Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-m9kch Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-01T09:00:41.336Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Education and the Zeitgeist: government positions and public opinion on income distribution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2011

Tor G. Jakobsen
Tor G. Jakobsen*
Affiliation:
Trondheim Business School, Jonsvannsveien, Trondheim, Norway
*
* E-mail: tor.g.jakobsen@hist.no
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Despite a sizable literature on the elite mass linkage, few of these studies are cross-national. In this paper, I apply multilevel ordered logit models to investigate public opinion toward redistribution in 23 European countries. I test whether these views depend on: (1) the policies of the government (i.e. the bandwagon effect) and (2) personal interest, as indicated by income and education. Briefly, the bandwagon effect appears when people’s perception of strong support for one line of thinking leads to their adopting this reasoning. The self-interest argument states that those who would benefit from a redistributive policy are likely to support it. In addition, I argue that higher education has a dual nature, consisting of an interest in providing one’s own self-interest as well as a critical thinking component. Elite opinion is quantified from the party manifestos of incumbent parties and tested against data from the European Social Survey. I find no significant direct effect of political elite views on public opinion. On the other hand, there is strong support for the self-interest argument, and yet the rightist tendency for higher educated persons is significantly smaller if their government is economically conservative. This finding is attributed to the critical thinking argument as well as to the reasoning that higher education makes people better able to filter political information, thus countering the bandwagon effect.

