False Consciousness or Class Awareness? Local Income Inequality, Personal Economic Position, and Belief in American Meritocracy

Benjamin J. Newman, Christopher D. Johnston and Patrick L. Lown

American Journal of Political Science, 2015, vol. 59, issue 2, 326-340

Abstract: Existing research analyzes the effects of cross‐national and temporal variation in income inequality on public opinion; however, research has failed to explore the impact of variation in inequality across citizens’ local residential context. This article analyzes the impact of local inequality on citizens’ belief in a core facet of the American ethos—meritocracy. We advance conditional effects hypotheses that collectively argue that the effect of residing in a high‐inequality context will be moderated by individual income. Utilizing national survey data, we demonstrate that residing in more unequal counties heightens rejection of meritocracy among low‐income residents and bolsters adherence among high‐income residents. In relatively equal counties, we find no significant differences between high‐ and low‐income citizens. We conclude by discussing the implications of class‐based polarization found in response to local inequality with respect to current debates over the consequences of income inequality for American democracy.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12153

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:amposc:v:59:y:2015:i:2:p:326-340

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in American Journal of Political Science from John Wiley & Sons
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().