Introduction

Democratization is generally expected to engender socioeconomic and political equality. However, in reality, democratization does not necessarily reduce income inequality. We investigate the reasons why democratization sometimes has a limited effect in emerging democracies. We deal with the issue of inequality reduction, paying special attention to emerging democracies and political factors. Previous studies have mainly focused on advanced democracies, and are therefore not free from the problem of selection bias. As emerging democracies outnumber advanced democracies, we need to examine emerging democracies to develop a more general theory of inequality. We specifically focus on political aspects because we are concerned with the functions of democracy. In contrast with previous studies emphasizing that the interaction between different classes determines the level of inequality, we claim that three political factors at various phases of political process complicate the process of reflecting people’s preferences in actual public policy. These factors are multidimensional preferences, the failure of the political market, and weak state capacity.