Thread by @cjsotomatic

1/n. New paper out in @BJPolS!

In most countries, do people who hold conservative social attitudes also hold conservative economic attitudes? Ariel Malka, @ylelkes, and I analyzed data from 99 nations to find out. The answer might surprise you...
ow.ly/zAiH50uGRZA

2. We used World Values Survey data from 325k adults in 99 nations. Social conservatism measured by opposition to immigration, abortion, homosexuality, and women in the workplace. Economic conservatism measured by opposition to welfare programs and government-owned businesses.

3. Three key findings: First, in most countries, people with conservative social attitudes tend to *support* government welfare programs and government-owned businesses.

4. Second, this link between right-wing social attitudes and left-wing economic attitudes is *strongest* among less-developed nations, post-communist nations, and less politically engaged individuals.

5. Third, almost all links between social and economic political attitudes are small in size, with correlations of .20 or weaker.

6. All this means that, from a global perspective, the structure of US political attitudes is weird. There's certainly nothing "natural" about social conservatism going with pro-market economic attitudes, or social progressivism going with pro-regulation economic attitudes.

7. And the small correlations mean it's pretty normal for people to have any combination of political attitudes. Actual people don't fall into "conservative" and "liberal" ideological groups as neatly as politicians and the popular media seem to assume.

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