Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T07:26:23.952Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Concentrated Burdens: How Self-Interest and Partisanship Shape Opinion on Opioid Treatment Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 July 2019

JUSTIN DE BENEDICTIS-KESSNER Open the ORCID record for JUSTIN DE BENEDICTIS-KESSNER [Opens in a new window]  and
MICHAEL HANKINSON Open the ORCID record for MICHAEL HANKINSON [Opens in a new window]
JUSTIN DE BENEDICTIS-KESSNER*
Affiliation:
Boston University
MICHAEL HANKINSON*
Affiliation:
Baruch College
*
*Justin de Benedictis-Kessner, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Boston University, [email protected].
†Michael Hankinson, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Baruch College, CUNY, [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

When does self-interest influence public opinion on contentious public policies? The bulk of theory in political science suggests that self-interest is only a minor force in public opinion. Using nationally representative survey data, we show how financial and spatial self-interest and partisanship all shape public opinion on opioid treatment policy. We find that a majority of respondents support a redistributive funding model for treatment programs, while treatment funded by taxation based on a community’s overdose rate is less popular. Moreover, financial self-interest cross-pressures lower-income Republicans, closing the partisan gap in support by more than half. We also experimentally test how the spatial burden of siting treatment clinics alters policy preferences. People across the political spectrum are less supportive when construction of a clinic is proposed closer to their home. These results highlight how partisanship and self-interest interact in shaping preferences on public policy with concentrated burdens.

Type
Letter
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 113 , Issue 4 , November 2019 , pp. 1078 - 1084
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Both authors contributed equally. For comments, suggestions, and advice, we thank Karl Kronebusch, Stéphane Lavertu, Brendan Nyhan, Justin Phillips, Melissa Sands, and participants at the 2018 Local Political Economy APSA pre-conference, the 2018 APSA Annual Meeting, the 2018 APPAM Fall Research Conference, and seminars at the Marxe School of Public & International Affairs, Baruch College, and the Northeastern University School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs. We appreciate the research assistance of Cody Edgerly, Aaron Henry, and Claudia Scott, and funding from Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS). Replication files are available at the American Political Science Review Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/OLTXFC.

References

REFERENCES

Anzia, Sarah F., and Moe, Terry M.. 2017. “Polarization and Policy: The Politics of Public-Sector Pensions.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 42 (1): 33–62.10.1111/lsq.12145CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banker, Andy. 2017. “Planned Drug Treatment center Runs into Opposition in St. Charles County.” Fox News (St. Louis, MO), October 25, 2017. https://fox2now.com/2017/10/25/planned-drug-treatment-center-runs-into-opposition-in-st-charles-county/.Google Scholar
Bateson, Regina. 2012. “Crime Victimization and Political Participation.” American Political Science Review 106 (3): 570–87.10.1017/S0003055412000299CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bechtel, Michael M., and Scheve, Kenneth F.. 2013. “Mass Support for Global Climate Agreements Depends on Institutional Design.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110 (34): 13763–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boyle, James. 2017. “Bucks County Commissioners Vote to Raise Taxes for 2018.” The Intelligencer (Doylestown, PA), December 20, 2017. https://www.theintell.com/news/20171220/bucks-county-commissioners-vote-to-raise-taxes-for-2018.Google Scholar
Bullard, Robert D. 2008. Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Campbell, Andrea L. 2015. “Independence and Freedom: Public Opinion and the Politics of Medicare and Medicaid.” In Medicare and Medicaid at Fifty, eds. Wailoo, Keith, Cohen, Alan, Zelizer, Julian, and Colby, David. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Campbell, Andrea Louise. 2005. How Policies Make Citizens: Senior Political Activism and the American Welfare State. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Campbell, Angus, Converse, Philip E., Miller, Warren E., and Stokes, Donald E.. 1960. The American Voter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Caughey, Devin, Warshaw, Christopher, and Xu, Yiqing. 2017. “Incremental Democracy: The Policy Effects of Partisan Control of State Government.” The Journal of Politics 79 (4): 1342–58.10.1086/692669CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chong, Dennis, Citrin, Jack, and Conley, Patricia. 2001. “When Self-Interest Matters.” Political Psychology 22 (3): 541–70.10.1111/0162-895X.00253CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Benedictis-Kessner, Justin, and Warshaw, Christopher. 2016. “Mayoral Partisanship and Municipal Fiscal Policy.” The Journal of Politics 78 (4): 1124–38.10.1086/686308CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Druckman, James N., Peterson, Erik, and Slothuus, Rune. 2013. “How Elite Partisan Polarization Affects Public Opinion Formation.” American Political Science Review 107 (1): 57–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gelman, Andrew. 2008. Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Green, Donald, Palmquist, Bradley, and Schickler, Eric. 2002. Partisan Hearts and Minds: Political Parties and the Social Identities of Voters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Grumbach, Jacob M. 2018. “From Backwaters to Major Policymakers: Policy Polarization in the States, 1970–2014.” Perspectives on Politics 16 (2): 416–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hankinson, Michael. 2018. “When Do Renters Behave like Homeowners? High Rent, Price Anxiety, and NIMBYism.” American Political Science Review 112 (3): 473–93.10.1017/S0003055418000035CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopkins, Daniel J. 2018. The Increasingly United States: How and Why American Political Behavior Nationalized. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jalal, Hawre, Buchanich, Jeanine M., Roberts, Mark S., Balmert, Lauren C., Zhang, Kun, and Burke, Donald S.. 2018. “Changing Dynamics of the Drug Overdose Epidemic in the United States from 1979 through 2016.” Science 361 (6408).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Katz, Josh, and Sanger-Katz, Margot. 2018. “‘The Numbers Are So Staggering.’ Overdose Deaths Set a Record Last Year,” The New York Times, November 29, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/29/upshot/fentanyl-drug-overdose-deaths.html.Google Scholar
Kinder, Donald R., and Kiewiet, D. Roderick. 1981. “Sociotropic Politics: The American Case.” British Journal of Political Science 11 (2): 129–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klar, Samara. 2013. “The Influence of Competing Identity Primes on Political Preferences.” The Journal of Politics 75 (4): 1108–24.10.1017/S0022381613000698CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lerman, Amy E., and McCabe, Katherine T.. 2017. “Personal Experience and Public Opinion: A Theory and Test of Conditional Policy Feedback.” The Journal of Politics 79 (2): 624–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meier, Kenneth J. 1994. The Politics of Sin: Drugs, Alcohol and Public Policy. Routledge.Google Scholar
Mettler, Suzanne. 2005. Soldiers to Citizens: The GI Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mullin, Megan, Smith, Martin D., and McNamara, Dylan E.. 2019. “Paying to Save the Beach: Effects of Local Finance Decisions on Coastal Management.” Climatic Change 152 (2): 275–89.10.1007/s10584-018-2191-5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mulvihill, Geoff. 2018. “Federal Budget Deal Includes $4.6 Billion to Combat Opioid Epidemic.” The Washington Post, March 25, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal-budget-deal-includes-46-billion-to-combat-opioid-epidemic/2018/03/25/0c65bd16-3082-11e8-94fa-32d48460b955_story.html.Google Scholar
Rembert, Mark H., Betz, Michael R., Feng, Bo, and Partridge, Mark D.. 2017. “Taking Measure of Ohio’s Opioid Crisis.” Columbus, OH: William Swank Program in Rural-Urban Policy, Policy Brief.Google Scholar
Saloner, Brendan, and Barry, Colleen L.. 2018. “Ending the Opioid Epidemic Requires a Historic Investment in Medication-Assisted Treatment.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 37 (2): 431–8.10.1002/pam.22047CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sears, David O., and Funk, Carolyn L.. 1991. “The Role of Self-Interest in Social and Political Attitudes.” Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 24: 1–91.Google Scholar
Sears, David O., and Citrin, Jack. 1982. Tax Revolt: Something for Nothing in California. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Seligson, Paula, and Reid, Tim. 2017. “Unbudgeted: How the Opioid Crisis Is Blowing a Hole in Small-Town America's Finances.” Reuters, September 27, 2017. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-opioids-budgets/unbudgeted-how-the-opioid-crisis-is-blowing-a-hole-in-small-town-americas-finances-idUSKCN1BU2LP.Google Scholar
Stokes, Leah C. 2016. “Electoral Backlash against Climate Policy: A Natural Experiment on Retrospective Voting and Local Resistance to Public Policy.” American Journal of Political Science 60 (4): 958–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stokes, Leah C., and Warshaw, Christopher. 2017. “Renewable Energy Policy Design and Framing Influence Public Support in the United States.” Nature Energy 2 (8): 17107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

De Benedictis-Kessner and Hankinson Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/OLTXFC
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

De Benedictis-Kessner and Hankinson supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download De Benedictis-Kessner and Hankinson supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 356.7 KB
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.