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Democracy, belief in democratic redistribution, and income inequality

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Abstract

This study provides a novel contribution to the democracy–inequality literature by presenting the belief in democratic redistribution (the view that redistribution is an essential characteristic of democracy) as a conditioning factor. Democracy is expected to reduce inequality when people perceive redistribution as an essential characteristic of it, yet initial analysis shows contrasting results depending on the operationalisation of the indicator. Subsequent findings show, perhaps surprisingly, that democracy is only correlated with lower inequality when more people regard elections and liberties, instead of redistribution, as the essential characteristics of democracy. Democracy is associated with higher inequality when a larger share of the population considers redistribution to be essential to it. It is suggested that in response to the utilitarian view of democracy, authoritarian leaders can gain legitimacy by reducing inequality, whereas elected leaders in a democracy can hold power with little action on redistribution.

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Notes

  1. Instruments for democracy such as settler mortality and fraction of European language speakers are not valid here as they are also correlated with income inequality.

  2. Here, I focus on the effect of democracy on inequality, but it should be noted that researchers also suggest that inequality is a key factor in democratisation (e.g. Boix 2003).

  3. World Values Survey, https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org. Accessed 16 September 2018.

  4. It can be argued that the different items across the two waves make the observations incomparable. As a robustness test, models with only data from wave 5 return very similar results (Appendix).

  5. The construction of this variable is further discussed in Appendix.

  6. The SWIID also provides data on redistribution, which is an arguably more direct measure for my arguments. However, the redistribution measures are more limited in terms of data availability. With the partial exception of model 7, my results are not sensitive to the use of redistribution as the dependent variable (Appendix).

  7. The value of LDV is sometimes above 1. While this would indicate an explosive time series process in a panel model, it should not be a concern here as this is not a panel dataset. A figure above 1 simply means that the outcome included tends to increase from t to t + 1.

  8. The plots are virtually identical for models 1 and 3.

  9. My argument might be generalized to other “non-standard” conceptions of democracy other than redistribution, as long as it allows for the exploitation of leaders. A discussion can be found in Appendix.

  10. Asianbarometer Survey. http://www.asianbarometer.org/

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  1. Department of Social Sciences, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, New Territories, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Mathew Y. H. Wong

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Wong, M.Y.H. Democracy, belief in democratic redistribution, and income inequality. Eur Polit Sci 21, 378–397 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-021-00350-w

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