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Social networks and distributive conflict: the class divide in social ties and attitudes to income inequality across 29 countries
Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, The Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI).ORCID iD: 0000-0002-4436-1559
Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, The Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI).ORCID iD: 0000-0002-8819-713x
Number of Authors: 22025 (English)In: European Sociological Review, ISSN 0266-7215, E-ISSN 1468-2672, Vol. 41, no 2, p. 163-178Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

The theoretical proposition that social networks contribute to class divides in political attitudes has rarely been further developed or empirically scrutinized with individual-level data on a large cross-national scale. In this article, we theorize and empirically examine how the class profiles of personal networks may shape individual attitudes to income inequality from a country-comparative perspective. Using multilevel modeling and data from the ISSP Social Networks and Resources module, covering 29 countries, we find that having more family, friends, and acquaintances in upper-middle-class positions is associated with lower support for reducing inequality, while having more social ties to working-class positions is associated with higher support for reducing inequality. We also assess how these relationships differ across countries depending on the institutional context, finding that both own class location and the class profiles of personal networks are more strongly related to attitudes to income inequality in countries with a higher rate of government redistribution. The study provides new theoretical and empirical insights into the importance of personal networks’ class profiles for shaping individual attitudes and structural ideological divisions linked to economic inequality, while also suggesting that social networks are key to understanding institutionally embedded distributive conflicts from a country-comparative perspective.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2025. Vol. 41, no 2, p. 163-178
National Category
Sociology (Excluding Social Work, Social Anthropology, Demography and Criminology)
Research subject
Sociology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-235058DOI: 10.1093/esr/jcae039ISI: 001342449500001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105008246081OAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-235058DiVA, id: diva2:1908965
Funder
Forte, Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare, 2017-00079Forte, Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare, 2019-01352Forte, Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare, 2020-00963Available from: 2024-10-29 Created: 2024-10-29 Last updated: 2025-09-09Bibliographically approved

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Lindh, ArvidAndersson, Anton B.

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