Article accepted for publication in 'Comparative Sociology'

17 September 2020

The article 'Legitimizing Inequality: The Moral Repertoires of Meritocracy in Four Countries' by Jan-Ocko Heuer (University of Bremen), Thomas Lux (Humboldt University of Berlin), Steffen Mau (Humboldt University of Berlin) and Katharina Zimmermann (University of Hamburg) has recently been accepted for publication by the journal 'Comparative Sociology'.

Abstract

Do people in different countries understand and frame the principle of meritocracy differently? This question is the starting point for our cross-national analysis of the moral repertoires of meritocracy in four countries: Germany, Norway, Slovenia and the United Kingdom. We pursue a mixed methods approach, using data from the European Social Survey 2016 and qualitative data from group discussions. In these discussions, citizens openly talked about issues like inequality and social policy, which allows us to study their understandings and framings of meritocracy. We show that the issue of unequal rewards does not only find different levels of support, but also that people – corresponding to the context they live in – have different understandings of which merits should count. We identify a ‘market success meritocracy’ in the UK, a work-centred understanding in Germany, a ‘common good meritocracy’ in Norway, and non-salience of this issue in Slovenia.