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Earlier versions of the paper were circulated under the title: "Ideology All the Way Down? The Impact of the Great Recession on Partisan's Welfare Preferences." The paper was present at the Annual Meeting of the Political Science Association 2011, the European Political Science Association 2011, and the Midwest Political Science Association meeting 2010. The manuscript benefited from helpful feedback from participants in workshops in Duke, NYU, Oxford University, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Hertie School of Government in Berlin, Princeton, and Yale. I am particularly grateful to Judith Goldstein, who led the panel study project and generously allowed me to participate and share the data. I also am thankful for valuable comments and suggestions from Pablo Beramendi, Bryan Burgoon, Rafaela Dancygier, Robert Erikson, Olle Folke, Andy Gelman, Judith Goldstein, Don Green, Shigeo Hirano, Greg Huber, John Huber, Macartan Humphreys, Mark Kayser, Alex Kuo, Xiaobo Lu, Neil Malhotra, Isabela Mares, Markus Prior, Philipp Rehm, Doug Rivers, David Rueda, Ken Scheve, and Bob Shapiro. Any errors remain my own.
INTRODUCTION
The Great Recession of 2008 has left millions of individuals unemployed, struggling with shrinking incomes and facing heightened levels of economic insecurity. The consequent demand for larger social spending has brought to the fore the public debate over the proper role of government in providing support for the unemployed and the needy. This debate, of course, is not new but rather one on which many individuals hold long-standing ideological views. Yet these views may have been challenged by the hardships experienced during the financial crisis. How do individuals' preferences on welfare policy shift in response to changes in their personal economic circumstances? Are the welfare policy preferences of voters predominantly a function of their ideological dispositions, or are they mostly shaped by their material interests at a given time period?
To put this point in starker terms, consider a hypothetical case of two otherwise similar individuals, one positioned ideologically on the left and the other on the right, who lose their jobs at the same time. The question that arises is whether the same downturn in their personal circumstances leads to a convergence in policy preferences, whereby the right-leaning individual becomes significantly more supportive of welfare assistance, or whether their different ideological...