THE POLITICAL IDEOLOGY OF KENTUCKY COAL PRODUCERS

DON THOMAS DUGI, Purdue University

Abstract

There has been increased interest in the politics of energy producers since the oil crisis of 1973-1974. Most of the studies in this area have examined those politics in a behavioral or institutional way. The purpose of this study was to examine the political ideology of coal producers in Kentucky. Specifically, it sought to determine the nature of the political ideology of the coal producers, to determine whether or not their ideological positions constrain their issue positions, and to determine whether the cognitive or evaluative function of ideology was more important for this group. A study of the political ideology of coal producers provides (1) insight as to the type of framework used by these important political actors to understand and define their political experiences and guide their political actions, (2) predictors or issue positions and/or actions which might be taken by coal producers, and (3) information for policymakers as to the types of policies this group will accept and support, and the terms in which those policies will have to be justified. Questionnaires were sent to 686 Kentucky coal producers. Their political ideology was identified by posing fifty Likert-formula questions which formed scales for the values of individualism/competition, freedom, materialism/property, equality, degree of acceptable governmental activity, and the nature of acceptable political change. Additional questions were asked to determine the demographic and political characteristics of the producers; crosstabulations were run to see if there was any variation in the ideological responses according to these characteristics. Finally, the producers were asked to respond to questions about issues currently salient to the coal industry. Kentucky coal producers were found to hold a moderately reactionary formulation of liberal/capitalist ideology. There were no significant variations in this ideology according to the demographic or political characteristics of the coal producers. The responses of the producers to individual ideological propositions provided a good indication of the positions they took on contemporarily salient issues. However, this study was unable to demonstrate high interitem consistency among the ideological scores for the six value areas in either a cognitive or evaluational context.

Degree

Ph.D.

Subject Area

Political science

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