Economic Inequality Representations in Three European Welfare Regimes

• In Event: Elite Discourse about Inequality and Framing Effects

Abstract

Background

High perceived economic inequality is linked to reduced political support, social trust, political activity, and satisfaction with welfare policies, irrespective of actual magnitude (Zmerli, 2019; Willis et al., 2022). However, objective measures of economic inequality exhibit weak and mixed relationships with demands for redistribution (Zmerli, 2019; Willis et al., 2022). State-of-the-art research suggests that in advanced welfare states, where the personal benefits of redistributive policies are uncertain or diffuse, people rely on their rhetorical environment to determine what they consider 'fair' and to promote positive representations of themselves within the social order (Cavaille, 2023; Wichowsky & Condon, 2020; Willis et al., 2023). The cues shaping public perceptions of economic inequality may be multiple and unclear (Grisold & Preston, 2020). For example, media coverage of Piketty's work on inequality often employs various metaphors, leading to mixed support for his ideas (Grisold & Preston, 2020), and may ambivalently represent the welfare state as a collective resource-pooling or individual market competition (Cavaille, 2023; Guardino, 2019). Additionally, verified knowledge on the topic coexists within an increasingly mediatized environment that often denigrates ‘undeserving’ beneficiaries of redistributive policies, perpetuating public concerns about 'free riders' (Cavaille, 2023; Wichowsky & Condon, 2020).

Aims

Our research project seeks to make empirical, theoretical, and methodological improvements on functional models by: (1) connecting the contents of economic inequality representations to alternative moral norms embedded in ideal welfare types; (2) linking media analyses of inequality with communications from elite political actors; (3) exploring ambiguities in political rhetoric that allow the public to both affirm and deny the need for redistribution.

Methods

Our research program qualitatively explores the politicization of economic inequality representations. We analyze data from the UK's liberal, France's conservative, and Sweden's social democratic welfare regimes, each representing distinct moral economies. A generative approach is taken to corpora construction. To describe the broad thematic structure for the politicization of economic inequality representation, we have analyzed 20 years of party programs from the main parties in each country. Semantics identified as key to the representation of economic inequality in party programs, such as identity-emotion configurations (e.g., dignity), perceived groups (e.g., benefit frauds), and policy solutions (e.g., pension triple lock), guide the selection of further research materials. These include parliamentary debates, political social media (e.g., X [formerly known as Twitter]), think tanks, online/print media, news aggregators, and podcasts, a process supported by main body keyword searches in aggregators relevant to political communication (e.g., Lexis Nexis, Hansard).

Theories of themata (Markova, 2023), defined as dialogical units ingrained in culture (e.g., Moral/Immoral), enable an exploration into the rhetorical ambivalences. To identify themata, we iteratively progressed through open, axial, and selective coding (Joffe, 2011), paying close attention to possible latent representations, as suggested through the selected use of metaphors, symbols, and group identifiers, while also considering selective absences. Coding and corpus construction progressed in parallel, concluding when the underlying units of representation were fully described, achieving theoretical rather than data saturation (Joffe, 2011).

The identification of themata makes three key methodological-theoretical innovations relevant to the research aims: (1) as themata are relational, they provide a structure to qualitatively describe coexisting tensions in representations (i.e., statements that both affirm and deny the need for redistribution); (2) they facilitate an understanding of how identity representations (Self/Other) are embedded in political communication, shaping the affective embodiments of public opinion (Markova, 2023); (3) they provide a common structure to describe within- and between-country similarities and differences in the development of economic inequality representations. For example, within a common harm/protect thema, in conservative France, where social insurance relies more heavily on contributions, debates centre on those harmed by pension reform. In contrast, in the liberal UK, where benefits are means-tested, discussions focus on the harms experienced by morally valued groups due to exposure to those at the income extremes (e.g., the homeless).

Conclusion

Our research project advances functional models of public opinion, delving into the unique and ambiguous political rhetoric within the Liberal, Conservative, and Social Democratic welfare regimes to better understand the social basis of public opinion.

Authors

• Daniel Alexander Benjamin Walsh, University of Grenoble

• Sonja Zmerli, Sciences Po Grenoble UGA

• Michael William Webb, University of Florida