Perceptions and assessments of socialism versus the US System: experimental evidence

Abstract

ABSTRACT We address three main research questions in this paper. Do U.S. citizens have a realistic view of the U.S. political and economic system? Do citizens have a realistic view of what socialism looks like in most other Western style democracies? And finally, are differences between perception and reality modified by partisan identification and ideology? We run survey experiments with college students in two national universities located in the South in which we randomly ask respondents to evaluate political and economic systems based on either a label (“Socialism” or “The US System”) or a reasonable description of these systems’ main characteristics. Results. Across all participants, the label “Socialism” is slightly less preferred, but respondents are neutral between descriptions of a Socialist system and the current US system. Partisan and ideological differences are evident, however, as Democrats and Liberals rank the descriptions and labels of each system equally (indicating positive perceptions of Socialism), while Republicans and Conservatives assess the description of Socialism much more favorably than the mere label. Our results suggest that partisans do not simply differ in their evaluation of Socialism, but in the conception of what Socialism is. There also appear to be discrepancies in perceptions among partisans about how the US political and economic system is organized, but surprising agreement in evaluating the system as it exists.