CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 215Electoral Systems and Political ParticipationSocial Policy and Reform StudiesSocial and Intergroup Psychology

Identity, beliefs, and political conflict

Open access
Bonomi, Giampaolo, Gennaioli, Nicola, Tabellini, Guido·2021·The Quarterly Journal of Economics
DOI 10.1093/qje/qjab034
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

We present a theory of identity politics that builds on two ideas. First, when policy conflict renders a certain social divide—economic or cultural—salient, a voter identifies with her economic or cultural group. Second, the voter slants her beliefs toward the stereotype of the group she identifies with. We obtain three implications. First, voters’ beliefs are polarized along the distinctive features of salient groups. Second, if the salience of cultural policies increases, cultural conflict rises, redistributive conflict falls, and polarization becomes more correlated across issues. Third, economic shocks hurting conservative voters may trigger a switch to cultural identity, causing these voters to demand less redistribution. We discuss U.S. survey evidence in light of these implications.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1093/qje/qjab034

Cites

84 of 84 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

We couldn’t retrieve this paper’s full text, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • One possible explanation is the rise of identity politics, where conflict over cultural issues such as immigration, race, and abortion has strengthened since 2010.

    “One possible explanation is the rise of identity politics, where: “[s]ince 2010, the political systems of the United States and other advanced democracies have undergone a momentous change… conflict over cultural issues such as immigration, race, and abortion has strengthened” (Bonomi et al., 2021(Bonomi et al., , p. 2371)).”

    From Measuring affective polarization: Matching concepts to measures (2026) · cites this paper as Bonomi et al., 2021

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

4 of the 88 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Bonomi, G., Gennaioli, N., & Tabellini, G.
Affiliations
  • University of California San Diego (US)
  • Bocconi University (IT)
ORCID
Venue
The Quarterly Journal of Economics
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Published
2021-09-10
Volume
136
Issue
4
Pages
2371-2411
ISSN
  • 0033-5533 (ISSN-L)
  • 1531-4650
DOI
10.1093/qje/qjab034
OpenAlex
W3200887357
Cited by
213
References
88
Citations by year
2026: 29 · 2025: 57 · 2024: 46 · 2023: 30 · 2022: 25 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 5
FWCI
96.37
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • The Quarterly Journal of Economics (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Archivio istituzionale della Ricerca - Bocconi (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
Funders
Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Electoral Systems and Political Participation
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Social Policy and Reform Studies
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
Keywords
identity politics, political polarization, group identification, belief polarization, cultural conflict, economic shocks, conservative voters, social identity, policy conflict

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review