Abstract
This paper uses original survey data to explore the landscape of support for a number of aspects of what might be called “the American Dream:” the notion that hard work is rewarded, and individuals succeed and fail due primarily to their own efforts. In general, I find that Americans generally endorse the idea that hard work leads to success and that economic mobility is possible for those willing to put in the effort, but that there is significant individual and contextual variation in support for those beliefs. I find that most variation in support for meritocratic belief is a function of simple partisan politics: differences between liberals and conservatives, and between Democrats and Republicans, are far more important to explaining meritocratic belief than any other sociodemographic factor. But attributes of the context in which one lives matter as well. Among other things, this paper highlights the importance of local economic decline as an important topic for future research: those who live in communities that have seen their relative economic fortunes drop over the past decade are less likely to believe in meritocracy than those who have seen their communities thrive.
References
Alesina, Alberto, and Edward Glaeser. 2004. Fighting Poverty in the US and Europe: A World of Difference. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/0199267669.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Aronson, Eliot. 1999. The Social Animal. New York: Worth Publishing.Search in Google Scholar
Bageant, Joe. 2013. Deer Hunting with Jesus: Guns, Votes, Debt and Delusion in Redneck America. New York: Portobello Books.Search in Google Scholar
Barker, David C., and James D. Tinnick. 2006. “Competing Visions of Parental Roles and Ideological Constraint.” American Political Science Review 100: 249–263.10.1017/S0003055406062149Search in Google Scholar
Baybeck, Brady, and Scott D. McClurg. 2005. “What do they Know and how do they Know it? An Examination of Citizen Awareness of Context.” American Politics Research 33: 492–520.10.1177/1532673X04270934Search in Google Scholar
Benabou, Roland, and Jean Tirole. 2011. “Identity, Dignity and Taboos: Beliefs as Assets.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 126: 805–855.10.2139/ssrn.964947Search in Google Scholar
Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne. 2007. Neighborhood Poverty: Context and Consequences for Children. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Search in Google Scholar
Campbell, James. 2016. Polarized: Making Sense of a Divided America. Princeton: Princeton University Press.10.1515/9781400883448Search in Google Scholar
Cho, Wendy K. Tam, and Thomas J. Rudolph. 2008. “Emanating Political Participation: Untangling the Spatial Structure Behind Participation.” British Journal of Political Science 38: 273–289.10.1017/S0007123408000148Search in Google Scholar
Corak, Miles. 2013. “Income Inequality, Equality of Opportunity, and Intergenerational Mobility.” The Journal of Economic Perspectives 27: 79–102.10.1257/jep.27.3.79Search in Google Scholar
Ellis, Christopher, and Stimson, James. 2012. Ideology in America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139094009Search in Google Scholar
Ellis, Christopher. 2017. Putting Inequality in Context. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.10.3998/mpub.9535979Search in Google Scholar
Enns, Peter, and Christopher Wlezien. 2011. Who Gets Represented? New York: Russell Sage Press.Search in Google Scholar
Frank, Thomas. 2005. What’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America. New York: Holt.Search in Google Scholar
Gaventa, J. 1980. Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.Search in Google Scholar
Goodin, Robert, and John Dryzek. 1980. “Rational Participation: The Politics of Relative Power.” British Journal of Political Science 10: 273–292.10.1017/S0007123400002209Search in Google Scholar
Hacker, Jacob S. 2006. The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Hennes, Erin P., H. Hannah Nam, Chadly Stern, and John T. Jost. 2014. “Not All Ideologies are Created Equal: Epistemic, Existential, and Relational Needs Predict System-Justifying Attitudes.” Social Cognition 6: 669–688.10.1521/soco.2012.30.6.669Search in Google Scholar
Hershey, Marjorie. 2014. Party Politics in America. New York: Routledge.10.4324/9781315663364Search in Google Scholar
