Power Inequality: Trends in Europe

March 13, 2023March 13, 2023 ~ jdubrow2000

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 of subalterns. (See What is Power? What is a Power Structure?).

Everyday citizens receive the brunt of power inequality. Representation and participation should empower those at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. Yet, across nations and time, an individual’s position in the social structure interacts with the economic and political environment to repress the mass actions that could, potentially, push the elites toward fair economic redistribution.

How does power inequality endure? There are two mechanisms (see Lopez and Dubrow 2020). One mechanism is how elites reproduce inequalities, or “elite coordination.” A second mechanism is how social inequalities structure participation and contestation. We call this second mechanism, “mass discoordination.” The two key mechanisms of elite coordination and mass discoordination feed off of each other. The uneven distribution of power resources encourages the elite — who head the democratic institutions and set the rules — to pursue greater concentration; meanwhile, the elite-led institutions that allow such disparities to occur promote roadblocks that either prevent groups from participating, such as in the case of disenfranchised citizens, or discourages collective coordination around shared interests. The masses remain aggrieved yet disorganized.

I examine power inequality in its two main forms: political voice and economic control.

Political Voice

Political voice is (a) participation – verbal, physical, symbolic, monetary, or otherwise – in the political sphere by individuals, organizations, social groups, interest groups, or entire populations in electoral and non-electoral situations. Voice refers also to (b) representation by movements, organizations, legislative representatives, or political leaders and other public figures. Representation has many dimensions (e.g. Pitkin 1967; Mansbridge 2003). From a voice perspective, representation is someone or something engaged in the expression of interests in the political sphere on behalf of others or to promote an idea.

Economic Control

Economic control refers to the degree of freedom individuals and groups have to access and acquire the material resources necessary to thrive in capitalist society. Power inequality is directly related to economic control. In societies with high power equality, individuals and social groups have greater economic control. In societies with high power inequality, individuals and social groups have lesser economic control.

Relationship between Political Voice and Economic Control

Political voice and economic control intersect. Political participation is a core aspect of political voice and it is a foundation of European democracies. Of the social forces that act in tandem to influence political participation, economic inequality, social spending, and clientelism loom large. Whereas economic inequality in modern capitalist societies is associated with the maldistribution of political power and unequal political engagement, institutional contexts of the political economy can amplify or dampen the impact of economic inequality. In theory, social spending should mitigate the negative externalities of economic inequality through the provision of the social and economic resources to individuals and social groups that they need to participate in politics. Equitable social spending across socioeconomic strata should relieve social and economic burdens that make it difficult for disadvantaged groups to participate in democratic life, and thus buoy the participatory environment. Yet, social spending is not necessarily equally distributed; clientelism intervenes to push resources towards already politically and economically advantaged groups, thus lowering the level of political participation. (See POLINQ Project).

Theoretical model of power inequality

In Figure 1, I summarize the theoretical framework. It is a multivalent structure in which power inequality attacks society at all levels. The macro-level’s economic, political, legal, and social factors are national and Europe-wide contexts that influence the meso-level organizations and institutions. The macro and meso layers influence the thoughts, behaviors, and experiences of social groups and individuals. The macro, meso, and micro-levels combine to both create society and form the deleterious inequalities that destabilize democratic institutions and lower democratic quality. Positive and negative events within the macro-meso-micro structures can alter the form, speed, duration, and magnitude of this recursive cycle.

Through this model, we can view how inequalities travel through the macro-meso-micro dimensions to impact society’s power inequalities. Power inequalities throughout the system destabilize social institutions and degrade the quality of democracy and social well-being.

Figure 1. Theoretical Model of Power Inequality

The model is inspired by Coleman’s Boat. We can view “power inequality” as the prow of the boat. The arrows indicate association, rather than causality. The arrow from “Micro” to “power inequality” means all of micro, and not just “behaviors.” The definition of “institutions” can vary. I separate them from macro-structures even though some may consider them as macro-structures. The entire model is recursive, meaning that all of the parts intersect and repeat across time based on these redounding and reinforcing relationships.

