In the inaugural Social Policy Lecture at LSE, Leslie McCall presents a novel analytical framework for the understanding of popular responses to economic inequality.
Questioning widespread notions of U.S. exceptionalism, the lecture critically examines common assumptions about how Americans think about issues of economic inequality (in outcomes and opportunities and across dimensions of race and class) and related policies that reduce economic inequality. Using a wide range of existing and original data sources, as well as multiple methodological approaches, Professor McCall analyzes public views in the United States over time and in a comparative context. She proposes a multi-dimensional framework for understanding public views of inequality rooted in desires for substantive economic and educational opportunities through a broad set of social rights, employment protection and support, and redistribution of pay. The in-depth study of the American case in comparative perspective and supplementary cross-national analyses suggests that this novel analytical framework can shed light on the politics of inequality throughout advanced political economies.