Category: Articles in Political Inequality
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Political Parties: Images and Policy Reputations
What are party images? What is a policy reputation? In the course of their lives, political parties acquire policy reputations. That is, individuals and groups evaluate a party’s position on the issues of the day. The totality of these perceptions is referred to as their “party image”. Distinct issues fragment party images, such that a…
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Power Inequality: Trends in Europe
Inequality is generally understood as long-standing structured differences in social, economic, legal, and political resources. Inequalities intersect, such that power inequality is associated with economic, legal, social, and political inequality. What is power inequality? Power inequality is defined as structured differences in the capacity of principals to realize their will against the interests and efforts…
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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…
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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…
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Political Voice and Economic Inequality: Institutional Factors
We at the POLINQ project examined 18 quantitative cross-national articles by major scholars in the leading journals to develop a typology of institutional factors that influence the relationship between political voice and economic inequality. We comment on how scholars have measured these factors, or “concepts.” At a glance… Institutional Factors that Link Voice to Inequality…
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Political Participation and Democracy
What is the relationship between political participation and democracy? Democracy and political participation — such as protest or voting — feed off of each other. Social scientists argue that when democracy is strong, more people participate. Why? Because democracy opens up possibilities for political participation such as voting, protest, and working for political parties and…
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Democratic Backsliding: Definition and Measurement
What is democratic backsliding? Democratic backsliding is when a democratic country shows signs of becoming autocratic or authoritarian. Backsliding can occur when a democracy has just a foothold (e.g. Poland in the early 1990s) or is firmly established as a democracy (the USA). How do we know when democratic backsliding occurs? Social scientists typically use…
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Democracy and Economic Inequality
Why does economic inequality rise in democracies? Economic inequality is rising, and the United Nations reports that economic inequality impacts 70 percent of the world, even when we include democracies such as the US, UK, France, and Germany. Why does democracy not reduce economic inequality? According to democratic theories, giving everyone the vote and allowing…
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Notes on Manza’s Essay “Political Inequality”
Social Scientist Jeff Manza Explored Political Inequality Social scientist Jeff Manza wrote an article for Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences on “Political Inequality” (2015). This post, in politicalinequality.org, provides notes and critique of Jeff Manza’s article. Manza: Economic Inequality is Political Inequality The abstract of the essay makes the ubiquitous argument that…
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POLINQ: Political Inequality and Political Voice across Nations and Time
What is POLINQ Political Inequality? POLINQ is an acronym for political inequality, defined as structured differences in political influence and its consequences. POLINQ is also the acronym of the National Science Foundation, Poland funded project (2016/23/B/HS6/03916), which ran from 2017 – 2022, with Joshua K. Dubrow as the Principle Investigator. POLINQ was housed at the…
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How Political Voice Fares in an Age of Rising Inequality: Frederick Solt’s Research on Economic Inequality and Democracy
Political Voice and Economic Inequality The basics of modern life — job, education, and income — can shape our interest in politics, our desire to discuss politics with others, and our decision to vote. In the parlance of social science, occupation and socioeconomic status may impact “political engagement,” otherwise known as political voice. We politically…
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Interview with Renira Angeles on Politics, Inequality, and Executive Pay
Renira C. Angeles, who recently received her PhD in Political Science from Central European University (CEU), Hungary, has presented a paper co-authored with Achim Kemmerling, University of Erfurt, Germany, “How Redistributive Institutions Affect Pay Inequality and Heterogeneity among Top Managers,” at the Politics and Inequality conference held December 2018 in Warsaw, Poland. Dr. Angeles applies…
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Interview with Catherine Bolzendahl on Women’s Political Empowerment Worldwide
Catherine Bolzendahl, Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology of the University of California-Irvine, recently delivered the keynote speech, “Women’s Political Empowerment: A Path toward Progress in Uncertain Times,” at the Politics and Inequality conference held December 2018 in Warsaw, Poland. Catherine Bolzendahl’s interests are in political change cross-nationally and over time, as well as…
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Interview with Piotr Zagorski on Education and Support for Right-wing Populist Parties in Central and Eastern Europe
Piotr Zagorski and Andrés Santana, of Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain, recently presented their paper, “Voice or Exit: Education, Support for Right-wing Populist Parties, and Abstention in Central and Eastern Europe,” at the Politics and Inequality conference held December 2018 in Warsaw, Poland. Piotr Zagórski is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Faculty of…
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Interview with Gwangeun Choi on Economic and Political Inequality in Cross-national Perspective
Gwangeun Choi presented the paper, “The Link between Economic and Political Inequality in Cross-National Perspective” at the Politics and Inequality conference held in Warsaw, Poland in December 2018. Dr. Choi recently received a PhD in Government at the University of Essex in the UK. His research interests are in the areas of democracy, quality of…
Political Inequality: A blog since 2010 