The point of the model is to explain how power inequality influences society. Indeed, power relations permeate the model. Power in economic, political, and social relationships determine peoples’ acquisition and access to scarce and valued resources, including power itself. Power guides practices, policies, and discourses.

Practices, policies, and discourses occur in the meso-layer. They are what we do, what is codified, and what we talk and write about. They are both the input into, outcomes of, unequal power relations. The list of meso-level organizations and institutions is long and can be longer.

The micro-layer has three parts: values (and attitudes), behaviors, and identities/experiences/demographics. The “behaviors” are what people do, or report that they do, and what we social scientists can observe. We can view their occupations (jobs), political participation, and discriminatory or equality-producing practices (whether they promote discrimination or equality).

The stakeholder environment is the clientelism, favoritism, and other -isms that impact who the power structure benefits. The stakeholders should be named: they are the masses, and that includes the workers in the meso-layer and the people not in the meso-layer; they are also the elite who are outliers in power and resources. The elite hail from various sectors of the meso-layer.

For example, economic structures impact how electoral institutions function (in essence giving preference to candidates from privileged backgrounds and occupations) that create policies to promote pro-inequality norms. This leads to discriminatory behaviors that impact the experiences of disadvantaged groups, e.g. from lower socioeconomic status. A result is that their voices are marginalized, e.g. lesser representation and lower impact of their political participation, and social well being degrades.

Power inequality prevails, and thus policies are not designed for the disadvantaged.

Trends in Power Inequality

Let’s examine trends in power inequality over time, especially the intersection of political voice and economic control. The V-Dem codebook v.12 defines the measure, “Political Equality” (pp. 207 – 209).

See our series on “Power Equality as measured by the Varieties of Democracy Project”

V-Dem guides the experts attention to particular groups’ political equality: (a) socioeconomic position, (b) social groups, (c) gender, and (d) sexual orientation. V-Dem tells the expert that all countries have economic inequality, whether wealth or income, to at least some degree. V-Dem is concerned here with the link, as Manza (2015) does, between economic inequality and the distribution of political power, or what they call the “political effects” of unequal economic distribution.

V-Dem posits three hypothetical groups – the wealthy, the average person, and the poor. There are four possible responses: (0) Wealthy have a monopoly on power; (1) Wealthy are dominant, the average have little power, the poor none at all; (2) the wealthy have a “strong hold on power,” and the average and the poor have a little bit of power but only over the things that the wealthy do not bother to contest; (3) The wealthy and the average have about equal influence, and the poor has significant influence; (4) complete political equality between the three groups.

In the East, the immediate post-1989 era brought a rise in power inequality between socioeconomic groups (Figure 2). (see Socioeconomic Status: Definition and Measurement). Whereas, around 1989, power was relatively equally distributed across SES groups, by the 2010s, the wealthy had a strong hold on power. In the West, equality was never on the table. However, they managed to maintain less power inequality than the East.

Figure 2. Power Distributed by Socioeconomic Position in Europe, East and West, 1989 – 2020s

Does this situation hold if we change the measure? As a quasi-robustness check, I examine the question, “social class equality in respect for civil liberty” from V-Dem. This V-Dem item was managed by Svend-Erik Skaaning. Here, V-Dem experts were asked, “Do poor people enjoy the same level of civil liberties as rich people do?” They clarify the question:

“This question specifies the extent to which the level of civil liberties is generally the same across socioeconomic groups so that people with a low social status are not treated worse than people with high social status. Here, civil liberties are understood to include access to justice, private property rights, freedom of movement, and freedom from forced labor.”

Thus, it is substantively similar to the “political equality of socioeconomic groups,” as they reduce class to SES. This is a mistake in terms of defining social class, but since I am interested in economic control as defined and measured by SES, it is a valid measure.

