Support for Socialist Policies: The Ideological Logic of Everyday Practices

Abstract

To better understand why individuals come to support economic policies that increase inequalities, we suggest a more expansive understanding of ideology. A broad understanding of ideology predicts that daily engagement with the material world will produce certain narratives about the self and the obstacles faced by people. We review studies on child-rearing practices and social psychological studies on diverging understandings of the self that highlight the contrasting narratives of working and middle class people. We argue that these different narratives play a role in explaining why individuals come to support certain economic policies. This more expansive understanding of the concept of ideology can help researchers trace the links between material conditions, ideological narratives, and support for socialist or capitalist economic policies, heeding Lott's (2015) call for a structural analysis.