The color of class politics: economic position, racial resentment, and attitudes about redistribution
Persistent URL
Author(s)
Bloeser, Andrew J.
Williams, Tarah
Date Issued
March 15, 2022
Abstract
Racial resentment has been linked to opposition towards welfare programs for the poor and other redistributive policies. Theoretical work implies that because redistributive polices have been rhetorically linked to negative racial stereotypes, racially resentful whites will oppose redistributive policies, even when they might benefit from them. However, this proposition has not been empirically tested. Using the 2016 American National Election Study, we examine whether the relationship between racial resentment and a variety of economic policy attitudes is conditional by individuals' income level. We find that the relationship between racial resentment and opposition to redistribution is weaker for lower income whites than for whites with higher incomes. When it comes to redistributive preferences, economic self-interest tempers the influence of racial resentment for lower income whites. For whites with higher incomes, however, the influence of racial resentment on redistributive preferences is significantly larger. This indicates that in the absence of directly benefiting from a redistributive policy, whites will oppose it if they harbor racial antipathy. We exploit the time series design of the ANES to demonstrate that these patterns hold across multiple election cycles (2004-2016).
Journal
Politics Groups and Identities
Department
Political Science
Citation
Andrew J. Bloeser & Tarah Williams (2022) The color of class politics: economic position, racial resentment, and attitudes about redistribution, Politics, Groups, and Identities, 10:2, 233-253, DOI: 10.1080/21565503.2020.1773279
Publisher
Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis
Version of Article
Published article
DOI
10.1080/21565503.2020.1773279
ISSN
2156-5503
2156-5511
Rights
© 2020 Western Political Science Association
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Name
2022_03_15_Bloesser_and_Williams_Color.pdf
Description
For administrative access only. Please visit the publisher's website to obtain a copy of the article. Members of the Allegheny College community should search for the article in AggreGator to obtain access.
Size
2.22 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
3cb0192cb2e6c5fd4f7764e43c66ebe4