The experts could choose between the following responses: “0: Poor people enjoy much fewer civil liberties than rich people; 1: Poor people enjoy substantially fewer civil liberties than rich people; 2: Poor people enjoy moderately fewer civil liberties than rich people; 3: Poor people enjoy slightly fewer civil liberties than rich people; 4: Poor people enjoy the same level of civil liberties as rich people.

Figure 3. Social class equality with respect to civil liberties, East and West, 1989 – 2020s

Figure 3 describes a situation similar to that of power distributed by socioeconomic position. After 1989, the East declined such that, more or less, the economically disadvantaged have lesser civil liberties than that of the economically advantaged. The West fare somewhat better across this time, but the enjoyment of civil liberties is still far from equal.

In sum, from 1989 to the present, citizens in the East and in the West are unequal when it comes to the distribution of power and the enjoyment of civil liberties. Where as the East had declined, they declined toward the level of the West, and surpassed them in power inequality. The West is no paradise when it comes to power equality; they have been consistently unequal even without a political and economic revolution. We should note that the Great Recession of 2008 did not have much of an impact on power inequality.

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

September 30, 2022September 30, 2022 ~ jdubrow2000 ~ Leave a comment

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 distributed by gender.”

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

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

V-Dem: “Power distributed by gender”

V-Dem asks, “Is political power distributed according to gender?”

The two groups are men and women.

As with the others thus far, the scale ranges from zero to four, upwardly toward equality. The two groups are compared only with respect to “political power.”

The difference between (0) and (1) is slight. At (0), men have a “near-monopoly.” At step (1), men have a “dominant hold” and women have “marginal influence” (note the conflation of the terms, power and influence). The difference between (1) and (2) is also slight. At Step (2) men have much more than women, which I guess is somewhat less than a “dominant hold.”

Only at Step (3) do we see a clearer difference, where men have “somewhat more.”

Finally, at Step (4), we do not have complete equality, but “roughly equal” amounts.

Apparently, according to V-Dem, that is the highest level of gender equality society can aspire to.

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

September 30, 2022September 30, 2022 ~ jdubrow2000 ~ Leave a comment

In this post, we discuss how they measure “Power distributed by sexual orientation.”

Political Inequality in V-Dem: “Power distributed by socioeconomic position”

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

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

V-Dem: “Power distributed by sexual orientation”

V-Dem creates two groups. Group (A) are the “heterosexuals” and “lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) members of the polity who are not open about their sexuality.” Group (B) are LGBT who are open about their sexuality. V-Dem argues that these groups should be compared to one another in terms of their political power.

I do not follow the logic of the next two sentences: “Note that in comparing the political power of these two groups we are comparing their power per person. So, when we say that LGBT have less, equal, or more power than heterosexuals we mean relative to their share of the population (as near as this can be estimated).” What is “power per person”? Next, they argue that the LGBT should be compared to heterosexuals “relative to their share of the population.” Who does “their” refer to? Does it refer to Group A or Group B?

Step (0) is total exclusion except for voting (which “may” be). Step (1) is that LGBT has “much less power” but they can vote. Here, V-Dem introduces the term, “informal norms” to their political equality measure. These norms serve to keep LGBT from power. It can be argued that the informal norms also keep the other groups (socioeconomic, social, and gender) out of power. Step (2) is simply relational, and does not include the information of Step (1); it simply states that the power differential is “somewhat less.”

It is in Step (3) that we get a glimpse of what they meant about “power per person.” Here, LGBT and heterosexuals have “about the same” amount of power, “that is roughly proportional to their population.” So, if one group is 10 percent and the other is 90 percent of the population, does that mean that the 10 percent is about the same amount of power as the 90 percent? Or does it mean that the 10 percent is surely less political power because they are a numerical minority, but they still have some substantial political power?

