Social Movements and Preferences for Redistribution

The paper presented in this ZEW Research Seminar investigates whether exposure to social movements campaigning against inequalities affects political preferences and behaviour. They conduct a large representative online experiment randomizing participants into three groups: two treatments and a control group. The first treatment group was asked to follow a Facebook page created by the authors and re-posting content on income inequality from the pages of social movements. The second treatment group was asked to complete a similar task to the one of the first treatment group but with a Facebook page re-posting content on income and gender inequality. Their results show that exposure to social movements' campaigns against inequalities shapes preferences for redistribution by raising consensus that government intervention should be directed towards reducing inequalities. Individuals exposed to information on income inequality would allocate significantly more resources towards fighting income inequality, while those exposed to information on gender inequality would allocate significant more resources to fighting gender inequality. The authors also show that exposure to social movements increases democratic participation through appealing to the government for political reforms.