IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lis/liswps/385.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Economic Inequality and Democratic Political Engagement

Author

Listed:
  • Frederick Solt

Abstract

Since Aristotle, who observed that great economic inequality leads the wealthy to seek a share of power matching their share of resources and so to subvert democratic government, scholars of politics have theorized that the proper functioning of a democracy depends on a relatively equal distribution of economic resources. Inequality, though, has been rising in the nearly all of the worlds rich and upper-middle-income democracies since the at least the mid-1980s, and in many countries this trend began in the early 1970s. Examining individual behavior in twenty-four countries at multiple points in time, this paper investigates whether increases in economic inequality have had a negative effect on the functioning of democracy, focusing specifically on citizens political engagement. It finds that contexts of greater income inequality reduce interest in politics, views of government responsiveness, and participation in elections.

Suggested Citation

  • Frederick Solt, 2004. "Economic Inequality and Democratic Political Engagement," LIS Working papers 385, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    • Handle: RePEc:lis:liswps:385
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.lisdatacenter.org/wps/liswps/385.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Timothy Smeeding, 2002. "Globalization, Inequality and the Rich Countries of the G-20: Evidence from the Luxembourg Income Study," LIS Working papers 320, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    2. Deininger, Klaus & Squire, Lyn, 1996. "A New Data Set Measuring Income Inequality," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 10(3), pages 565-591, September.
    3. Jackman, Robert W., 1987. "Political Institutions and Voter Turnout in the Industrial Democracies," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(2), pages 405-423, June.
    4. Pateman, Carole, 1971. "Political Culture, Political Structure and Political Change," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(3), pages 291-305, July.
    5. Solt, Frederick, 2004. "Civics or Structure? Revisiting the Origins of Democratic Quality in the Italian Regions," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(1), pages 123-135, January.
    6. Goodin, Robert & Dryzek, John, 1980. "Rational Participation: The Politics of Relative Power," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(3), pages 273-292, July.
    7. Timothy M. Smeeding, 2002. "Globalization, Inequality, and the Rich Countries of the G-20: Evidence from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS)," Center for Policy Research Working Papers 48, Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. A. Soci & A. Maccagnan & D. Mantovani, 2014. "Does inequality harm democracy? An empirical investigation on the UK," Working Papers wp935, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Angeles-Castro, Gerardo, 2006. "The relationship between economic growth and inequality: evidence from the age of market liberalism," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Berlin 2006 2, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    2. Huang, Ho-Chuan (River) & Fang, WenShwo & Miller, Stephen M. & Yeh, Chih-Chuan, 2015. "The effect of growth volatility on income inequality," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 212-222.
    3. Koen Caminada & Kees Goudswaard, 2005. "Are Public and Private Social Expenditures Complementary?," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 11(2), pages 175-189, May.
    4. Cristiano Perugini & Gaetano Martino, 2008. "Income Inequality Within European Regions: Determinants And Effects On Growth," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 54(3), pages 373-406, September.
    5. Sassen, Saskia, 2008. "Two stops in today's new global geographies: shaping novel labor supplies and employment regimes," Asuntos de Género 5815, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    6. Mueller, Dennis C. & Stratmann, Thomas, 2003. "The economic effects of democratic participation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(9-10), pages 2129-2155, September.
    7. Frederic Pryor, 2015. "A Note on Income Inequality in East Europe," LIS Working papers 643, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    8. David Dollar, 2005. "Globalization, Poverty, and Inequality since 1980," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 20(2), pages 145-175.
    9. Fischer, Justina A.V., 2012. "The choice of domestic policies in a globalized economy: Extended Version," MPRA Paper 37816, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Frederick Solt, 2008. "Diversionary Nationalism: Economic Inequality and the Formation of National Pride," LIS Working papers 495, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    11. Timothy Smeeding, 2004. "Public Policy and Economic Inequality: The United States in Comparative Perspective," LIS Working papers 367, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    12. Olof B ckman, 2005. "Welfare States, Social Structure and the Dynamics of Poverty Rates: A Comparative Study of 16 Countries, 1980-2000," LIS Working papers 408, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    13. Vincent Mahler, 2002. "Exploring the Subnational Dimension of Income Inequality: An Analysis of the Relationship between Inequality and Electoral Turnout in the Developed Countries," LIS Working papers 292, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    14. Fischer, Justina A.V., 2012. "The choice of domestic policies in a globalized economy," Papers 306, World Trade Institute.
    15. Jonas Agell, 2004. "Efficiency and Equality in the Labour Market," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo, vol. 50(2), pages 255-278.
    16. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson & Thierry Verdier, 2012. "Can't We All Be More Like Scandinavians? Asymmetric Growth and Institutions in an Interdependent World," NBER Working Papers 18441, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Giovanni Cornia & Leonardo Menchini, 2004. "The pace and distribution of health improvements during the last 40 years: some preliminary results," Development Working Papers 194, Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano.
    18. Goudswaard, Kees & Caminada, Koen, 2008. "The redistributive impact of public and private social expenditure," MPRA Paper 20178, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Fischer, Justina A.V., 2012. "Globalization and Political Trust," Papers 285, World Trade Institute.
    20. Van Ourti, Tom & van Doorslaer, Eddy & Koolman, Xander, 2009. "The effect of income growth and inequality on health inequality: Theory and empirical evidence from the European Panel," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 525-539, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:lis:liswps:385. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Piotr Paradowski (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lisprlu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.