Step (4), “LGBTs enjoy somewhat more political power than heterosexuals by virtue of greater wealth, education, and high level of organization and mobilization,” is notable for two reasons. First, unlike the other items, Step (4) is not political equality utopia, but rather it is political inequality. It also introduces a mechanism for political equality: wealth, education, organization, and mobilization. These mechanisms are missing from the other measures.

Democracy and Economic Inequality

September 10, 2022September 22, 2022 ~ jdubrow2000 ~ Leave a comment

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 them to participate in democracy through protest should make policy-makers responsive to the public and reduce harm to them. Yet, this does not happen. Inequality rises in democracies.

Inequality may be the undoing of democracy.

This post explains why democracy has not reduced economic inequality. I rely on the innovative arguments of Dena Freeman in her seminal work, “De-Democratisation and Rising Inequality: The Underlying Cause of a Worrying Trend.”

Rising Inequality in Democracy: Elite Distribution and Voting Suffrage

Why has economic inequality increased alongside the rise in democratization? This is an old problem. Elites in the 19th century feared that the “universal suffrage” part of democracy would lead to the redistribution of wealth.

How would this redistribution happen? The democracy-reduces-inequality argument is the following:

In theory, the disadvantaged have greater voice in democracy, and therefore have greater impact on government response. This is an electoral politics argument about an agreement between the elite and the masses, otherwise known as “the class compromise of the post-war period.” It’s an exchange: The elite agree to redistribute economic resources through social welfare spending to the disadvantaged because the elite need the votes of the disadvantaged. The sheer size of the voting citizenry ensures that political parties operating within democracies must listen to a large and heterogeneous population. Thus, spending should be more universal than merely targeted to particular groups.

This is based, in part, on the median voter theory. This theory says that people are rational actors seeking to maximize benefits: parties want to win elections and thus end up proposing economic redistribution policies that benefit the median voter.

Democracies allow substantial bargaining power of labor — unions— that they can use to extract wages and other resources that reduce economic inequality.

Economic Redistribution Stopped Reducing Economic Inequality in the 1970s

Inequality did fall during the initial period of universal suffrage. But things changed dramatically during the 20th Century. As Piketty’s U-shaped graphs of economic inequality show, inequality declined, and then, in the 1970s, it rose.

Why the U turn? Unionization had helped to reduce economic inequality in the US, until the 1970s, when there was a great shift and a strong downturn in unionization. Some argue that the early 20th Century reduction in inequality was due to unusual circumstances. Once those circumstances ended, inequality resumed its normal upward path.

What were those circumstances? After the 1970s, there were major technological and economic changes:

Technological advances, especially computerization that lead to a dramatic increase for skilled workers and decreased wages for the “unskilled.”
Skyrocketing income and wealth compensation for CEOs and senior management.
Global finance: It has become easy to move money around the globe, and to hide it.

Freeman’s Thesis: Vox Populi Lost Control over the Economy

Dena Freeman offers a different argument. She argues that the vox populi, the people in democracy, have lost control over the economic process. “Decisions regarding the organisation and functioning of economic matters,” Freeman writes, “have become less subject to democratic influence.”

In essence, democracy itself has changed, and not for the better.

Within the democratic process, people ceded control over the economy to private interests and the market, and thus lost political control over how the economy functions. This loss of control limits the policies that elected representatives can create and get through the legislative system.

The result, Freeman argues, is that “economic policies have increasingly been made in the interests of capital and the class compromise of the post-war period has been undermined.”

Neoliberalism and Democracy

Freeman blames neoliberalism. The economic crises of the 1970s introduced a change in economic ideology toward what would be called, “neoliberalism.” In neoliberalism, the economy is self-regulating, and thus the state should leave it alone. According to Freeman, Hayek’s “ideas about constitutional limits to democracy were effectively ways to ensure that the economic sphere would be carefully insulated from the demos and thus that democracy’s redistributive threat would be neutralized.” The economy should be lightly managed by experts and technocrats whose prime directive is to let the market dictate its own future.

