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Political Inequality

We examine the concept, theory, causes, and consequences of political inequality across nations and time.


Essays and News on Political Inequality

Zolberg’s Moments of Madness

I summarize and critique a classic article in the fields of protest and social movements by Aristide R. Zolberg, “Moments of madness.” Politics & Society 2, no. 2 (1972): 183-207. See also… Zolberg’s Thesis Zolberg’s thesis, designed to help us understand social and political change, is simple. During an intense social and political situation, such…

Social Movement Theory: Fields, Arenas, and Players

Social movement theory typically uses the concepts of fields, arenas, and players or actors. But these concepts seem to be conceptually similar. In this post, I critique two articles by prominent social movement theorists to understand fields, arenas, and players. At the end, I attempt a synthesis. See also: Social Movement Outcomes Social Movement Fields…

Social Movement Outcomes

Do social movements cause social change? How would we know? We look to the success of the civil rights movement in the United States and conclude, “Yes, social movements matter.” But, there are many social movements around the world, and there are many social changes. How do we know if social movements cause social change?…

Gender Quotas in Politics

Gender quotas in politics are rules that aim at providing opportunities for women to be in parliament or to appear on candidate lists in elections for political office. In this post, we discuss the types of gender quotas in politics, how parliaments in democracy adopt quotas, whether they are effective in placing more women in…

Youth and Political Participation

What does “Youth” or “Young” mean in political participation studies? Most studies of political participation that feature multivariate regression use age as a linear variable. The few that do present “age groups” (i.e. age ranges) as a series of dichotomous variables can differ quite a bit on how to conceptualize “youth” and “young” For example,…

Political Equality in V-Dem: “Power distributed by gender”

In a previous post, we discussed how the Varieties of Democracy “V-Dem” project measures “political equality.” V-Dem is an expert survey. They guide the expert-respondents’ attention to particular groups’ political equality. These groups are: (a) socioeconomic position, (b) social groups, (c) gender, and (d) sexual orientation. In this post, we discuss how they measure “Power…

Political Equality in V-Dem: “Power distributed by sexual orientation”

In a previous post, we discussed how the Varieties of Democracy “V-Dem” project measures “political equality.” V-Dem is an expert survey. They guide the expert-respondents’ attention to particular groups’ political equality. These groups are: (a) socioeconomic position, (b) social groups, (c) gender, and (d) sexual orientation. In this post, we discuss how they measure “Power…

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