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"Chile's Political Democracy and Economic Inequality" published on by Oxford University Press.

In recent weeks, Kenya has been rocked by street protests over the state of the economy. Kenyans are upset with the dramatically rising cost of living, and the police and security forces have attempted to quell the protests with violence.

The sudden and large increase of interest in questions of distribution of
wealth and economic inequality, arising in recent years, resulted primarily
from the enormous increase in inequality that occurred during the last three
decades. The global economic crisis that emerged in 2008 gave a new impetus
to this research because numerous scientific studies appeared in which
inequalities were given as one of the key causes of the crisis from which the
world is slowly recovering. This is especially true in Europe, whose recovery
is barely discernible. This paper analyzes the trends of economic inequality
and points to the impact of inequality on economic growth. The central
question in this paper, however, is whether the economic inequalities caused
the economic crisis. Although opinions differ as to inequality?s impact on
the occurrence of the crisis, the fact is that enormous economic
inequalities, and especially their permanent growth, could have many negative
effects, such as increasing poverty, increasing social stratification and
causing global economic crises. As many authors have pointed out, escalating
inequality is not an inevitable price of progress. On the contrary, it is a
political decision that often has expensive ramifications.

What effect, if any, does the extent of economic inequality in a country have upon the political engagement of its citizens? This study examines this question using data from multiple cross‐national surveys of the advanced industrial democracies. It tests the theory that greater inequality increases the relative power of the wealthy to shape politics in their own favor against rival arguments that focus on the effects of inequality on citizens' objective interests or the resources they have available for political engagement. The analysis demonstrates that higher levels of income inequality powerfully depress political interest, the frequency of political discussion, and participation in elections among all but the most affluent citizens, providing compelling evidence that greater economic inequality yields greater political inequality.

This volume contains papers from the Society for the Study of Economic Inequality's third meeting held in Buenos Aries, Argentina, in July 2009. The first five papers focus on a number of Latin American countries, on the understudied topics of poverty and inequality in these areas. Specific issues covered by these papers include multidimensional poverty, equity effects of school drop-outs, and the role of transfer programs in reducing Latin American poverty. Additional papers provide research from further afield including China and France and cover topics such as: relative deprivation; taxation and inequality; mobility dominance; polarization; estimation of child costs; nutritional inequality; and transportation inequalities. The volume includes work by such well-known authors as Jacques Silber, Jean-Yves Duclos, and Udo Ebert. This book is the 18th Volume in the notable Research on Economic Equality series which offers fresh theoretical and methodological insights into the key issues in the field of economic inequality, showcasing highly topical work from both senior researchers and emerging scholars.

Objective. What effect does the extent of economic inequality within a country have on the religiosity of the people who live there? As inequality increases, does religion serve primarily as a source of comfort for the deprived and impoverished or as a tool of social control for the rich and powerful?Methods. This article examines these questions with two complementary analyses of inequality and religiosity: a multilevel analysis of countries around the world over two decades and a time‐series analysis of the United States over a half‐century.Results. Economic inequality has a strong positive effect on the religiosity of all members of a society regardless of income.Conclusions. These results support relative power theory, which maintains that greater inequality yields more religiosity by increasing the degree to which wealthy people are attracted to religion and have the power to shape the attitudes and beliefs of those with fewer means.