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Who is the Neoliberal? Exploring Neoliberal Beliefs across East and West
Author(s) -
Beattie Peter,
Bettache Karim,
Chong Kristy Ching Yee
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.618
H-Index - 122
eISSN - 1540-4560
pISSN - 0022-4537
DOI - 10.1111/josi.12309
Subject(s) - ideology , politics , neoliberalism (international relations) , political science , sociology , social psychology , political economy , development economics , psychology , law , economics
Research in political psychology has uncovered “elective affinities” between psychological traits and political ideology. Strong correlations have been found linking psychological variables to political‐economic beliefs in Western countries. These results suggest that people's psychological traits influence the development of their ideology, making some ideas, explanations, prescriptions, and ways of understanding the world seem more convincing or satisfying than others. Most such investigations have focused on differences along the liberal‐conservative ideological spectrum in the United States, or the left–right divide in Europe and (the rest of) the Americas. Relatively little research has examined psychological elective affinities with neoliberal ideology in particular, and none to our knowledge has been done outside of the West (including Turkey), except for Israel. We report the results of a preliminary investigation into the psychological correlates of neoliberal ideology in Hong Kong, India, and the United States. Our U.S. results replicate earlier research introducing the Neoliberal Beliefs Index, whereas our Hong Kong and Indian result s reveal similarities and differences in the psychological traits associated with neoliberal beliefs.