Do the Rich and the Poor Have Different Conceptions of Democracy? Socioeconomic Status, Inequality, and the Political Status Quo

Abstract

In this study, we investigate how socioeconomic status is related to people's commitment to liberal democracy. Based on sociological and psychological theories of social conflict and dominance, we argue that those who enjoy a more privileged position in the social hierarchy tend to develop stronger preferences for the existing social and political order. Conversely, people in underprivileged positions tend to be less supportive of that order. Hence, we expect the relationship between socioeconomic status and commitment to liberal democracy to be context-specific: positive in liberal democracies but negative in autocracies. Furthermore, we argue that income inequality amplifies these dynamics, widening the gap between low and high status individuals. We test our hypotheses using the fifth wave of the World Value Surveys.

Citizens' Contrasting Aspirations About Their Political System: Entrustment, Participation, Identification and Control

“…Political orientation also matters: left-wing oriented individuals are more supportive of participatory mechanisms, whereas right-wing individuals are more prone to support technocratic mechanisms (Bengtsson and Mattila, 2009;Bertsou and Pastorella, 2017). Finally, recent studies have shown that individuals who are more politically and socially marginalized are more likely to support various alternatives to the political status quo (Ceka and Magalhães, 2020), such as the increased use of referendums (Bowler and Donovan, 2019) or sortition (Vandamme et al, 2018;Bedock and Pilet, 2020).…”

Do Citizens Perceive Elected Politicians, Experts and Citizens as Alternative or Complementary Policy-Makers? A Study of Belgian Citizens

“…A first finding to be underlined within this logic concerns the effect of respondents' satisfaction with their income. Previous studies showed that citizens who were better off socio-economically support the status quo are and more reluctant regarding reforms that would reduce the role of elected politicians (Ceka and Magalhaes, 2019;Bedock and Pilet, 2020a). Our findings show a slightly different pattern.…”

What to expect when you are expecting: preferences for representation among voters and political elites

“…Recent studies comparing survey responses to register-based indicators show that surveys underestimate socioeconomic differences and differences between men and women and natives and voters with a migrant background in electoral participation (Dahlgaard et al 2019;Lahtinen et al 2019). The same observation may well apply to studies of representational preferences, particularly as the earlier research has shown that economically-disadvantaged citizens are the ones likely to be less committed to the principles of liberal democracy (Ceka and Magalhães 2019) and dissatisfied with democracy if their preferences are not reflected by democratic institutions (Han and Chang 2016).…”