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This book analyzes the link between economic and political inequalities and investigates the mechanisms that lead to economically rooted inequalities in the political representation of citizens' policy preferences. Focusing on the case of Switzerland and evaluating data from the post-electoral survey, Selects 2007, the author demonstrates that the policy preferences of members of the Federal Assembly best reflect those of rich citizens. This pattern is explained by differential levels of political participation and knowledge across income groups, party finance, the fact that representatives tend to come from higher economic strata, and the failure of the party-system structure to reflect the complexity of policy preferences among citizens

Research on a variety of advanced democracies has shown that there is a link between mass preferences and public policy. It has also documented that when there are differences in preferences between income groups, public policy tend to be more responsive to the preferences of richer citizens. We know little, however, about citizens' perceptions of responsiveness as well as of unequal responsiveness and their consequences for electoral participation. This is relevant as citizens' perceptions of their influence on policy directly factors in the perception of the utility of voting. If citizens do not feel that they have an influence on political outcomes they might get discouraged from going to the voting booth, which in turn lowers the incentives for political actors to take their views into consideration. This manuscript addresses this issue by analysing citizens' perceptions of policy responsiveness and of unequal policy responsiveness, the extent to which these perceptions vary by income as well as the effect of those perception on turnout across various income groups. Using data from an original survey conducted in 12 west European countries and the United States in 2019 as well as data from the European Social Survey of 2012, the analyses reveal that there is little variation in responsiveness perceptions across income groups: a majority of citizens from all income groups are sceptical about their own influence on policy and perceive a bias in policy making that favours the rich. These perceptions are associated with lower levels of participation, especially among low-income groups. Overall, results show that evaluations of responsiveness matter for political participation, but these evaluations cannot explain differences in participation between income groups since all groups have very similar perceptions of responsiveness as well as of inequality in responsiveness.

Bronisaw Komorowski is elected President His victory brings an end to a period of cohabitation. The liberal conservative party Civic Platform controls both the presidency and the government. The accidental death of the incumbent President Lech Kaczyski has affected both the timing of the election and the tone of the campaign. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]

Bronisaw Komorowski is elected President His victory brings an end to a period of cohabitation. The liberal conservative party Civic Platform controls both the presidency and the government. The accidental death of the incumbent President Lech Kaczyski has affected both the timing of the election and the tone of the campaign. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]

Individuals hold beliefs about what causes poverty, and those beliefs have been theorized to explain policy preferences and ultimately cross-country variations in welfare states. However, there has been little empirical work on the effects of poverty attributions on welfare state attitudes. We seek to fill this gap by making use of Eurobarometer data from 27 European countries in the years 2009, 2010 and 2014 to explore the effects of poverty attributions on judgments about economic inequality as well as preferences regarding the welfare state. Relying on a four-type typology of poverty attribution which includes individual fate, individual blame, social fate and social blame as potential explanations for poverty, our analyses show that these poverty attributions are associated with judgments about inequality and broadly defined support for the welfare state, but have little or no effect on more concrete policy proposals such as unemployment benefits or increase of social welfare at the expense of higher taxes.

AbstractThis study analyses congruence across various issues in 16 European democracies. Making use of public opinion and expert survey data, our analyses show that congruence between the policy preferences of citizens and the stances of governments is much more complex than what is revealed by studies focusing on ideology solely. Size and directions of incongruence are larger and more systematic on specific issues than on the left–right scale. On redistribution, citizens are more to the left than their governments, while popular support for European integration is systematically lower among citizens than among their representatives. Moreover, the relatively poor are particularly underrepresented on redistribution, while the preferences of the relatively lower educated are not well reflected in government preferences in relation to European integration. We interpret these results as being partly linked to a representation gap with privileged social groups enjoying higher levels of congruence with their government.

This study analyses congruence across various issues in 16 European democracies. Making use of public opinion and expert survey data, our analyses show that congruence between the policy preferences of citizens and the stances of governments is much more complex than what is revealed by studies focusing on ideology solely. Size and directions of incongruence are larger and more systematic on specific issues than on the left-right scale. On redistribution, citizens are more to the left than their governments, while popular support for European integration is systematically lower among citizens than among their representatives. Moreover, the relatively poor are particularly underrepresented on redistribution, while the preferences of the relatively lower educated are not well reflected in government preferences in relation to European integration. We interpret these results as being partly linked to a representation gap with privileged social groups enjoying higher levels of congruence with their government.