Political Beliefs in an Era of Economic Decline: Farmers' Attitudes Toward State Economic Intervention,Trade, and Food Security1

Abstract The effects of the economy on political attitudes is a longstanding sociological issue that is receiving renewed attention in the face of recent U.S. economic downturns. While the impacts of the farm crisis on financial and household well-being of farm operators have been addressed by a number of studies, few have explored its political outcomes. Four perspectives that consider how economic forces translate into political beliefs are outlined, two reflecting objective economic position (class location and financial pressure) and two indicating subjective appraisals (feelings of economic uncertainty and subjective deprivation). Data from a sample of Ohio farm operators for 1987 are used to analyze how the perspectives are related to progressive beliefs about farming, the domestic nonfarm economy, and third-world food production. Indicators of objective economic position and subjective appraisals have relatively limited impact on farmers' political attitudes. Of these indicators, subjective appraisals were more closely related to attitudes. In addition, operators' stances on farm political issues also affect their views on domestic nonfarm and third-world policy agendas. Implications were found for studies of farmers' political attitudes as well as for broader sociological theory regarding the development of progressive attitudes during periods of economic decline.     

DYNAMIC INDICATORS OF SELF-PERCEIVED CONSERVATISM

This study looks at the relationship between standard indicators of conservatism and self-labeling behavior. Many of the variables believed to be indicative of conservatism and liberalism are not the variables people use when labeling themselves conservative or liberal. It is proposed that many of the standard social and political variables tend to be period- and age-specific in terms of their relationship to self-labeling behavior. The variables are period-specific because at any point in time there are a number of issues that are particularly salient and divisive, and therefore tend to affect self-labeling behavior. The variables are age-specific because social networks greatly influence sociopolitical attitudes and affiliations and the makeup of social networks tend to vary over the course of one's life. To test for the period- and age-specific nature of selflabeling behavior the General Social Survey is used. Results suggest that some standard indicators of conservatism are strongly correlated with self-perceived conservatism but only for the youngest age group. Results also show that moral issues such as premarital sex, abortion, pornography and marijuana use are particularly strong correlates of self-labeling behavior for these respondents.     

American Evangelicals and Conservative Politics: Past,Present, and Future

Since the late 1970s, American evangelicals have been a potent influence in conservative politics. Recent scholarship both refines and contextualizes some of the central themes found in the broader literature on evangelical politics. We first review key recent scholarship in American religious history. It shows that current patterns of evangelical conservatism are the product of historically contingent social forces and that political conservatism was never uniform among evangelicals. We then discuss recent scholarship on evangelicals' attitudes toward public issues. This work indicates that commitment to moral traditionalism on social issues is the dominant force animating evangelical political conservatism and that evangelicals remain distinctly Republican in their partisan voting despite economic and foreign policy commitments that are not as strongly aligned with Republican priorities. We then shift our focus to the dominant conservative movement of the moment: the Tea Party. We cite evidence that evangelicals and the Tea Party remain distinct in terms of constituents and issue priorities but that social concerns may be taking precedence over the economic concerns that birthed the movement. We conclude by discussing recent trends that suggest that a de‐alignment between evangelicalism and conservative politics may be underway.     

A note on democratization and economic conditions in Eastern Europe

This note empirically analyzes whether attitudes towards the progress in democratization in Eastern Europe are influenced by economic factors. It is found that both subjective and objective personal economic experiences as well as macroeconomic developments have a significant influence on perceptions of the progress in political transformation.     

An Examination of Social and Socio-Psychological Factors in Party Preferences: The Case of Greece*

Two important traditions of research on the causes of voting preferences, one that stresses social variables and is associated with the University of Columbia and the other that examines current issues and is identified with the University of Michigan Survey Research Institute, are drawn upon to help provide an analysis of political party preference in Greece. Among the social variables used in the study, age is the only significant one. Issues related to foreign policy concerns, socioeconomic redistribution, and government record tend to have strong effects on left-leaning party preference. It is suggested that Greek parties do tend to proclaim rather distinct positions on foreign policy issues and socioeconomic redistribution, and Greeks perceive a difference between the parties on these issues. However, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) in reality may not be as radical on foreign policy issues as some of its rhetoric suggests.     

A Politicization Paradigm: the Case of Yugoslavia*

This study uses data gathered in Yugoslavia to develop a predictive technique used to determine a person's combined degree of political participation and supporting political attitudes. The primary analytic variables used in the model were the following: (1) urbanness, (2) socioeconomic status, (3) atheism, (4) political consciousness–as determined by a five item index. The data are used to combine these variables into a predictive table which displays smooth linearity from high to low degree of politicization. in accord with the embryonic theory advanced.     

