Date Thesis Awarded
2013
Access Type
Honors Thesis -- Access Restricted On-Campus Only
Degree Name
Bachelors of Arts (BA)
Department
Government
Advisor
Ronald Rapoport
Committee Members
Jaime Settle
Caroline Hanley
Abstract
This thesis examines what circumstances compel individuals to take policy preferences in line with their objective self-interest. In particular, I argue that social class plays an important role in shaping individuals' policy preferences. Whereas recent work in political science has examined social class from the perspective of socioeconomic status, I contend that conceptualizing social class as a group identity plays an important complementary role. I show that social class identification has a statistically and substantively significant effect – comparable to changes in partisanship, ideology, and income – on individuals' preferences for a policy related to their economic situation. Ignoring social class identification when evaluating class effects prevents us from fully understanding individuals' preferences, a weakness especially consequential amidst concerns about politicians' responsiveness to low-income people.
Recommended Citation
Engelhardt, Andrew M., "Disadvantage and Self-interest: Social Class and Policy Preferences" (2013). Undergraduate Honors Theses. William & Mary. Paper 627.
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/627
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Comments
Thesis is part of Honors ETD pilot project, 2008-2013. Migrated from Dspace in 2016.