Conflict perceptions across 27 OECD countries: The roles of socioeconomic inequality and collective stratification beliefs

Abstract

Socioeconomic inequality and conflicts regarding distributional issues have resurfaced in many OECD countries over the past three decades. Whereas most research has focused on the objective determinants of perceived social conflicts, we contribute a new facet to this discussion by assessing the relevance of collective stratification beliefs as an independent driver of vertical conflict perceptions. After formulating theoretical positions that give precedence to two factors in explaining the perceptions of social conflicts -objective inequality and the collective stratification belief -we use individual-level data from the 2009 International Social Survey Programme, along with suitable country-level indicators to evaluate both hypotheses. Amid the diverse collective stratification beliefs, we focus on the role of an egalitarian (middle-) class imagery. We are particularly interested in the extent to which such a class imagery can mediate the relationship between socioeconomic inequality and individual conflict perceptions. The results of our multilevel analyses of 27 OECD countries indicate that an egalitarian (middle-) class imagery held by a certain share of a country's population constitutes a distinct dimension of reality and clearly dominates country-level objective inequality in the explanation of individually perceived social conflicts.

How do union membership, union density and institutionalization affect perceptions of conflict between management and workers?

“…Union participation in policy formulation may also result in higher degrees of decommodification (Esping-Andersen, 1990) and employee-friendly labour legislation. There are also suggested distributive effects of concertation in terms of the reduction of income inequality, which echo the influence of density and other forms of institutionalization, motivating exploration of the potentially mediating role of income inequality (Edlund and Lindh, 2015;Hertel and Schöneck, 2019;Pontusson, 2013;Tridico, 2018).…”

Class in Iceland

“…a society where most people are middle class or higher. Hertel and Schöneck’s (2019) study of 27 OECD countries shows that only in Iceland, Norway, Denmark and Switzerland is the prevalence of a middle-class imagery higher than the share of middle-income households. The findings show that Icelanders perceive limited conflict and suggest that class imagery mediates the relationship between inequality and conflict perceptions.…”

Class and class conflict: An objective‐subjective interactive approach

“…Sociologists have long standing interests in exploring people's perceptions of class conflict (Mills, 1970; Parsons, 1949). Studying perception of class conflict remains important because these are also a key political factor in industrial societies (Edlund & Lindh, 2015; Hertel & Schöneck, 2020; Kelley & Evans, 1995). In political struggle, it is not just the objective reality of conflict between classes that matters, but more importantly how this is perceived (Haddon, 2019).…”

“…More recently, research has established that it is not solely membership within but also identification with a social class that may shape attitudes towards various social phenomena (Keefer et al., 2015; Savage et al., 2010; Skeggs, 2010). For this reason, some suggest that subjective self‐placement also affects perception of class conflict (Hertel & Schöneck, 2020). The results seem to suggest that different subjective placements in the class hierarchy partly explain perception of class conflict.…”

“…Today, a large group of people across societies disproportionately identify as the middle class, suggesting that some may misidentify based on their material class position. Indeed, Hertel and Schöneck (2020) have shown that a middle‐class imagery may dampen individual perceptions of conflict. How does this relationship between objective class and subjective self‐placement work together to shape conflict perception?…”