Do voters in developing and transitional democracies care about income inequality? the role of media freedom

Abstract

Is there a relationship between income inequality and the electoral success of incumbent governments in developing and transitional democracies, and if so, what explains its variations? Using a large N study of national legislative elections in 38 developing and transitional democracies from 1987 to 2016 and controlling for economic growth, inflation, and unemployment rates, this paper tests: (i) whether change in income inequality is negatively associated with the vote share for the incumbent party and (ii) whether the level of media freedom affects the extent of economic voting. Overall, we find evidence that increasing income inequality is negatively and significantly related to the vote share for the incumbent but only in countries with free or somewhat‐free media. Furthermore, consistent with past studies, the most robustly significant economic factor in affecting incumbent vote shares remains economic growth.

Income inequality and polity – an empirical analysis of political Kuznets curve

“…Berggren and Bjornskov (2020) showed that democracy increases the incomes of the poor, but ironically corruption also increases the incomes of the poor. Amri and Bouvet (2022) focused on the role of media to show that an increase in income inequality is negatively related to the vote share for the incumbent in the countries with free media. Zuazu (2022) focused on the electoral systems that forms political representation and showed that proportional representation lowers income inequality.…”