Postmaterialist Particularism: What Petitions Can Tell Us About Biases in the Policy Agenda

Abstract

Groups with financial resources dominate the pool of lobbyists and political donors. Scholars and reformers often point to the outsized influence of moneyed elites when they consider economic inequality that results from public policy. Here, we expand the scope of existing work by focusing attention on the types of policy proposals placed on the issue agenda in a venue where financial resources are not a prerequisite for participation—policy-oriented online petitions. Even in this more egalitarian sphere of participation, the policy agenda reflects some of the same biases that exist in other venues. Specifically, petitioners favor particularistic policy proposals over those with broader consequences and they are inclined toward postmaterialist issues rather than redistributive ones. In this open and popular venue for policy engagement, redistributive policy is off the agenda. Our theory of postmaterialist particularism offers a behavioral-psychological lens through which to understand this phenomenon.