Two Fun Facts about Social Class
This week, through Smith and Sell’s book, I have a deeper understanding about political culture, and the correlation between political culture and democracy. Political culture refers to the fundamental beliefs and attitudes within the society. More detailedly, authors explore some fundamental themes in popular attitudes toward politics, such as support for democracy in principle, satisfaction with democracy in practice, ideological leanings and so on. During the analyzing process, authors found that social class emerges as a key determinant of popular perception of democracy. And there are two fun facts pointed out through the public opinion survey by the book. One is the correlation between social class and preference for democracy while the other one is the correlation between social class and satisfaction with the democracy.
On talking about the correlation between social class and preference for democracy, we could find out that the upper-class has the highest percentage choosing “democracy is always preferable” and the lowest percentage choosing “authoritarianism maybe” while the lower-class is completely reverse, the lowest percentage choosing “democracy is always preferable” and the highest percentage choosing “authoritarianism maybe”. Why do I think it is fun? Because the upper class which is supposed to be threatened by democracy is the most supportive for democracy, while the lower class which is supposed to be empowered by democracy, to be granted to fight for their own rights, is the least supportive for the democracy. Does it mean democracy actually benefits more for rich people instead of poor people?
Then, when talking about the correlation social class and satisfaction with the democracy, through the survey, we can read that on the option “not very satisfied with democracy”, middle-class has the highest percentage choosing this option and they are also the dominant part of middle-class people, up near to 50%. On the worst option “not at satisfied”, middle-class has the lowest percentage choosing it while upper-class and lower-class are both higher than middle-class. I think from this survey we can see some characteristics about middle-class people, moderate but anxious. However, in Latin America, middle-class haven’t grown up to the fundamental power of the majority people.
In my perspective, social class is a very important factor when we think about Latin America Politics. Not only in Latin America, even the whole political science study. It can be an approach for political scientists to analyze the deep reason behind the political behavior and opinions.
While these figures may have been seen as somewhat interesting, I was personally not terribly surprised by their results. Based on my experiences and understanding in the United States, the upper class may prefer democracy over the lower class because they know how to use the system to their advantage. The lower class tends to be more uneducated about how their political system works, and therefore is unable to benefit completely from it’s structure. As you stated, social class is definitely an important factor in any political system, but we must also learn how to gear information and resources towards the lower class in order to appeal to those citizens.