No abstract

The literature on welfare chauvinism suggests that dominant majorities are less likely to support redistribution across identity lines. To encourage support, scholarship recommends designing policies universally and signaling beneficiary deservingness. However, policies that support disadvantaged groups cannot always be designed universally. Moreover, dominant groups often hold minoritized groups to a deservingness double standard. Thus, we ask, what are effective ways to increase support for out-group redistribution? We argue that distributive justice principles—justifications for who should get what and why—can bolster support for out-group redistributive policies. We test this argument through three experiments in Slovakia, with the Roma as the out-group. Majority Slovaks support policies predicated on the principle of reciprocity—with benefits conditional on contribution. Unconditional policies and policies that are motivated by the need principle garner minority Roma support. Given salient anti-Roma prejudice, we consider our findings a floor. For less stigmatized out-groups, reciprocity-based policies may further bolster support.

This paper discusses the outcomes of power asymmetries in Slovak municipalities with Roma population and presents examples how local Roma leaders resist the non-Roma dominance by active participation in local elections. Presenting data from field research and long-term repeated observations, the paper shows successful strategies of elected Roma mayors who disrupt the usual perception of the Roma as objects of decision-making process and passive recipients of various policies. In these paternalistic beliefs Roma have never been seen as actors who can control resources, who could hold the political power and who could decide how to use the resources. Although the Roma have penetrated the power structures of many municipalities, they are not able to wipe out invisible ethnic boundaries, or, at least, to soften and disrupt them. However, as the text illustrates, it seems that the political power asymmetries in a significant number of municipalities are being balanced, nevertheless, the symbolic dominance and symbolic power of non-Roma still persists.