Interest Group Credibility and Political Polarization on Redistribution and Immigration

Business associations, trade unions, and churches all try to shape public opinion on key political issues, such as fiscal policy and immigration rules. They do this through targeted campaigns and public rhetoric. However, any public intervention by a group that is trusted by some and distrusted by others has the potential to backfire or to polarize public opinion, rather than moving the debate in the group's preferred direction. Here, I report the results of new cross-national survey experiment that measures the effect of interest group position-taking on attitudes toward immigration and inequality. The countries included are Canada, France, Germany, the US, Italy, and the UK, allowing for substantial variation in the popularity and institutional strength of business associations, unions, and churches. The experiment is accompanied by a battery of questions that allow me to distinguish between ideological and demographic explanations for the relative effectiveness of political rhetoric coming from different groups.