Keywords

public opinionincome distributioneducationcritical theorymultilevel
Type
Research Article
Information
European Political Science Review , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , 25 February 2011 , pp. 103 - 124
Copyright
Copyright © European Consortium for Political Research 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aalberg, T. (2003), Achieving Justice: Comparative Public Opinion on Income Distribution, Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Albright, J.J. (2009), ‘Does political knowledge erode party attachments?: a review of the cognitive mobilization thesis’, Electoral Studies 28: 248–260.Google Scholar
Alesina, A.Fuchs-Schündeln, N. (2007), ‘Good-bye Lenin (or not?): the effect of communism on people’s preferences’, American Economic Review 97: 1507–1528.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alpert, H. (1956), ‘Public opinion research as science’, Public Opinion Quarterly 20: 493–500.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barabas, J.Jerit, J. (2009), ‘Estimating the causal effects of media coverage on policy-specific knowledge’, American Journal of Political Science 53: 73–89.Google Scholar
Baron, R.M.Kenny, D.A. (1986), ‘The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 51: 1173–1182.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Berger, P.L.Luckmann, T. (1966), Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, New York: Doubleday and Company.Google Scholar
Brettschneider, F. (1996), ‘Public opinion and parliamentary action: responsiveness of the German Bundestag in comparative perspective’, International Journal of Public Opinion Research 8: 292–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brooks, J.E. (1985), ‘Democratic frustration in the Anglo-American polities: a quantification of inconsistency between mass public opinion and public policy’, Western Political Quarterly 38: 250–261.Google Scholar
Brooks, J.E. (1990), ‘The opinion-policy nexus in Germany’, Public Opinion Quarterly 54: 508–529.Google Scholar
Budge, I., Klingemann, H.-D., Volkens, A., Bara, J.Tannenbaum, E. (2001), Mapping Policy Preferences: Estimates for Parties, Electors, and Governments, 1945-1998, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butler, D. (1996), ‘Polls and elections’, in L. LeDuc, R.G. Niemi and P. Norris (eds), Comparing Democracies: Elections and Voting in Global Perspective, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 236–253.Google Scholar
Corneo, G.Grüner, H.P. (2002), ‘Individual preferences for political redistribution’, Journal of Public Economics 83: 83–107.Google Scholar
Dahl, R.A. (1967), Pluralist Democracy in the United States, Chicago, IL: Rand McNally.Google Scholar
Dahl, R.A. (1982), Dilemmas of Pluralist Democracy: Autonomy vs. Control, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Dalton, R.J. (2007), ‘Partizan mobilization, cognitive mobilization, and the changing american electorate’, Electoral Studies 26: 274–286.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downs, A. (1957), An Economic Theory of Democracy, New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Edlund, J. (1999), ‘Trust in government and welfare regimes: attitudes to redistribution and financial cheating in the USA and Norway’, European Journal of Political Research 35: 341–370.Google Scholar
Eriksen, K.Fallan, L. (1996), ‘Tax knowledge and attitudes towards taxation: a report on a quasi-experiment’, Journal of Economic Psychology 17: 387–402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eveland, W.P. (2004), ‘The effect of political discussion in producing informed citizens: the roles of information, motivation, and elaboration’, Political Communication 21: 177–193.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eveland, W.P.Scheufele, D. (2000), ‘Connecting news media use with gaps in knowledge and participation’, Political Communication 17: 215–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fairbrother, G.P. (2003), ‘The effects of political education and critical thinking on Hong Kong and mainland Chinese university students’ national attitudes’, British Journal of Sociology of Education 24: 605–620.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fallan, L. (1999), ‘Gender, exposure to tax knowledge, and attitudes towards taxation: an experimental approach’, Journal of Business Ethics 18: 173–184.Google Scholar
Finseraas, H. (2010), ‘What if Robin Hood is a social conservative? How the political response to increasing inequality depends on party polarization’, Socio-Economic Review 8: 283–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franzmann, S.Kaiser, A. (2006), ‘Locating political parties in policy space: a reanalysis of Party Manifesto data’, Party Politics 12: 163–188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giddens, A. (1984), The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Ginsberg, B. (1986), The Captive Public: How Mass Opinion Promotes State Power, New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Giroux, H.A. (1983a), ‘Theories of reproduction and resistance in the new sociology of education: a critical analysis’, Harvard Educational Review 53: 257–295.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giroux, H.A. (1983b), Theory and Resistance in Education: A Pedagogy for the Opposition, South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey.Google Scholar
Habermas, J. (1968), Erkenntnis und Interesse [Knowledge and Human Interests], Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Inglehart, R. (1990), Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Jæger, M.M. (2006), ‘Welfare regimes and attitudes towards redistribution: the regime hypothesis revisited’, European Sociological Review 22: 157–170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jowell, R. and the Central Co-ordinating Team (2005), European Social Survey, Round 2, London: Centre for Comparative Social Surveys.Google Scholar
Kelman, H.C. (1958), ‘Compliance, identification, and internalization: three processes of attitude change’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 2: 51–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klingemann, H.-D., Volkens, A., Bara, J., Budge, I.McDonald, M. (2006), Mapping Policy Preferences II: Estimates for Parties, Electors, and Governments in Eastern Europe, European Union, and OECD 1990-2003, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koch, M.T. (2007), ‘Testing the “Dick Cheney” hypothesis: do governments of the left attract more terrorism than governments of the right?’, Conflict Management and Peace Science 24: 311–326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Konrad, K.A.Spadaro, A. (2006), ‘Education, redistributive taxation and confidence’, Journal of Public Economics 90: 171–188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis-Beck, M.S., Nadeau, R.Elias, A. (2008), ‘Economics, party, and the vote: causality issues and panel data’, American Journal of Political Science 52: 84–95.Google Scholar
Lindblom, C.E. (1977), Politics and Markets: The World’s Political-Economic Systems, New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Listhaug, O.Aalberg, T. (1999), ‘Comparative public opinion on distributive justice: a study of equity ideals and attitudes toward current policies’, International Journal of Comparative Sociology 40: 117–140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, Y.I.Eveland, W.P. (2005), ‘Education, need for cognition, and campaign interest as moderators of news effects on political knowledge: an analysis of the knowledge gap’, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 82: 910–929.Google Scholar
Manley, J.F. (1983), ‘Neo-pluralism: a class analysis of pluralism I and pluralism II’, American Political Science Review 77: 368–383.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manow, P., Schafer, A.Zorn, H. (2008), ‘Europe’s Party-Political Centre of Gravity, 1957–2003’, Journal of European Public Policy 15: 20–39.Google Scholar
McAllister, I.Studlar, D.T. (1991), ‘Bandwagon, underdog, or projection? Opinion polls and electoral choice in Britain, 1979–1987’, Journal of Politics 53: 720–741.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonald, M.D., Mendès, S.M.Kim, M. (2007), ‘Cross-temporal and cross-national comparisons of party left-right positions’, Electoral Studies 26: 62–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Monroe, A.D. (1998), ‘Public opinion and public policy, 1980-1993’, Public Opinion Quarterly 62: 6–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Netjes, C.E.Binnema, H.A. (2007), ‘The salience of the European integration issue: three data sources compared’, Electoral Studies 26: 39–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noelle-Neumann, E. (1984), The Spiral of Silence: Public Opinion – Our Social Skin, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
OECD (2005), Modernising Government: The Way Forward, Paris: OECD.Google Scholar
Page, B.I.Shapiro, R.Y. (1983), ‘Effects of public opinion on policy’, American Political Science Review 77: 175–190.Google Scholar
Petry, F. (1999), ‘The opinion-policy relationship in Canada’, Journal of Politics 61: 540–550.Google Scholar
Ray, L. (2007), ‘Validity of measured party positions on European integration: assumptions, approaches, and a comparison of alternative measures’, Electoral Studies 26: 11–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, A.M. (1967), The Power Structure: Political Process in American Society, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schmidt, V.A. (2002), ‘Does discourse matter in the politics of welfare state adjustment?’, Comparative Political Studies 35: 168–193.Google Scholar
Stimson, J.A. (1991), Public Opinion in America: Moods, Cycles and Swings, Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Svallfors, S. (2004), ‘Class, attitudes and the welfare state: Sweden in comparative perspective’, Social Policy and Administration 38: 119–138.Google Scholar
Svallfors, S. (2010), ‘Policy feedback, generational replacement, and attitudes to state intervention: Eastern and Western Germany, 1990–2006’, European Political Science Review 2: 119–135.Google Scholar
Thorisdottir, H., Jost, J.T., Livatan, I.Shrout, P.E. (2007), ‘Psychological needs and values underlying left-right political orientation: cross-national evidence from Eastern and Western Europe’, Public Opinion Quarterly 71: 175–203.Google Scholar
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (2005), Human Development Report 2005: International Cooperation at a Crossroads: Aid, Trade and Security in an Unequal World, New York: United Nations, from http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/hdr05_hdi1.pdfGoogle Scholar
Volkens, A. (2007), ‘Strengths and weaknesses of approaches to measuring policy positions of parties’, Electoral Studies 26: 108–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walgrave, S.Nuytemans, M. (2009), ‘Friction and party manifesto change in 25 countries, 1945–98’, American Journal of Political Science 53: 190–206.Google Scholar
Zaller, J.R. (1992), The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar