Political Mobility and Political Reproduction from Generation to Generation

• Author: Henry E. Brady,Sidney Verba,Kay Lehman Schlozman
• DOI: 10.1177/0002716214550587
• Published date: 01 January 2015
• Date: 01 January 2015
• Subject Matter: Section II: Special Topics Relevant to Building a New Infrastructure

ANNALS, AAPSS, 657, January 2015 149

DOI: 10.1177/0002716214550587

Political

Mobility and

Political

Reproduction

from

Generation to

Generation

By

HENRY E. BRADY,

KAY LEHMAN

SCHLOZMAN,

and

SIDNEY VERBA

550587ANN The Annals of the American AcademyPolitical Mobility and Political Reproduction

research-article2014

The American creed stresses political equality and

political involvement, but substantial political inequal-

ity still persists from one generation to the next.

Despite the importance of political inequality, not

enough is known about the mechanisms that reproduce

it. Political socialization research has focused on the

transmission of political attitudes and culture across

generations, but it has paid scant attention to how fam-

ily transfers of economic resources, human capital, and

social capital reproduce and perpetuate unequal pat-

terns of political involvement and political authority.

This article argues that more attention should be paid

to measuring the persistence of political identity, politi-

cal participation, civic engagement, and political influ-

ence networks over time and across generations.

Special attention should be devoted to learning more

about how the passage of family resources (economic

resources, human capital, social capital, and cultural

capital) from parents to children reproduces political

inequality and reduces the opportunity for political

mobility. Current data sources fall far short of what is

needed to answer these questions, but linking the pro-

posed American Opportunity Study with public voting

records and with the American National Election

Studies would provide a rich and powerful dataset for

studying them.

Keywords: political participation; stratification; gen-

erations; civic engagement; mobility

The American creed stresses political equal-

ity and political involvement, but political

participation and political authority in America

are highly stratified by income and education.

People with higher income and education are

Henry E. Brady is dean of the Goldman School of

Public Policy and Class of 1941 Monroe Deutsch

Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the

University of California, Berkeley. He is coauthor, with

Sidney Verba and Kay Schlozman, of “Beyond SES: A

Resource Model of Political Participation,” which

appeared in the American Political Science Review.

Kay Lehman Schlozman is the J. Joseph Moakley

Endowed Professor of Political Science at Boston

College. She is coauthor, with Sidney Verba and Henry

150 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

more active participants in American politics (Verba, Schlozman, and Brady

1995). They are more likely to have their interests represented by lobbyists

(Schlozman, Verba, and Brady 2012), and they are more likely to have their opin-

ions count for policy outcomes (Bartels 2008; Gilens 2012). As a result of the

unequal stratification of political participation, authority, and outcomes, those

with the most political power can influence the government’s tax and expenditure

policies to shape economic and social stratification to their taste. This insight is

not new. More than 100 years ago, Max Weber recognized that the stratification

of political authority could affect the stratification of class and social status.

Today, those social scientists interested in stratification, inequality, and mobility

should study the distribution of political authority as an important part of their

research program.

Class, Status, and Party

In “Class, Status, and Party,” Weber (1946) described three important ways mod-

ern societies are graded and stratified. He identified economic classes, social

status groups, and political authority groups such as political parties and interest

groups.1 Weber argued that income, status, and political authority provide indi-

viduals with economic, social, or political power that they can use to satisfy their

needs and achieve their goals. Sociologists and (increasingly) economists have

followed up on Weber’s insights by studying the class or status locations of people

in graded stratification systems. Class has been conceptualized as occupation,

income, or wealth. Status has been defined by social prestige, occupational pres-

tige, education, or, more recently, as location in social networks.2 Researchers

have studied the distribution of people in these stratification systems, their

degree of economic and social inequality, and the opportunities they have to

move from one location to another throughout their life cycle and from genera-

tion to generation. Economic and social mobility have been important topics in

sociology, and to a lesser degree in economics, because mobility is an important

index of how much opportunity a society provides to its members and how well

it rewards innovation and hard work. Sociologists and economists, however, have

Brady, of The Unheavenly Chorus: Unequal Political Voice and the Broken Promise of

American Democracy (Princeton University Press 2012).

Sidney Verba is the Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor Emeritus and Research Professor

of Government at Harvard University. He is coauthor, with Kay Schlozman and Henry Brady,

of Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics (Harvard University Press 1995),

which won the Converse Award for making a lasting contribution to public opinion research

and the American Association for Public Opinion Research award for influential books stimu-

lating scientific research in public opinion.

NOTE: Henry E. Brady is the lead author on this article, but it draws heavily on joint work

with Kay Schlozman and Sidney Verba. Our thanks to David Grusky and Amy Lerman, who

provided very useful comments.