Category: Book
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Noam Chomsky on Money in Politics
Noam Chomsky is a highly influential public intellectual known for his incisive social criticism and political activism. In this post, we present Chomsky’s critique of wealth and power concentration, the influence of neoliberalism, and the resultant detrimental impact on democracy. See also About Noam Chomsky Noam Chomsky, born in 1928, is a renowned American public…
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Joseph Stiglitz: Democracy, Justice, and Inequality
Why is inequality bad for democracy and justice? What can be done about it? In this post, we present the works of Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate, economist, and professor at Columbia University. Focusing on three of his key books, “The Price of Inequality,” “The Great Divide,” and “People, Power, and Profits,” we present Stiglitz’s…
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Jane Mayer: Dark Money in Politics
How does “money in politics” work? Is there a plan by some billionaires to seed the political landscape with “dark money”? In this post, we present the research of investigative journalist Jane Mayer who exposed the immense influence of the Koch brothers on American politics. The Koch brothers are wealthy libertarians who have used their…
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The Many Definitions of Political Inequality
What is the definition of political inequality? Political inequality is worrisome for the future of democracy. Unequal access to political decision-makers means that the political voice of the few is louder than the political voice of the many. But how can we define political inequality? In my book published by Routledge, I defined political inequality…
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Gender and Political Inequality in Eastern Europe: Open Access Resources from the POLINQ Project
What is the relationship between gender and political inequality (POLINQ)? Despite the promises of political equality of the Communist era, and the promises of the post-Communist era, from 1945 to now women in Eastern Europe have endured political inequality. Political inequality is defined as structured differences in influence over political decisions, and the outcomes of…
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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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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 Katerina Vrablikova on Economic Hardship, Politicization and Protest
Katerina Vrablikova, of the University of Bath, UK, recently presented a paper, “Economic Hardship, Politicization and Protest in Western Democracies,” at the Politics and Inequality conference held in Warsaw, Poland. Since Fall 2018, Kateřina Vráblíková has been a senior lecturer in Politics at the Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies at the University of…
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Neoliberalism and Democracy
Neoliberalism has degraded democracy through its ideological control over the economy, polity, and the cultural sphere.
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Elites care about inequality, but probably not in the way that you think
This is a guest post by Matias Lopez, Universidad Católica, Chile. Do the elite care about inequality? A survey of over 800 elites in six Latin American countries reveals that they acknowledge economic inequality as a problem, but see little incentive to reduce inequality. The elite from stronger and more stable democracies tend to be…
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The Political Voice of Xenophobes
This is a guest post by Irina Tomescu-Dubrow, Polish Academy of Sciences and Kazimierz M. Slomczynski, The Ohio State University Xenophobes and those discriminated based on ethnicity have political voice In an inclusive and tolerant society that values political equality, expression of political voice is supposed to be open to everyone. Let’s consider those who…
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What Is Political Inequality and How Unequal Are We?
We Know a lot about Economic Inequality When the Occupy Wall Street movement reached its heyday in the Autumn of 2011, spreading to cities all over the world, the protesters’ rallying cry was, “We are the 99 percent.” They hoped for political change, among other things, but “99” was mainly understood as a statement about…
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Do Newspapers Write about Democracy and Equality?
What is political inequality? Political inequality is both unequal influence over decisions made by political bodies and the unequal outcomes of those decisions. Political equality is “a fundamental premise of democracy” (quoting celebrated political theorist Robert Dahl). The news media has long reflected and shaped modern societies. In their pages we should expect that they present the…
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New Book by the Working Group: Political Inequality in an Age of Democracy
Political Inequality in an Age of Democracy: Cross-national Perspectives Edited by Joshua Kjerulf Dubrow Routledge – 2014 – 154 pages Series: Routledge Advances in Sociology The world has witnessed the creation of new democracies and the maturing of old ones. Yet, everywhere there is democracy, there is also political inequality. Voices of everyday folk struggle…
Political Inequality: A blog since 2010 