Neoliberalism demands free markets that spread across the world. The free movement of capital around the world accelerated after the 1970s. The rich got richer and hid their wealth in tax havens.

Monetary Policy, Trade Agreements, and Democracy

Independent central banks that set monetary policy are out of the control of vox populi. “Monetary policy is instead increasingly governed by the financial markets and the interests of financial capital,” writes Freeman. Policy is a tug of war between the interests of capital and the interests of labor, and capital is winning.

International trade agreements can create enduring and hard-to-revoke rights of capital in terms of strengthening property rights; these rights are designed to outlast the government that signed on to them, to endure as democratic elections produce new governments. Trade agreements can impose harsh penalties on governments that try to reverse the policy.

International Financial Institutions and Democracy

International Financial Institutions (IFIs) – G7 and G20, World Economic Forum, etc. – are global organizations that are not representative of all of the countries that they impact. Membership is based on invitation only, and the wealthy elite are the ones who control the invitations. These institutions define the space in which policies are discussed and decisions are made.

This restricts the policy options available to individual nations for a few reasons: The elite nations:

are deeply committed to neoliberalism and the global trade agreements that restrict national policies that could deal with within-nation income inequality;
promote international competition for international corporations to locate their businesses there (e.g. low corporate tax rates);
favor policies that promote economic growth instead of social welfare.

“In the post-1970s” Freeman writes, “firms and their interest associations have lobbied governments for rollbacks and efficiency-oriented reforms in national systems of social protection. They have argued that social programmes negatively affect profits, investment, and job creation and they have also used the threat of relocation to more favourable environments in order to put pressure on domestic policymakers.”

Rich countries have tools to resist these changes. Poor countries do not. As a result, the developing poor countries reduce public spending and take loans from the IMF and others to pay for what public spending they do.

The consequence is a spiral of debt and loans and more debt that reduces what little political leverage these countries have to change the policies of global finance. In addition, this debt is increasingly financialized, “packaged and repackaged in different forms of securities and traded on the bond market.” Thus, poor developing countries have a difficult time renegotiating and managing their debt with the rich countries.

In the mid-1970s, rich democracies decided to limit vox populi on their democratic control over the economic system and the distribution of economic resources, especially over social welfare.

“Two new approaches were developed at this time – New Public Management Theory (NPM) and Governance theory. Both promoted their changes in the name of costcutting and efficiency. NPM can be seen as an extension of neoliberal theory as applied to the public sector. It calls for governments to embrace private sector management strategies.”

While the de-centralization of decision making within governments over economic matters can be seen as, on paper, more democratic, it ignores the basic problem of political inequality:

“While some have argued that this new form of policy-making is in fact more democratic than top-down government – because a wider range of stakeholders are involved, including also NGOs, consumer groups and other elements of civil society – it must be remembered that the resources available to large companies, TNCs and business associations to engage in these processes is far, far greater than that available to civil society groups, many of which are poorly funded and under-resourced. As one commentator noted, it is like lining up rowing boats against battle ships. Rather the shift to decision-making in multi-stakeholder policy networks has led to an increased representation of the private sector, and thus of capital, in the policy making process.”

Summary and Conclusion

Democracy was supposed to reduce economic inequality through economic redistribution to the masses. As the masses allow the elite to become representatives, the representatives were supposed to allow political control over the economic policies that make sure redistribution works.

This worked, until the 1970s. After then, there were large scale changes to the economy. There was a technological change that rewarded a small group of workers. Growing automation will only accelerate this trend. CEO compensation went through the roof. And the rules of global finance, accelerated through neoliberalism, made it easier to move money around the world, incentivizing the wealthy to hide their wealth (Panama Papers) and create tax havens (Pandora Papers).

Freeman argues that the people mentioned in “We the people” — vox populi — have lost political control over the economy. Democracy outsourced knowledge on financialization to the market and to political appointees who believe in the power of markets.