STRUCTURING POLITICAL OPINIONS:

Political democracy assumes that citizens can form consistent political attitudes that guide their political actions, thereby communicating political preferences to elites. Responding to the longstanding debate about the democratic competence of the U.S. mass public, we use a multitiered framework of opinion formation to describe the structure of mass opinion, showing that the mass public displays relatively consistent responses across multiple issues and uses these to evaluate presidential candidates. Confirmatory factor analysis allows us to examine multiple models of political attitudes, showing the best fit to be three positively correlated general orientations for economic, social, and racial issues. We find no significant racial or educational differences in the structuring of these attitudes but some evidence of "race-coding" of economic issues and class differences in levels of support for economic and social liberalism. Liberal/conservative self-identification operates as a basic structuring principle for organizing these general orientations with liberals and conservatives assigning different salience to specific issues. These general political orientations, in turn, influence presidential evaluations net of party loyalties. Although the mass public may not be ideologically sophisticated, it is "deliberative and reasonable" in its political thinking and, in this sense, democratically competent.     

Class voting, social change, and the left in Australia, 1943-96

The relationship between class and voting choices has been the subject of controversy in recent years, especially in connection with the apparent decline of the traditional left. This paper examines class voting in Australia, focusing on three major issues: (1) changes in the overall strength of class voting (2) realignment, or changes in the relative political positions of the classes (3) the connection between the strength of class voting and support for Labor. It finds that (1) there is a decline in 'general' class voting (2) much of this decline involves a realignment of certain middle class groups, but there is no support for the popular idea that class alignments have become more complex (3) there is no connection between the strength of class voting and Labor performance. Our results cast doubt on accounts that regard the electoral difficulties of left parties as a symptom of the decline of class.     

Economic Strain and Children's Behavior in the Aftermath of the Great Recession

Families across the income spectrum experienced subjective feelings of economic strain during the Great Recession. Existing evidence suggests that much of that economic strain did not arise from individual‐specific economic shocks, such as unemployment or income loss, as much as it did from worry and uncertainty about the future. The authors tested a model in which a measure of subjective perceptions of economic strain was the key predictor of children's behavior problems and objective indicators of economic experiences were treated as control variables. To do so, they used new data from a population‐based sample of children ages 4–17 (N = 303) living in southeast Michigan during the period 2009–2012. They found that economic strain exhibited a qualitatively large independent association with internalizing behavior problems for White—but not Black—children. This association was statistically significant over and above objective indicators of economic experiences and the family psychosocial context.     

Changing Social Work Students’ Perceptions of the Role of Government in a Policy Class

Understanding student political attitudes—feelings about government and perceptions of its role—has long been of interest to social scientists. One factor that may influence political attitudes is belief in a just world, a complex psychological construct well established in the literature. Our study explores changes in social work students’ perception of a supportive role of government and their beliefs in a just world after one policy course using a pretest and posttest design. Student perceptions changed toward a more supportive government role, but there was no significant change for belief in a just world. The study contributes to empirical evaluation of the social work education policy class in terms of the Council on Social Work Education competencies.     

Exploring Social Class: Voices of Inter‐Class Couples

Social class is not often discussed or examined in‐depth in couple and family therapy research and literature even though social class shapes familial relationships and is considered an important variable in marital satisfaction. In this qualitative study, we explored the perceptions of eight couples who made lasting commitments across class lines by asking them about the impact of their social class backgrounds on their relationships. Three categories of themes emerged including: (a) differences and similarities in values and attitudes toward education, work, money, and class awareness/classism, (b) relationship issues involving families of origin, friends, and class‐based couple conflict, and (c) differences in economic resources, social capital and privileges/opportunities. Implications for assessment and treatment of couples are included.     

Environmental Risk Exposure,Risk Perception,Political Ideology and Support for Climate Policy

The degree to which risk perceptions are socially constructed versus the result of actual exposure to risk is highly contested; how risk exposure and risk perception influence policy attitudes is also poorly understood. We examine how personal exposure to risk factors impacts risk perceptions and policy support related to air pollution and climate change. Our selection of risk exposure variables is informed by the “mental models” literature, and we employ an array of variables to capture subjective risk perceptions using novel survey data. We find that exposure to risk does little to predict risk perception and has a small influence on policy support. Overall, our findings lend support to a constructionist understanding of risk perception and support for policies related to environmental risks.     

