Overview
- Uses direct democratic economic policy (DDEP) rationalization as a case study of the individual-level processes of legitimation in the light of economic policy incentives and partisan affiliation
- Explores the use of broader political and economic discourses used by voters to make DDEP positions socially acceptable
- Establishes four frameworks and approaches for understanding DDEP legitimation: American political ideology, norms of self-interest, moral economy, and neoliberal ideology
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Table of contents (9 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This volume explores voters’ political rationalizations. The author analyzes semi-structured interview data from 120 American voters collected from 2013-2015 about their positions on three economic referenda—or “direct democratic economic policies” (DDEPs) on the Arizona state ballot from 2008-2012. Building on the literature on voter reasoning and rationalization, the author firstly probes how the intersection of economic position and partisan affiliation shape partisan voters’ rationalizations of their DDEP positions. Secondly, he investigates the political and economic discourses that voters use to justify their DDEP positions. This book extends classic sociological theories of individual-level and collective legitimacy, along with contemporary theories of voter rationalization. The findings also help to build theories of American political ideology and values, neoliberalism, moral economy, and norms of self-interest.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Luis Antonio Vila-Henninger is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow for the European Research Council Starting Grant Qualidem at the University of Louvain (UCLouvain), Belgium. Luis’ research areas include economic sociology, political sociology, the sociology of culture, qualitative methods, and sociological theory. His work has appeared in The Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, Sociology Compass, Sociological Perspectives, The Sociological Quarterly, Sociological Inquiry, and The Bulletin of Sociological Methodology.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Social Justification and Political Legitimacy
Book Subtitle: How Voters Rationalize Direct Democratic Economic Policy in America
Authors: Luis Antonio Vila-Henninger
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51716-8
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-51715-1Published: 17 October 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-51718-2Published: 17 October 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-51716-8Published: 16 October 2020
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIII, 331
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations
Topics: Political Sociology, Social Sciences, general, Public Policy, Political Science