Keeping up with the Joneses? Perceptions of mobility and opportunity within local knowledge economies across Germany
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9537397 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kattalina M Berriochoa (0000-0003-3446-8640, University of Konstanz, corresponding author), Marius R Busemeyer (0000-0003-4085-1689, University of Konstanz) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 61 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 414-433 |
| Publication date | 2026-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Acta Politica (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0001-6810 • E-ISSN: 1741-1416 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1057/s41269-024-00382-2 |
| OpenAlex | W4406395236 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 64 |
Recent work on the rise of the knowledge economy has identified the importance of economic context in shaping individual perceptions and preferences. Combining novel survey and locally fine-grained data for the case of Germany, we analyze the association between local knowledge economies and individual perceptions of social mobility and economic opportunity. We find that individual perceptions of mobility, access to affordable housing, and employment security are negatively associated with thriving local knowledge economies. This finding is partly at odds with accounts of ‘aspirational voters’ being the beneficiaries of local economic growth. Rather, we interpret our findings as supporting the ‘status anxiety’ hypothesis, which attributes negative mobility perceptions with competition for scarce economic and social resources. In time, these perceptions can become fertile ground for the development of populist attitudes and vote choices
Classical economics · Economic geography · Economics · Growth model · Keeping up with the Joneses · Perception · Socioemotional selectivity theory · Cultural Industries and Urban Development · Medicine · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Psychology · Regional Development and Policy · Gerontology
The Complementarity Between Cities and Skills
Status threat, not economic hardship, explains the 2016 presidential vote
The Political Economy of the Service Transition
Pursuing the Knowledge Economy
Who sees an hourglass? Assessing citizens’ perception of local economic inequality
Cities and the Creative Class
Inequality and the Knowledge Economy
Inside the black box of regional development--human capital, the creative class and tolerance
The evolution of specialization in the EU15 knowledge space
Not So Cool Britannia
From Knowledge Economy to Automation Anxiety
Populism
Perceptions of regional inequality and the geography of discontent
Why Cities Lose
The Bifurcation of Politics
The Divergent Dynamics of Cities and Towns
The Effect of Trade on Workers and Voters
How Important is Methodology for the Estimates of the Determinants of Happiness
Place resentment in ‘the places that don’t matter’
The Changing Cleavage Politics of Western Europe
Regional inequality and institutional trust in Europe
The path from trade to right-wing populism in Europe
Cultural Backlash? How (Not) to Explain the Rise of Authoritarian Populism
Democracy and Prosperity
Democratic Limits to Redistribution
The Transition to the Knowledge Economy, Labor Market Institutions, and Income Inequality in Advanced Democracies
The Development of the Education Cleavage
Housing and populism
Inequality in the Social Mind
The unequal effect of economic development on perceived labor market risks and welfare
How Labor Market Inequality Transforms Mass Politics
Community Income Inequality and the Economic Gap in Participation
Rising Inequality and the Politics of Redistribution in Affluent Countries
The political economy of high skills
Redistribution attitudes and vote choice across the educational divide
Class and social policy in the knowledge economy
Transitions to the Knowledge Economy in Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands
Populism as a Problem of Social Integration
The Declining Middle
Economic Geography, Politics, and Policy
Aspiration Versus Apprehension
Intergenerational Social Mobility, Political Socialization and Support for the Left under Post-industrial Realignment
Place and Policy Preferences – Spatial Divides in Attitudes towards Social Policies in Germany
The Localist Turn in Populism Studies
The threat of social decline
Place-based identities and cleavage formation in the knowledge society
Brexit and the Politics of the Rural
Income inequality and redistribution in post-industrial democracies
The Geography of Complex Knowledge
Purple America
An Asset Theory of Social Policy Preferences
Insider-Outsider Politics in Industrialized Democracies
Secular Partisan Realignment in the United States
The Knowledge Economy
Giving Up on the Joneses? The Relationship between Income Inequality and Status-seeking
Who Feels Inferior? A Test of the Status Anxiety Hypothesis of Social Inequalities in Health
The skill-divide in job quality
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 7 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |