Dom Perignon v. Miller Lite: Explaining Anti-Elite Attitudes in Individuals in Europe
Submission Type
Event
Faculty Advisor
Kathleen Montgomery
Expected Graduation Date
2018
Location
Room E105, Center for Natural Sciences, Illinois Wesleyan University
Start Date
4-21-2018 10:00 AM
End Date
4-21-2018 11:00 AM
Disciplines
Education
Abstract
Globally, as right-wing populism has gained a stronger footing, so have the ideas that right-wing populists support. Developed democracies are exhibiting high levels of political distrust and anti-elite sentiment, which poses a serious threat to the health of democracy and existing political systems. Despite the system-level trends that contribute to anti-elitism, there remain variations in individual anti-elite sentiment. Two broad schools of thought suggest explanations. One school suggests that the way an individual perceives and responds to their economic situation leads to anti-elite sentiment, the other contends that anti-elite sentiment has risen as a reactionary undercurrent to the “silent revolution” of the last half of the 20th Century. Using Round 7 of the European Social Survey (ESS), this research investigates a third approach which brings together insights of the cultural and economic explanations, the “left-behind” hypothesis, which finds that those who perceive themselves as “left-behind” by economic and cultural trends express stronger anti-elite sentiments than even the poorest “losers of globalization,” or the most traditionally conservative.
Dom Perignon v. Miller Lite: Explaining Anti-Elite Attitudes in Individuals in Europe
Room E105, Center for Natural Sciences, Illinois Wesleyan University
Globally, as right-wing populism has gained a stronger footing, so have the ideas that right-wing populists support. Developed democracies are exhibiting high levels of political distrust and anti-elite sentiment, which poses a serious threat to the health of democracy and existing political systems. Despite the system-level trends that contribute to anti-elitism, there remain variations in individual anti-elite sentiment. Two broad schools of thought suggest explanations. One school suggests that the way an individual perceives and responds to their economic situation leads to anti-elite sentiment, the other contends that anti-elite sentiment has risen as a reactionary undercurrent to the “silent revolution” of the last half of the 20th Century. Using Round 7 of the European Social Survey (ESS), this research investigates a third approach which brings together insights of the cultural and economic explanations, the “left-behind” hypothesis, which finds that those who perceive themselves as “left-behind” by economic and cultural trends express stronger anti-elite sentiments than even the poorest “losers of globalization,” or the most traditionally conservative.