WHAT AFFECTS ATTITUDES TOWARDS GOVERNMENT'S ROLE IN SOLVING UNEMPLOYMENT? A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF GREAT BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES

Abstract

This study proposes a path model to examine the formation of public attitudes towards government's role in solving unemployment, comparing Great Britain and the United States. The ‘symbolic politics’ literature argues that people's policy preferences (regarded as ‘means attitudes’ in our study) are shaped by their general political and social values (regarded as ‘goal attitudes’); whereas most empirical research has focused on how SES characteristics directly translate into policy preferences. It is argued in this article that one's attitude towards government's responsibility in reducing income inequality (the goal attitude) is an important link through which SES influences one's attitude towards government's role in solving unemployment (the means attitude). SES characteristics are important in affecting the means attitudes only insofar as they shape the goal attitudes. It is also argued that perceptions of intergenerational mobility, a factor largely ignored by prior public opinion research, affect the means attitudes indirectly, operating through the goal attitudes. Based upon studies on the cultural/structural differences in the two countries, we predict party affiliation is more important in swaying public attitudes in Britain, whereas education and family income are more important in the United States. Multiple-item structural equation modeling is used to test these hypotheses with data from the 1985 Role of Government, International Social Survey Programme.