The principle-implementation gap holds across jobs, housing, schooling, and accommodations

Evidence

Students of democratic theory have also examined the extent to which abstract democratic principles are applied in more concrete situations (Prothro & Grigg, 1960). Jackman (1978), in particular, stressed this type of approach to the conceptualization of facial attitudes. Others have drawn on the distinction she made between racial principles and applied measures of racial policy preferences. Thus, recent research by Schuman, Steeh, and Bobo (1985) indicates that, across a number of important issues (access to public accommodations, discrimination in jobs, residential integration, and school integration), whites were more positive in attitude toward the principle of racial egalitarianism than toward policies to implement such principles. This disparity applied in terms of both lower absolute levels of support for implementation and less positive trends over time. In sum, this research demonstrated that one major characteristic of American racial attitudes is a gap between “principles and implementation.” — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3334

Categorization

• QUESTION: Is the principle-implementation gap unique to race, or does it also appear for poverty, inequality, environmental policy?