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Who's the Fairest in the Land?: Ideology's Impact on Economic Voting

There are generally considered to be three main types of economic voting: pocketbook, sociotropic, and group based. In their article "Dimensions of Sociotropic Behavior: Group-Based Judgments of Fairness and Well Being," Diana Mutz and Jeffery Mondak propose a fourth type that is derived from group based voting: fairness voting. This new model of voting suggests that voters consider the relative economic wellbeing of socioeconomic classes, in addition to the traditional considerations of personal, national, and group wellbeing, when deciding on a candidate or party to support. Using data from the 1984 South Bend Study, they estimate a series of logistic regression models and conclude that there is, indeed, strong evidence that fairness plays a role in voters' electoral decisions. In this paper I offer a new perspective on Mutz and Mondak's work and reexamine their findings. I put forward the hypothesis that voters' ideology impacts how much economic fairness weighs on their electoral decisions. Using a similar methodology, I am able to show that, indeed, ideology does affect the extent to which fairness plays into the voters' decision-making process--with those who identify themselves as liberal being far more likely to base their decision on perceived fairness than those who identify as conservative. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Political Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Summer Semester, 2012. / June 27, 2012. / conservative, economic voting, fairness voting, inequality, liberal, sociotropic / Includes bibliographical references. / Cherie Maestas, Professor Directing Thesis; Robert Jackson, Committee Member; Charles Barrilleaux, Committee Member.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_183173
ContributorsWalker, Ryan Michael (authoraut), Maestas, Cherie (professor directing thesis), Jackson, Robert (committee member), Barrilleaux, Charles (committee member), Department of Political Science (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution)
PublisherFlorida State University, Florida State University
Source SetsFlorida State University
LanguageEnglish, English
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeText, text
Format1 online resource, computer, application/pdf
RightsThis Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them.

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