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Loading... Envy in Politics (Princeton Studies in Political Behavior)by Gwyneth H. McClendon
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How envy, spite, and the pursuit of admiration influence politics Why do governments underspend on policies that would make their constituents better off? Why do people participate in contentious politics when they could reap benefits if they were to abstain? In Envy in Politics, Gwyneth McClendon contends that if we want to understand these and other forms of puzzling political behavior, we should pay attention to envy, spite, and the pursuit of admiration--all manifestations of our desire to maintain or enhance our status within groups. Drawing together insights from political philosophy, behavioral economics, psychology, and anthropology, McClendon explores how and under what conditions status motivations influence politics. Through surveys, case studies, interviews, and an experiment, McClendon argues that when concerns about in-group status are unmanaged by social conventions or are explicitly primed by elites, status motivations can become drivers of public opinion and political participation. McClendon focuses on the United States and South Africa--two countries that provide tough tests for her arguments while also demonstrating that the arguments apply in different contexts. From debates over redistribution to the mobilization of collective action, Envy in Politics presents the first theoretical and empirical investigation of the connection between status motivations and political behavior. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)152.48Philosophy and Psychology Psychology Emotions And Senses Emotions [Jealousy]LC ClassificationRatingAverage: No ratings.Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |
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That sounded like a book with lofty ambitions, so I bought it. It actually lived up to my expectations a little bit in the first chapter, which provides a versatile discussion of how and why status concerns can influence political behavior. This chapter contained at least a couple of smart insights that were new to me. But the insights come to an abrupt end when the author moves on from the "what I learned in my PhD work" chapter to the "let's look at the correlation coefficients" chapter. There's absolutely nothing worth reading in second half of the book. The author wades through all the boring experimental details of her PhD work without being able to develop her ideas at all. The only conclusion she deduces from all the data is that status concerns might sometimes influence politics - but this was already self-evident after the summary she gave in the first chapter!
I guess there's always some limited value in providing experimental support for a theoretical point, but proofs should be confined to academic theses. They should not be published as books aimed for a broad audience. Selling PhD-proofs as regular books might be profitable in the short term, but the prospective audience will certainly shrink in the long term. Academics will in any case download the actual thesis for free, and intelligent general readers will start to avoid books from university presses when they realize they are just thesis reprints with no general interest.