SOCIAL CAPITAL AND DEMOCRACY IN A NEW DEMOCRACY

Taiwan made the transition from political authoritarianism to democracy in the late 1980s. Data from representative samples of the Taiwan population in 1992 and 1997 show how, in the early phase of democratization, citizens varied in the extent of their democratic political behavior and attitudes. I attempt to explain these variations on the basis of variables drawn from social capital theory (participation in voluntary organizations and trust), controlling for the individual's position in the social structure (sex, age, ethnicity, marital status, socioeconomic status, and social class). The findings of the multivariate analysis support only one of the social capital hypotheses: The more organizations one participates in, the more one engages in various forms of democratic political behavior . However, organizational participation has no effect on democratic political attitudes . There is no positive reciprocal relationship between the two key social capital variables of organizational participation and trust. Trust, instead of having a positive effect, either has no net effect (on some forms of democratic political behavior) or a significant negative effect (on democratic political attitudes and petitioning a government agency). The political context of Taiwan may explain why people who distrusted Taiwan's political system were more democratic and more tolerant in their attitudes than those who had more political trust.     

SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS AND RACIAL GROUP INTERESTS AMONG BLACK AMERICANS

ABSTRACT

This study assesses predictions from the dominant ideology thesis and theory of group interest concerning the relationship between socioeconomic status and racial solidarity across three domains of racial ideology. Findings from a local area sample (N = 184) in Cleveland, Ohio, provide considerable support for the theory of group interest. Racial solidarity indicators, such as the perception of discrimination, transcend individual socioeconomic status in constructing a group-based racial viewpoint. Conversely, traditional measures of class position, such as income and education, fail to induce attitudinal variation across the analyzed domains, namely causal attributions, racial politics, and attitudes toward interracial intimacy. In fact, the subjective social class measure, occupational prestige, tends to promote differences favorable to racial solidarity. These findings undermine the long-established conclusion that increased socioeconomic status exerts a conservatizing influence over racially/ethnically-specific attitudes. The implications shed light on the extent to which racial worldviews exist and directions for future research are mentioned.     

Social Factors Affecting Antitransgender Sentiment in a Sample of Greek Undergraduate Students

Objectives: This study examined the attitudes of Greek undergraduate students toward transgender individuals to identify specific social variables as predictors of negative attitudes. Based on previous research, it appeared that gender, political conservatism, religiosity, and sexual prejudice are useful variables to examine in predicting attitudes toward transgender individuals. The sample (N = 238) consisted of undergraduates at various departments of major universities in Athens, Greece. Methods: The Genderism and Transphobia Scale (GTS) was used along with the Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men Scale (ATLG) and a brief demographics questionnaire. Results: Correlation analysis showed that negative attitudes toward transgender individuals were positively associated with religiosity, frequency of attendance at religious services, political designation, gender, and sexual prejudice. Regression analysis revealed mainly gender and secondly sexual prejudice (as measured by the ATLG) to be independent predictors of attitudes toward transgender individuals. Conclusions: The findings shed light on the current status of undergraduate students’ attitudes toward transgender individuals and reveal important variables that affect these attitudes in a specific sociocultural environment.     

CONSTITUENT INTEREST VS. LEGISLATOR IDEOLOGY: THE ROLE OF POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY COST

This paper applies the economic model of legislative voting to the automobile industry domestic content vote in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982. We consider constituent interests for and against the Ml, and compare the predictive powers of alternative indicators of ideological preferences.
We also examine the role of political opportunity cost and find that lame ducks were significantly less likely to vote for the bill than were returnees to Congress. Given the political advantages of voting for the bill, this is consistent with the view that legislators were influenced by the case for freer trade.     

Spill‐Up and Spill‐Over of Trust: An Extended Test of Cultural and Institutional Theories of Trust in South Korea1

In comparison to the heated debate over the origins of trust in political institutions, few studies have empirically examined the linkage between trust in political and nonpolitical institutions at the individual level. In this study, we utilize a two‐step methodology to investigate attitudes toward the government in the broader context of attitudes toward related nonpolitical institutions in South Korea. Results from latent class analysis reveal that political trust is an integrated part of a more general set of attitudes toward social and economic institutions. In addition, results from multinomial logistic regression analysis corroborate past studies that found a positive relationship between perceptions of institutional performance and trust in institutions while partially supporting theories advocating the importance of interpersonal trust for institutional trust. This study points to the possibility of interpersonal trust “spilling up” to trust in institutions and the likelihood that trust in one institution “spills over” to trust in other related institutions.