democratic support at both the European and national levels. We show that through the policies of economic adjustment, a majority of citizens in crisis countries has…
Macroeconomic conditions, inequality shocks and the politics of redistribution, 1990–2013
This paper explores common trends in inequality and redistribution across OECD countries from the late 1980s to 2013. Low-end inequality rises during economic downturns while rising top-end inequality is associated with economic growth. Most countries retreated from redistribution from the mid-1990s until the onset of the Great Recession and compensatory redistribution in response to rising unemployment was weaker in 2008-13 than in the first hal…
Automation and the future of the welfare state: Basic income as a response to technological change
Technology entrepreneurs have endorsed a universal basic income (UBI) as a remedy against disruptions of the work force due to automation. The advancement of information technologies could thus drastically reshape welfare state policy, but its impact on citizens’ preferences about UBI is unexplored. We extend previous research on citizens’ preferences showing a link between job automation and demand for redistribution to the case of UBI preferenc…
Rising income inequality and the relative decline in subjective social status of the working class
The declining ‘subjective social status’ of the low-educated working class has been advanced as a prominent explanation for right-wing populism. The working class has certainly been adversely affected by rising income inequality over the past decades, but we do not actually know if their perceived standing in the social hierarchy has declined correspondingly over time. This article examines trends in subjective social status in two ‘most likely c…
Objective Conditions Count, Political Beliefs Decide: The Conditional Effects of Self-Interest and Ideology on Redistribution Preferences
How can we explain variation in demand for redistribution among cross-pressured voters? We argue that redistributive preferences reflect an interaction between material self-interest and political ideology. The self-interest argument predicts growing opposition to redistribution as income increases, while the argument of ideologically driven preferences suggests that left-leaning citizens are more supportive of redistribution than right-leaning c…
Cross-Class Embeddedness through Family Ties and Support for Income Redistribution
There is long-standing evidence within the literature of class cleavages in social policy preferences. We re-evaluate class cleavages in support for redistribution by specifically focusing on the role played by cross-class embeddedness: the idea that individuals can be embedded in multiple social classes through family ties. Stronger affinity to the working class is hypothesized to be associated with stronger support for redistribution. We constr…
Covid-19 and welfare state support: The case of universal basic income
The COVID-19 pandemic has revived discussions about universal basic income (UBI) as a potential crisis response. Yet despite favorable circumstances, little actual policy change in this area was observed. This article seeks to explain this absence of policy change and to reflect on the prospects for introducing UBI schemes after the pandemic in European democracies. I argue that public opinion on UBI provides few electoral incentives to push for …
Redistributive preferences: Why actual income is ultimately more important than perceived income
An emerging consensus claims that ‘subjective’ (mis)perceptions of income inequality better explain redistributive preferences than actual ‘objective’ conditions. In this article, we critically re-assess this view. We compare perceived and actual income positions as predictors for preferences for redistribution. We argue that perceived income is partly endogenous to actual income and its effect on preferences conditional on ideology. Using an ori…
Stagnating incomes and preferences for redistribution: The role of absolute and relative experiences
Stagnating incomes have been a widespread concern in advanced democracies over the past decades. However, despite a turn towards dynamic frameworks, the consequences of stagnation on political support for the welfare state are still unclear. This study introduces the distinction between ‘absolute’ and ‘relative’ income stagnation – that is, experiencing stagnating incomes over time (without reference to other groups) and in relative comparison to…
Has the middle secured its share of growth or been squeezed
In striking contrast to the notion that democracy is under threat because 'the middle' has been 'squeezed' over recent decades, Iversen and Soskice (2019 Iversen, Torben, and David Soskice (2019). Democracy and Prosperity: Reinventing Capitalism through a Turbulent Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press. [Google Scholar]) in their book, Democracy and Prosperity, present an optimistic account about the future of democracy. This paper exami…
Insiders under pressure: Flexibilization at the margins and wage inequality
The rise of flexible employment in advanced democracies has been predominantly studied in the insider-outsider framework of the dualization literature. However, against the background of rising income inequality, it seems questionable to assume that all labor market insiders are equally affected by flexibilization. This paper explores whether flexibilization increases wage inequality among labor market insiders. I argue that flexibilization expos…
Occupational Social Class and Earnings Inequality in Europe: A Comparative Assessment
While there is renewed interest in earnings differentials between social classes, the contribution of social class to overall earnings inequality across countries and net of compositional effects remains largely uncharted territory. This paper uses data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions to assess earnings differentials between social classes (as measured by ESeC) and the role of between-class inequality in overall…
Political mobilisation and socioeconomic inequality in policy congruence
In recent years, scholars have observed that political parties’ policy positions frequently fit the preferences of well‐to‐do voters better than those of the less well‐to‐do; a phenomenon known as policy congruence inequality. While the existence of inequality in policy congruence is well‐established, we currently only have a modest understanding of the causes of it. We develop an argument proposing that the political mobilisation of citizens wit…
How redistributive policies reduce market inequality: Education premiums in 22 OECD countries
What explains the large cross-country variation in the wage premium for higher education? Economic analyses of wage differentials by education point to technological change and globalization, but we know little about the impact of different types of public policies. We argue that public education spending and tax-transfer policies contain the spread of 'education premiums' through material incentives (decommodification) and attitudinal responses,…
Managing the Artificial Intelligence Revolution: Perceived Risks and Social Policy Preferences Among Firm‐Level Decision Makers
This paper examines the political and policy implications of artificial intelligence (AI) from the perspective of managers in Danish firms. We investigate how managers perceive AI's impact on the workplace, their preferences for social and regulatory policies to address AI's societal effects, and how information about AI's economic consequences and regulation influences these preferences. Utilising a novel firm‐level survey in Denmark with experi…
The Electoral Appeal of Symbolic Class Signalling Through Cultural Consumption
This letter investigates the electoral effects of symbolic class signalling through ‘cultural consumption’ in contemporary politics. We explore how politicians referring to an activity related to class-specific ‘cultural consumption’ – drinking beer in a pub or listening to classical music with a glass of wine – appeals to voters. We argue that symbolic class signalling has gained in importance due to the political realignment along the cultural …
Between-Class Earnings Inequality in 30 European Countries: A Regression-Based Decomposition
This article studies earnings inequality between social classes across 30 European countries. Class inequality in earnings is found across the board although there are some exceptions. However, the degree of class inequality varies strongly across countries being larger in Western and Southern European countries and smaller in Eastern and Northern European countries. Furthermore, we find that differences in class composition in terms of observed …
The fiscal benefits of repeated cooperation: Coalitions and Debt Dynamics in 36 Democracies
Do coalition governments really suffer from short time horizons in fiscal policymaking, as posited by standard political-economy models? This article focusses on coalitions that have created high levels of familiarity through shared governing experiences in the past and that are likely to cooperate again in future governing coalitions. I argue that such coalitions have incentives to internalise the future costs of debt accumulation and reach cred…
How the Euro divides the union: The effect of economic adjustment on support for democracy in Europe
As often pointed out in the literature on the European debt crisis, the policy programme of austerity and internal devaluation imposed on countries in the Eurozone's periphery exhibits a lack of democratic legitimacy. This article analyses the consequences these developments have for democratic support at both the European and national levels. We show that through the policies of economic adjustment, a majority of citizens in crisis countries has…
Choosing the path of austerity: How Parties and Policy Coalitions Influence Welfare State Retrenchment in Periods of Fiscal Consolidation
What are the conditions under which some austerity programmes rely on substantial cuts to social spending? More specifically, do the partisan complexion and the type of government condition the extent to which austerity policies imply welfare state retrenchment? This article demonstrates that large budget consolidations tend to be associated with welfare state retrenchment. The findings support a partisan and a politico-institutionalist argument:…
The fiscal benefits of repeated cooperation: Coalitions and Debt Dynamics in 36 Democracies
Do coalition governments really suffer from short time horizons in fiscal policymaking, as posited by standard political-economy models? This article focusses on coalitions that have created high levels of familiarity through shared governing experiences in the past and that are likely to cooperate again in future governing coalitions. I argue that such coalitions have incentives to internalise the future costs of debt accumulation and reach cred…
Macroeconomic conditions, inequality shocks and the politics of redistribution, 1990–2013
This paper explores common trends in inequality and redistribution across OECD countries from the late 1980s to 2013. Low-end inequality rises during economic downturns while rising top-end inequality is associated with economic growth. Most countries retreated from redistribution from the mid-1990s until the onset of the Great Recession and compensatory redistribution in response to rising unemployment was weaker in 2008-13 than in the first hal…
Automation and the future of the welfare state: Basic income as a response to technological change
Technology entrepreneurs have endorsed a universal basic income (UBI) as a remedy against disruptions of the work force due to automation. The advancement of information technologies could thus drastically reshape welfare state policy, but its impact on citizens’ preferences about UBI is unexplored. We extend previous research on citizens’ preferences showing a link between job automation and demand for redistribution to the case of UBI preferenc…
The threat of social decline: Income Inequality and Radical Right Support
Income inequality and radical right parties have both been on the rise in Western democracies, yet few studies explore the linkages between the two - despite prominent arguments about voters feeling 'left behind'. We argue that rising inequality not only intensifies relative deprivation, but also signals a potential threat of social decline, as gaps in the social hierarchy widen. Hence, voters higher up in the social hierarchy may turn to the rad…
How redistributive policies reduce market inequality: Education premiums in 22 OECD countries
What explains the large cross-country variation in the wage premium for higher education? Economic analyses of wage differentials by education point to technological change and globalization, but we know little about the impact of different types of public policies. We argue that public education spending and tax-transfer policies contain the spread of 'education premiums' through material incentives (decommodification) and attitudinal responses,…
Redistributive preferences: Why actual income is ultimately more important than perceived income
An emerging consensus claims that ‘subjective’ (mis)perceptions of income inequality better explain redistributive preferences than actual ‘objective’ conditions. In this article, we critically re-assess this view. We compare perceived and actual income positions as predictors for preferences for redistribution. We argue that perceived income is partly endogenous to actual income and its effect on preferences conditional on ideology. Using an ori…
Occupational Social Class and Earnings Inequality in Europe: A Comparative Assessment
While there is renewed interest in earnings differentials between social classes, the contribution of social class to overall earnings inequality across countries and net of compositional effects remains largely uncharted territory. This paper uses data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions to assess earnings differentials between social classes (as measured by ESeC) and the role of between-class inequality in overall…
Between-Class Earnings Inequality in 30 European Countries: A Regression-Based Decomposition
This article studies earnings inequality between social classes across 30 European countries. Class inequality in earnings is found across the board although there are some exceptions. However, the degree of class inequality varies strongly across countries being larger in Western and Southern European countries and smaller in Eastern and Northern European countries. Furthermore, we find that differences in class composition in terms of observed …
Has the middle secured its share of growth or been squeezed
In striking contrast to the notion that democracy is under threat because 'the middle' has been 'squeezed' over recent decades, Iversen and Soskice (2019 Iversen, Torben, and David Soskice (2019). Democracy and Prosperity: Reinventing Capitalism through a Turbulent Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press. [Google Scholar]) in their book, Democracy and Prosperity, present an optimistic account about the future of democracy. This paper exami…
Insiders under pressure: Flexibilization at the margins and wage inequality
The rise of flexible employment in advanced democracies has been predominantly studied in the insider-outsider framework of the dualization literature. However, against the background of rising income inequality, it seems questionable to assume that all labor market insiders are equally affected by flexibilization. This paper explores whether flexibilization increases wage inequality among labor market insiders. I argue that flexibilization expos…
Covid-19 and welfare state support: The case of universal basic income
The COVID-19 pandemic has revived discussions about universal basic income (UBI) as a potential crisis response. Yet despite favorable circumstances, little actual policy change in this area was observed. This article seeks to explain this absence of policy change and to reflect on the prospects for introducing UBI schemes after the pandemic in European democracies. I argue that public opinion on UBI provides few electoral incentives to push for …
