Process over outcome: How perceptions of procedural fairness influence conservative support for redistributive taxes

Abstract

Though majorities of Americans express support for redistributive tax policies as a cure for income inequality in the United States, this general support tends to dissipate when the public evaluates their support for specific proposals. The dominant explanations emphasize elite behavior and the disconnect between American values and political representation. An alternative view is that this counter-intuitive finding is entirely consistent with individual values. Some people place higher priority on policy processes than policy outcomes. This paper demonstrates that conservatives think about redistributive tax policy differently than liberals. Conservative support (opposition) for redistributive taxes is based on evaluations of the fairness of processes of government that lead to economic inequality. When conservatives believe that these processes are not fair, they are very supportive of wealth redistribution as a cure for economic inequality, whereas liberal support for wealth redistribution is more outcome-dependent.

Keywords:

• Procedural fairness
• Income inequality
• American politics

Acknowledgements

This research would not have been possible without the financial support of the Walter Thompson Fund and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Kansas. This article has benefited from the comments and suggestions provided by Donald Haider-Markel, Mark Joslyn, Thomas Hayes, Sandra J. Schofield and Becky A. Whitley and three anonymous reviewers. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association.

Notes

1 Full model results in the methodological appendix.

2 Full sample details including question wording is in the methodological appendix.

3 Full model results in the methodological appendix.