Economic Inequality and Democratic Political Engagement

Solt, Frederick

doi:10.1111/j.1540-5907.2007.00298.x

Cited by 657 publications

(577 citation statements)

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“…At the societal level too, there is research showing that growing inequality is associated with lower levels of trust [4,11,15] and heightened levels of violence and social unrest [16,17]. 6 We further argue that inequality not only provides a lens for seeing the social world, it also changes what it means to belong to different wealth groups.…”

Section: Why Income Inequality Is Harmful For Intergroup Relations Inmentioning

confidence: 78%

“…However, this work has had a somewhat narrow focus, either providing an economic analysis of the effects of inequality (e.g., how inequality affects economic growth; whether it triggers economic recessions [1]) or examining the effects of inequality on individuals' health and well-being [2][3][4]. In contrast, very little is known about whether and how (growing) inequality affects the social and political life in a society (but see [5,6]), and major questions concerning the negative (and/or potentially positive effects of inequality) remain unanswered. For example, does inequality enhance competition between, and stereotyping of, various groups in society?…”

Section: A Social Identity Analysis Of Responses To Economic Inequalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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A social identity analysis of responses to economic inequality

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Turner

Steffens

et al. 2017

Current Opinion in Psychology

118

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Section: Why Income Inequality Is Harmful For Intergroup Relations Inmentioning

confidence: 78%

Section: A Social Identity Analysis Of Responses To Economic Inequalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

A social identity analysis of responses to economic inequality

Jetten

Turner

Steffens

et al. 2017

Current Opinion in Psychology

118

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“…At the same time, rising inequality is anticipated to reduce the economic and thus political clout of the poorer segments of society. For instance, rising inequality may create political fatigue among lower-income individuals because it may become too costly for them to coordinate their actions and successfully form political coalitions to make their voices heard (Solt, 2008). …”

Section: Elite Interest and Economic Freedom Why Would The Rich Be Imentioning

confidence: 99%

Political capitalism: The interaction between income inequality, economic freedom and democracy

Krieger

Meierrieks

2016

European Journal of Political Economy

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractIn this contribution we study the relationship between income inequality and economic freedom for a panel of 100 countries for the 1971-2010 period. From a panel causality study we find that income inequality has a negative causal effect on economic freedom, while causation does not run in the opposite direction. We argue that the negative effect of inequality on economic liberty is due to the elite's political power stemming from its disproportionate control over a country's economic resources. The elite uses this power to curtail economic freedom to defend its economic interests by discouraging innovation, competition and protecting its rents. Running a series of dynamic panel estimations, we show that the negative effect of income inequality on economic freedom is robust to different sets of controls and estimation techniques. Finally, we show that the dynamics of the inequality-freedom nexus are to some extent conditional upon a country's political regime. When inequality is low, democracies enjoy comparatively higher levels of economic liberty, in line with the interests of a large middle-class. By contrast, economic freedom is lower in democracies (compared to strongly autocratic regimes with the same income distribution) when inequality is high. We argue that the latter finding corresponds to a system of political capitalism or captured democracy, where a powerful economic elite cooperates with politicians and bureaucrats for their mutual benefit.JEL Classification: D31, D72

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“…Keywords Participation Á Engagement, civil society Á Democracy, deliberation Á Populism Á Equality Á Brexit Rates of political participation among citizens of liberal democratic states are low and becoming more unequal; participation is becoming increasingly concentrated among those at the top end of the wealth and income distribution, and as a consequence political power and influence have also become increasingly concentrated among members of this group (Bartels 2016;Gilens 2014;Solt 2008). This is a problem for democratic theory and practice.…”

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confidence: 99%

Democracy Without Participation: A New Politics for a Disengaged Era

Parvin

2017

Res Publica

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Changing patterns of political participation observed by political scientists over the past half-century undermine traditional democratic theory and practice. The vast majority of democratic theory, and deliberative democratic theory in particular, either implicitly or explicitly assumes the need for widespread citizen participation. It requires that all citizens possess the opportunity to participate and also that they take up this opportunity. But empirical evidence gathered over the past half-century strongly suggests that many citizens do not have a meaningful opportunity to participate in the ways that many democratic theorists require, and do not participate in anything like the numbers that they believe is necessary. This paper outlines some of the profound changes that have been experienced by liberal democratic states in the 20th and early 21st Centuries, changes which are still ongoing, and which have resulted in declines in citizens participation and trust, the marginalisation of citizens from democratic life, and the entrenchment of social and economic inequalities which have damaged democracy. The paper challenges the conventional wisdom in rejecting the idea that the future of democracy lies in encouraging more widespread participation. The paper takes seriously the failure of the strategies adopted by many states to increase participation, especially among the poor, and suggests that instead of requiring more of citizens, we should in fact be requiring less of them. Instead of seeking to encourage more citizen participation, we should acknowledge that citizens will probably not participate in the volume, or in the ways, many democratic theorists would like, and that therefore we need an alternative approach: a regime which can continue to produce democratic outcomes, and which satisfies the requirements of political equality, in the absence of widespread participation by citizens.

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Economic Inequality and Democratic Political Engagement

Cited by 657 publications

References 20 publications

A social identity analysis of responses to economic inequality

A social identity analysis of responses to economic inequality

Political capitalism: The interaction between income inequality, economic freedom and democracy

Democracy Without Participation: A New Politics for a Disengaged Era

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