Rising income inequality and the relative decline in subjective social status of the working class
The declining ‘subjective social status’ of the low-educated working class has been advanced as a prominent explanation for right-wing populism. The working class has certainly been adversely affected by rising income inequality over the past decades, but we do not actually know if their perceived standing in the social hierarchy has declined correspondingly over time. This article examines trends in subjective social status in two ‘most likely c…
Objective Conditions Count, Political Beliefs Decide: The Conditional Effects of Self-Interest and Ideology on Redistribution Preferences
How can we explain variation in demand for redistribution among cross-pressured voters? We argue that redistributive preferences reflect an interaction between material self-interest and political ideology. The self-interest argument predicts growing opposition to redistribution as income increases, while the argument of ideologically driven preferences suggests that left-leaning citizens are more supportive of redistribution than right-leaning c…
Cross-Class Embeddedness through Family Ties and Support for Income Redistribution
There is long-standing evidence within the literature of class cleavages in social policy preferences. We re-evaluate class cleavages in support for redistribution by specifically focusing on the role played by cross-class embeddedness: the idea that individuals can be embedded in multiple social classes through family ties. Stronger affinity to the working class is hypothesized to be associated with stronger support for redistribution. We constr…
Stagnating incomes and preferences for redistribution: The role of absolute and relative experiences
Stagnating incomes have been a widespread concern in advanced democracies over the past decades. However, despite a turn towards dynamic frameworks, the consequences of stagnation on political support for the welfare state are still unclear. This study introduces the distinction between ‘absolute’ and ‘relative’ income stagnation – that is, experiencing stagnating incomes over time (without reference to other groups) and in relative comparison to…
Political mobilisation and socioeconomic inequality in policy congruence
In recent years, scholars have observed that political parties’ policy positions frequently fit the preferences of well‐to‐do voters better than those of the less well‐to‐do; a phenomenon known as policy congruence inequality. While the existence of inequality in policy congruence is well‐established, we currently only have a modest understanding of the causes of it. We develop an argument proposing that the political mobilisation of citizens wit…
Managing the Artificial Intelligence Revolution: Perceived Risks and Social Policy Preferences Among Firm‐Level Decision Makers
This paper examines the political and policy implications of artificial intelligence (AI) from the perspective of managers in Danish firms. We investigate how managers perceive AI's impact on the workplace, their preferences for social and regulatory policies to address AI's societal effects, and how information about AI's economic consequences and regulation influences these preferences. Utilising a novel firm‐level survey in Denmark with experi…
The Electoral Appeal of Symbolic Class Signalling Through Cultural Consumption
This letter investigates the electoral effects of symbolic class signalling through ‘cultural consumption’ in contemporary politics. We explore how politicians referring to an activity related to class-specific ‘cultural consumption’ – drinking beer in a pub or listening to classical music with a glass of wine – appeals to voters. We argue that symbolic class signalling has gained in importance due to the political realignment along the cultural …
Winning with equality: How left-wing parties attract votes but amplify electoral cleavages
Rising awareness about equal rights has opened a debate whether parties can balance emphasising both economic equality and equal rights as a successful electoral strategy. Using a novel dataset of 47,439 crowd-coded party manifesto statements and national election surveys from six countries (1970-2019) that allow us to analyze the electoral consequences of emphasising economic equality and equal rights, we examine how distinct equality concepts h…
Why Some Want Something for Nothing: Three Explanations for Unfunded Spending Demand
Several studies have documented ‘something for nothing’ (SFN) attitudes among citizens: preferences for increased government spending and lower taxes. Such a demand for unfunded public spending may generate unsustainable fiscal pressures. However, it is unclear what causes SFN attitudes at the individual level. While previous research emphasizes the role of political information, we explore how SFN attitudes also represent a rational response to …
Economics (19 works) · Political science (15 works) · Social Policy and Reform Studies (15 works) · Politics (12 works) · Demographic economics (10 works) · Inequality (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Labour economics (7 works) · Market economy (7 works)