IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jothpo/v37y2025i2p122-155.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Political correctness and elite prestige

Author

Listed:
  • Esther Hauk

    (Institut d'Anà lisi Econòmica (IAE-CSIC), 90214Move and Barcelona School of Economics, Bellaterra (Barcelona), Spain)

  • Javier Ortega

    (Department of Economics, 4264Kingston University, London, UK)

Abstract

Consider a society where the prestige of orthodox views is linked to the prestige of the elite. Heterodox individuals are less likely to express their views if other peers refrain from doing so and if the elite is prestigious. In turn, corruption by the elite is less easily detected if orthodox views dominate. We characterize equilibrium self-denial and corruption and show that an exogenous increase in the range of orthodox views may result in a decrease in the total number of individuals truthfully expressing their views. Some features of the model are shown to be compatible with US data.

Suggested Citation

  • Esther Hauk & Javier Ortega, 2025. "Political correctness and elite prestige," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 37(2), pages 122-155, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:37:y:2025:i:2:p:122-155
    DOI: 10.1177/09516298241304713
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09516298241304713
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/09516298241304713?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Conformity; Overton window; political correctness; preference falsification; social pressure;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:37:y:2025:i:2:p:122-155. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.