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Political alienation, defined as attitudes of estrangement from the political system, is conceptualized as falling into two broad categories: political incapability and discontentment. In the first instance, alienation is forced upon the individual by his environment, whereas in the second case it is voluntarily chosen by him. Survey data indicates that incapability occurs most commonly among persons occupying various disadvantaged social statuses, while discontentment is most prevalent among those comprising the “old middle class.” Neither category of alienation is markedly correlated with any form of political participation, but they do differ sharply in their relationships to party preference and voting. Persons with high incapability and low discontentment vote overwhelmingly Democratic, whereas those with high discontentment and low incapability largely vote Republican.
M. E. Olsen (Sat,) studied this question.