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Political power is being reallocated across territorial boundaries. This paper analyzes how such process interacts with the politics of redistribution & inequality. In this paper it is argued that whatever the impact of decentralization on the distribution of income may be, it depends to a large extent on the internal structures of inequality within regions & their combination. This being the case, there are reasons to believe that, in the context of multilevel governance, contentions about the allocation of power across levels of governments become to a large extent contentions about who gets what. Such contentions make decentralization endogenous to the territorial structure of inequality by virtue of a political process linking the latter to the preferences about the territorial design of redistribution. The first part of the paper formalizes this argument. The second one tests it against a data set of 15 OECD countries over the period 1980-1997. Tables, Figures, References. Adapted from the source document.

Political power is being reallocated across territorial boundaries. Traditionally centralized polities are either decentralized or on their way to decentralization. In addition, European nations are engaged in the process of building a common set of rules both respectful to and compatible with their own peculiarities. As a result, the number of political entities in which several levels of government share a common economic space has increased. This paper analyzes how decentralization interacts with the politics of redistribution and inequality. The argument can be outlined as follows. Contrary to what is conventionally argued, decentralization per se does not necessarily lead towards higher (or lower) levels of income inequality. Whatever the impact of decentralization on the distribution of income may be, it is to a large extent a function of the internal structures of inequality within regions and their combination. Secondly, if decentralization indeed leads to different distributive outcomes, there are reasons to believe that, in the context of multilevel governance, contentions about the institutional design of redistribution are themselves contentions about who gets what. Such contentions make decentralization endogenous to the territorial structure of inequality by virtue of a political process linking the latter to the preferences about the institutional design of redistribution. The first part of the paper formalizes this argument. The second one tests its main implications against a data set of 15 OECD countries over the period 1980- 1997. ; Politische Macht wird über territoriale Grenzen hinaus neu verteilt. Traditionell zentralisierte Länder haben sich bereits dezentralisiert oder sind auf dem Wege der Dezentralisierung. Zusätzlich befinden sich die europäischen Nationen in einem Prozess des Aufbaus eines gemeinsamen Regelwerkes, das einerseits ihre eigenen Besonderheiten respektieren soll und andererseits mit diesen Besonderheiten vereinbar zu sein hat. Das Ergebnis ist eine Zunahme von politischen Gebilden, in denen sich mehrere Regierungsebenen einen gemeinsamen Wirtschaftsraum teilen. Dieser Artikel analysiert die Interaktion dieses Prozesses mit Verteilungspolitik sowie Ungleichheit und argumentiert dabei wie folgt: Im Gegensatz zur üblichen Sichtweise führt Dezentralisierung nicht notwendigerweise zu höheren (oder niedrigeren) Einkommensungleichheiten. Was immer die Auswirkung von Dezentralisierung auf Einkommensverteilung auch sein mag, so ist letztere zu einem großen Teil das Ergebnis der internen Ungleichheitsstrukturen von Regionen und deren verschiedenen Kombinationen. Und zweitens, wenn Dezentralisierung zu verschiedenen Verteilungsergebnissen führt, dann wäre zu vermuten, dass Konflikte über die institutionelle Ausgestaltung von Verteilungspolitik innerhalb eines Mehrebenensystems eigentlich Meinungsverschiedenheiten über die Frage des "Wer-bekommt-was" sind. Auf Grund eines politischen Prozesses, der die territoriale Ungleichheit mit den Präferenzen bezüglich der institutionellen Ausgestaltung der Umverteilung zusammenschaltet, werden derartige Konflikte über die Dezentralisierung zu einem endogenen Problem der territorialen Struktur von Ungleichheit. Der erste Teil des Artikels befasst sich mit den eben genannten Argumenten. Der zweite Teil testet deren wesentlichen Implikationen anhand eines Datensatzes von 15 OECD-Ländern über den Zeitraum 1980 – 1997.

In this Element, we investigate how economic geography, the distribution of subnational economic endowments within a nation, shapes long-run patterns of inequality through its impact on the development of fiscal capacity. We present an argument that links economic geography to capacity through different types of industrialization processes. We show how early industrializers shape spatial distributions domestically by investing in productivity across their nations, and externally by reinforcing spatial polarization among late industrializers. We also show how differences in economic geography impact the process of capacity building, setting the stage for the modern politics of redistribution discussed in Volume II. We support this argument with descriptive data, case studies, and cross-national analyses.

We analyze the relationship between accountability and polarization in the context of the COVID crisis. We make three points. First, when voters perceive the out-party to be ideologically extreme, they are less likely to hold incumbents accountable for poor outcomes via competence-based evaluations. Knowing this, even in the context of major crises, incumbents face weaker incentives to take politically costly measures that would minimize deaths. Second, there is a partisan asymmetry whereby the additional government intrusion associated with effective COVID response can be more politically costly for the right than for the left, because it undercuts the ideological distinctiveness that drives the base-mobilization strategy of the right. Third, this asymmetry generates incentives for politicization of COVID mitigation policies that ultimately lead to partisan differences in mitigation behavior and outcomes. To illustrate this logic, we provide preliminary evidence that COVID death rates are higher in more polarized democracies, and that in one of the most polarized democracies—the United States—COVID deaths have become increasingly correlated with partisanship.

ABSTRACTThe European Union provided a mixed response to the 2008 financial crisis. On the one hand, it refused to pursue fiscal integration through a common budget; on the other, it introduced significant transfers between countries that were designed to produce financial stabilization. The authors analyze this response as the outcome of democratic constraints on EU leaders. Given the EU's current institutional structure, citizens' preferences pose a binding constraint on what leaders can do as these preferences limit the scope of risk-pooling among members and the degree of political tolerance for different courses of action. The authors show that citizens' preferences reflect differences in the geography of income, production regimes, and institutional organization. The heterogeneity of constituencies' redistribution preferences combined with a diverse economic geography helps to explain why political constraints on national governments prevent them from engaging in further fiscal integration. By contrast, externalities among member states shift the preferences of citizens who may experience negative effects and make international redistribution politically feasible. The authors analyze these two mechanisms and present novel empirical results on the determinants of preferences for fiscal integration and international redistribution in the aftermath of the eurocrisis.

A large and fruitful literature has focused on the impact of colonial legacies on long-term development. Yet the mechanisms through which these legacies get transmitted over time remain ambiguous. This article analyzes the choice and effects of legislative representation as one such mechanism, driven by elites interested in maximizing jointly economic prospects and political influence over time. We focus on malapportionment in the legislatures of the original 13 British North-American colonies. Their joint independence created a unique juncture in which postcolonial elites simultaneously chose the legislative and electoral institutions under which they would operate. We show that the initial choice of apportionment in the state legislatures is largely a function of economic geography, that such a choice generated persistent differences in representation patterns within states (political inequality), and that the latter shaped public goods provision in the long run.