Watson Barry, Law Stephen, Osberg Lars
University of New Brunswick, Saint John, Canada.
Mount Allison University, Sackville, Canada.
Soc Indic Res. 2022;159(2):667-705. doi: 10.1007/s11205-021-02767-8. Epub 2021 Aug 4.
We investigate whether greater economic insecurity increases distrust in government and fosters authoritarian politics. Using the 2016 American National Election Studies dataset, we build on the literature regarding "egotropic" and "sociotropic" economic concerns to distinguish between "micro" insecurity (perceived insecurity regarding the individual's own personal economic well-being), and "macro" insecurity (negative expectations concerning the macro economy). Our results suggest micro insecurity is not significantly correlated with attitudinal differences, but macro-level insecurity is associated with increased levels of political distrust, accompanied by greater authoritarianism. Greater macro-level insecurity is also associated with more negative feelings toward "out-groups" (e.g. Muslims, the LGBTQ+ community, feminists, immigrants) and was a key predictor in reduced affinity for Hillary Clinton and the rise in support for Donald Trump. Results are robust to controls for political affiliation and aggregate macroeconomic indicators, suggesting that rising levels of income inequality and weakening social safety nets increase political polarization and encourage xenophobia, racism, and homophobia.
我们研究了更大程度的经济不安全感是否会增加对政府的不信任并助长威权政治。利用2016年美国全国选举研究数据集，我们以关于“自我导向型”和“社会导向型”经济担忧的文献为基础，区分“微观”不安全感（对个人自身经济福祉的感知不安全感）和“宏观”不安全感（对宏观经济的负面预期）。我们的结果表明，微观不安全感与态度差异没有显著相关性，但宏观层面的不安全感与政治不信任程度的增加有关，同时伴随着更强的威权主义。更大的宏观层面不安全感还与对“外群体”（如穆斯林、 LGBTQ+群体、女权主义者、移民）的更多负面情绪有关，并且是对希拉里·克林顿的好感度降低以及对唐纳德·特朗普的支持率上升的关键预测因素。这些结果在对政治派别和总体宏观经济指标进行控制后依然稳健，表明收入不平等加剧和社会安全网削弱会加剧政治两极分化，并助长仇外心理、种族主义和恐同心理。
