Third ISA Forum of Sociology (July 10-14, 2016)

JS-30

Economic Inequality, Distributive Preferences and Political Outcomes. Part I

RC42 Social Psychology (host committee)
RC18 Political Sociology

Language: English

Studies from the 1960s onwards tell us consistently that low socioeconomic status (SES) – particularly low formal education – is related to low political participation rates. Social science scholars have relied on a series of concepts attempting to explain this association, such as political efficacy, locus of control and even personality characteristics. Recent research in this line has taken into account concepts and measures of distributive justice, in which the present proposal is framed. 
This perspective put the focus on perceptions and beliefs regarding economic inequality from an empirical point of view, that is, individuals are asked directly through survey items about the degree of inequality they perceive as well as about what they consider a just distribution. 
From this approach, a possible explanation of the association between SES and participation could be related to the fact that (a) individuals do not perceive economic inequality accurately, and/or (b) individuals, to a certain extent, tolerate and even justify economic inequality. 
Within this framework, this session aims to discuss the links between inequality, distributive preferences, and political outcomes based on empirical studies. Furthermore, the session encourages the inclusion of context level inequality in the analysis (for instance, in cross-national comparisons) and broader social representations related to social justice in the discussion of the results. Posters: