Suchergebnisse

Democracy is frequently framed as a distributional game. Much of the evidence supporting this possibility rests on the World Bank's 1996 'high-quality' inequality dataset. Using the updated and revised 'high-quality' dataset of 2007, this article revisits those results. Using the same country sample, more years and similar specifications to previous studies, as well as a larger country sample with more appropriate statistical models, we find no relationship between democracy/civil liberties and aggregate measures of economic inequality. Whether, and how, democracy decreases economic inequality remains an open question.

Democracy is frequently framed as a distributional game. Much of the evidence supporting this possibility rests on the World Bank's 1996 'high-quality' inequality dataset. Using the updated and revised 'high-quality' dataset of 2007, this article revisits those results. Using the same country sample, more years and similar specifications to previous studies, as well as a larger country sample with more appropriate statistical models, we find no relationship between democracy/civil liberties and aggregate measures of economic inequality. Whether, and how, democracy decreases economic inequality remains an open question (British Journal of Political Science/ FUB 2010)

ObjectiveDespite substantial theorizing, the relationship between economic inequality and participation in nonviolent protests has not been satisfactorily examined empirically.MethodsUsing multilevel models of data from four waves of the European Social Survey, this article examines whether differences in inequality across countries and over time help explain people's engagement in peaceful protest.ResultsIt finds that greater inequality reduces protest participation for all those with incomes below the top quintile.ConclusionsThis result provides strong support for the relative power theory of political participation; the predictions of grievance and resource theories regarding inequality's effects on protest are not supported.

ObjectiveHow does economic inequality shape participation in political campaigns? Previous research has found that higher inequality makes people of all incomes less likely to participate in politics, consistent with relative power theory, which holds that greater inequality enables wealthier citizens to more fully reshape the political landscape to their own advantage. Campaign activities, however, demand more time and money than previously examined forms of participation and so might better conform to the predictions of resource theory, which focuses narrowly on the ramifications of inequality for individuals' resources.MethodsWe combine individual‐level data on donations, meeting attendance, and volunteer work for political campaigns with measures of state‐level income inequality to construct a series of multilevel models.ResultsThe analyses reveal that, where inequality is higher, campaign participation is lower among individuals of all incomes.ConclusionsPatterns of participation in even resource‐intensive campaign activities provide support for the relative power theory.

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.

AbstractThere are three distinct forces that conspire to produce a great deal of economic misery. We can refer to them, for convenience, as misfortune, unfairness, and improvidence. Political philosophers have often shown an interest in one or another of these, but seldom all three. Furthermore, those who do acknowledge all three have often felt driven to collapse them into one root cause of inequality. My goal in this essay will be to argue that the three are independent of one another, but more importantly, that they each require distinct remedies. This is important for egalitarians because it defeats any attempt to develop a "one-size-fits-all" policy aimed at creating a more equal society. This analysis helps us to understand several of the tensions that arise in our attempts to combat inequality that are often obscured by an overemphasis on the power of redistributive taxation as well as generalized inattention to the way that successful welfare states achieve meaningful progress in promoting greater equality.

Since the 1980s, globalization has reduced between-country inequality and increased within-country inequality in most countries. There has been a debate about whether global inequality, which combines both between- and within-country inequalities, increased or decreased. With more adequate and updated data over the past two decades, this debate has been settled. Global inequality unmistakably diminished in the age of globalization. Underlying this reduction in aggregate global inequality is the rise of China and India into the middle strata of the global income distribution, income stagnation of the working class in rich countries, and the expansion of internal inequality in poor and rich countries. This shift in global income distribution contributed to new geopolitical conflicts and political backlash against globalization in the developed world. This global distributive politics will in turn determine the future of globalization and shape the trajectory of global income inequality change.

Bell curves -- A history of inequality -- Why argue for inequality? -- Who benefits from inequality? -- Where do the costs of inequality fall? -- What are the alternatives to inequality? -- When will the fall in inequality become clear? -- Reasons for optimism