Power elites: Predictors of the support for public policies to reduce poverty in Argentina

Abstract

Even though there are consistent background from Social and Political Psychology about poverty subjective measures and social inequality, some authors discuss about their lack of political relevance. Principally, they question about the use of samples without direct impact in public policies or private initiatives. This study analyzes the predictor role of cognitive and ideological variables in the support for public policies to reduce multidimensional poverty, in power elites from an Argentine province. With an auto-administrated questionnaire, we evaluated 179 persons from different elite sectors. The results show that the support for public policies was predicted by lower levels of negative beliefs about social plans, a progressive political ideology and lower levels of blatant prejudice to poor people. We observe that the analyzed elite was apparently homogeneous, with ideological beliefs and understanding about poverty that coincide with the results of studies performed with other samples in the region. The results are relevant due to their contribution to understand a social sector without much study in the discipline and through the proposed methodology. Furthermore, we discuss about the change potential that these groups can generate about the problems analyzed.