Self-Interest vs. Symbolic Politics in Policy Attitudes and Presidential Voting

TLDR

The study contrasts short‑term self‑interest with long‑term symbolic attitudes as determinants of voters’ policy attitudes and issue voting on unemployment, national health insurance, busing, and law and order, and explores whether group membership or symbolic attitudes reflect long‑term self‑interest. The authors examined whether privatistic values, perception of a major national problem, political sophistication, government responsiveness, or political efficacy would foster self‑interested attitudes, but found no effect. Self‑interest measures had little influence on policy preferences or voting, whereas symbolic attitudes such as ideology, party identification, and racial prejudice had major effects, and self‑interest did not shape issue publics; while long‑term self‑interest cannot be ruled out, interpreting demographic findings as self‑interest effects is problematic.

Abstract

This article contrasts short-term self-interest and longstanding symbolic attitudes as determinants of (1) voters' attitudes toward government policy on four controversial issues (unemployment, national health insurance, busing, and law and order), and (2) issue voting concerning those policy areas. In general, we found the various self-interest measures to have very little effect in determining either policy preferences or voting behavior. In contrast, symbolic attitudes (liberal or conservative ideology, party identification, and racial prejudice) had major effects. Nor did self-interest play much of a role in creating “issue publics” that were particularly attentive to, informed about, or constrained in their attitudes about these specific policy issues. Conditions that might facilitate more self-interested political attitudes, specifically having privatistic (rather than public-regarding) personal values, perceiving the policy area as a major national problem, being high in political sophistication, perceiving the government as responsive, or having a sense of political efficacy, were also explored, but had no effect. The possibility that some long-term self-interest might be reflected in either group membership or in symbolic attitudes themselves is examined. While such possibilities cannot be definitively rejected, problems with interpreting standard demographic findings as self-interest effects are discussed.