Hochschild, Jennifer. 1981. What’s Fair?: American Beliefs about Distributive Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Huckfeldt, Robert. 1986. Politics in Context: Assimilation and Conflict in Urban Neighborhoods. New York: Agathon Press.Search in Google Scholar
Iyengar, Shanto, Gaurav Sood, and Yphtach Lelkes. 2012. “Affect, not Ideology: A Social Identity Perspective on Polarization.” Public Opinion Quarterly 76 (3): 405–431.10.1093/poq/nfs038Search in Google Scholar
Jost, John T., and David M. Amodio. 2012. “Political Ideology as Motivated Social Cognition: Behavioral and Neuroscientific Evidence.” Motivation and Emotion 36: 55–64.10.1007/s11031-011-9260-7Search in Google Scholar
Kelly, Nathan J., and Peter K. Enns. 2010. “Inequality and the Dynamics of Public Opinion: The Self-Reinforcing Link between Economic Inequality and Mass Preferences.” American Journal of Political Science 54: 855–870.10.1111/j.1540-5907.2010.00472.xSearch in Google Scholar
Kluegel, James R., and Eliot R. Smith. 1986. Beliefs About Inequality: Americans’ Views of What is and What Ought to Be. New York: Transaction Publishers.Search in Google Scholar
Lipset, Seymour Martin, and Gary Marks. 2000. It Didn’t Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States. New York: WW Norton Press.Search in Google Scholar
McCall, Leslie. 2013. The Undeserving Rich: American Beliefs about Inequality, Opportunity, and Redistribution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139225687Search in Google Scholar
Newman, Benjamin J., Christopher D. Johnston, and Patrick L. Lown. 2015. “False Consciousness or Class Awareness? Local Income Inequality, Personal Economic Position, and Belief in American Meritocracy.” American Journal of Political Science 59: 326–340.10.1111/ajps.12153Search in Google Scholar
Oorschot, Wim van, and Loek Halman. 2000. “Blame or Fate, Individual or Social?” European Societies 2: 1–28.10.1080/146166900360701Search in Google Scholar
Perkins, Krystal M., and William E. Cross Jr. 2014. “False Consciousness and the Maintenance of Injustice.” The Praeger Handbook of Social Justice and Psychology 12: 97–112.Search in Google Scholar
Sampson, Robert J. 2003. “The Neighborhood Context of Well-Being.” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 46: 53–64.10.1353/pbm.2003.0059Search in Google Scholar
Shepelak, Norma J. 1989. “Ideological Stratification: American Beliefs about Economic Justice.” Social Justice Research 3: 217–231.10.1007/BF01048450Search in Google Scholar
Solt, Frederick. 2008. “Economic Inequality and Democratic Political Engagement.” American Journal of Political Science 52: 48–60.10.1111/j.1540-5907.2007.00298.xSearch in Google Scholar
Solt, Frederick. 2010. “Does Economic Inequality Depress Electoral Participation? Testing the Schattschneider Hypothesis.” Political Behavior 32: 285–301.10.1007/s11109-010-9106-0Search in Google Scholar
Solt, Frederick, Yue Hu, Kevan Hudson, Jungmin Song, and Dong Erico Yu. 2016. “Economic Inequality and Belief in Meritocracy in the United States.” Research & Politics 3: 1–7.10.1177/2053168016672101Search in Google Scholar
Sombart, Werner. 1976. Why is There No Socialism in the United States? New York: ME Sharpe.10.1007/978-1-349-02524-4Search in Google Scholar
Soroka, Stuart, and Christopher Wlezien. 2010. Degrees of Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511804908Search in Google Scholar
Tate, William F. 2008. “Geography of Opportunity: Poverty, Place, and Educational Outcomes.” Educational Researcher 37: 397–411.10.3102/0013189X08326409Search in Google Scholar
Twyman, Joe. 2008. “Getting it Right: YouGov and Online Survey Research in Britain.” Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties 18: 343–354.10.1080/17457280802305169Search in Google Scholar
Ura, Joseph Daniel, and Christopher R. Ellis. 2008. “Income, Preferences, and the Dynamics of Policy Responsiveness” PS: Political Science and Politics 41: 785–794.10.1017/S104909650808102XSearch in Google Scholar
Vance, J. D. 2016. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. New York: HarperCollins.Search in Google Scholar
Walsh, Katherine Cramer. 2016. The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Weber, Max. 1930. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York: Scribners.Search in Google Scholar
©2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
