Why Small Business Owners Lean Right: How Ownership Shapes Views on Regulation

Why Study Small Business Owners?

Small business owners represent a sizable and politically consequential occupational group in advanced economies, yet they have received far less attention than groups like union members or manufacturing workers. Neil Malhotra, Yotam Margalit, and Saikun Shi ask whether and why owners of small firms tilt toward right-wing parties, and what that tilt reveals about the evolving roles of education, class, and occupation in electoral politics.

How the Study Was Done

The authors combine multiple, complementary data sources to trace the political behavior and attitudes of small business owners. Evidence comes from representative cross-national surveys, campaign finance records, administrative voter files, and a bespoke, first-of-its-kind survey of small business owners. This multimethod approach allows the authors to document patterns of identification and voting while testing rival explanations for those patterns.

What the Data Show

• Small business owners are consistently more likely to identify with and vote for right-wing parties across the data sources analyzed.
• This right-leaning tendency persists even after accounting for many observable factors that could select people into entrepreneurship (for example, background education and socioeconomic status).

What Explains the Pattern?

Selection into entrepreneurship does not fully account for owners' political leanings. Instead, the authors identify an operational mechanism: the experience of running a small business appears to shift owners' policy views—most notably toward more conservative attitudes on government regulation. That attitudinal change helps explain why ownership itself predicts right-leaning political behavior.

Why This Matters

These findings sharpen understanding of occupational politics by showing that work experience can reshape policy preferences and partisan alignment. The study highlights a concrete pathway—regulatory attitudes—through which occupation influences electoral behavior, with implications for party outreach, policy debates over regulation, and theories about the political consequences of economic roles.