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Ideology and Political Alienation
Author(s) -
Miller Arthur H.,
Listhaug Ola
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
scandinavian political studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.65
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-9477
pISSN - 0080-6757
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9477.1993.tb00036.x
Subject(s) - alienation , ideology , politics , consistency (knowledge bases) , government (linguistics) , political science , preference , political economy , social psychology , sociology , psychology , law , economics , linguistics , philosophy , geometry , mathematics , microeconomics
A substantial literature over the years has focused on the relationship between political alienation and ideology. Much of this research contends that conservatives are more alienated than liberals because philosophically they believe that the best government is that which governs least. A close reading of the literature, however, reveals little consistency in the empirical findings. Survey data from Norway, Sweden, and the United States are used to provide a more extensive and consistent test of the hypothesis. Ideology is defined as both left/right self‐identification and policy preference on economic and “new political” issues. The evidence reveals that in Scandinavia higher levels of alienation are found among conservatives, whereas in the US the left has been consistently more alienated, except on “new politics” issues. The discrepancy between the citizen's preferred ideological orientation and that which the public perceives the government to take, is used to explain the different findings for the three countries and the shifts in the relationship between ideology and alienation across time.