The result is the inequality grows, and democracy does little to stop it.

Further Reading

Acemoglu, Daron and James Robinson. 2008. Persistence of Power, Elites and Institutions. American Economic Review, 98: 267-291.

Boix, Carles. 2003. Democracy and Redistribution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Brady, David, Beckfield, Jason & Wei Zhao. 2007. The Consequences of Economic Globalization for Affluent Democracies. Annual Review of Sociology, 33: 313-334.

Freeman, John, and Dennis Quinn. 2012. The Economic Origins of Democracy Reconsidered. American Political Science Review, 106: 58–80

Gradstein, Mark and Milanovic Branko. 2004. Does Liberte = Egalite? A Survey of the Empirical Links between Democracy and Inequality with some evidence on the Transition Economies. Journal of Economic Surveys, 18,4: 515-537

Piketty, Thomas. 2014. Capital in the Twenty First Century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. (trans: Arthur Goldhammer)

Timmons, Jeffrey. 2010. Does Democracy Reduce Economic Inequality? British Journal of Political Science, 40, 4: 741-757.

Why does economic inequality rise in democracies?

Notes on Manza’s Essay “Political Inequality”

September 10, 2022September 13, 2022 ~ jdubrow2000

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 where there is democracy, there is also political inequality. Manza explains that his essay is about the impact of economic inequality on democratic politics. From the jump, Manza is arguing that political inequality is a dependent concept on economic inequality – the article is, after all, called “political inequality,” but Manza does not argue that political inequality is an analytically distinct form of inequality, on par with economic, gender, racial, etc. inequalities.

As Manza defines the term:

“Political inequality may refer to either differential inputs into policymaking processes, in which some actors have more influence than others, or it can refer to policy outputs, in particular those which encourage or sustain income and wealth inequality.” (1)

In Manza’s essay, political outcomes are seen in how they impact economic inequality, e.g. either income or wealth. Thus, the essay is more about the relationship of political inequality to economic inequality, rather than on political inequality as a distinct concept.

Manza begins with the idea that democracy can, theoretically, redistribute economic resources, but it does not do so in an equal way. Citing Galbraith:

“in Galbraith’s (1952) famous formulation, democratic political systems can be relatively egalitarian and produce redistributive outcomes so long as ordinary citizens have sufficient “countervailing power” to contest economic and political elites” (2).

Galbraith’s formulation was purely theoretical — no modern society, neither America nor any other, was ever politically equal. Manza argues that it is usually the left that provides Galbraith’s “countervailing power.” In capitalist democracies, governments must strongly include, and unequally include, business interests.

Capitalism has always produced an unequal economy – thus, the economically unequal also become the political beneficiaries. The result is what Manza calls the “structural conditions for a bias toward protecting and promoting the interests of economic elites and firms over everyone else” (3). Manza assumes that when the left comes into power, the structural conditions change. Manza admits that there are few cross-national studies that support this “structural power hypothesis” (3).

DALL-E generated picture: “Basquiat painting of money and voice”

Manza: Elite and Oligarchic Theories

Manza notes that democracies are unfairly redistributive. To explain this phenomenon, theories of political inequality are needed. In essence, Manza is looking for theories that explain the link between political inequality and economic inequality.

Elites come from a narrow slice of the social structure and wield disproportionate influence over the spheres in which they are elite – some of these elites occupy multiple spheres of influence. See Pareto, Mills, Domhoff, and other classic elite theorists.

Manza discusses here the book by Jeffrey Winters called Oligarchy (2011). Winters argues that extreme wealth holders work within the political system to defend their economic interests. Winters calls these people, “oligarchs.” Oligarchs create and support policy that furthers their wealth, or defends it from radical redistribution. Marx thought the same, but Manza does not make that point. Manza points out that Winters’ theory does not explain why non-oligarchs – i.e. the 99% – support the policies that oligarchs support.

Manza: Power Resources

Power resources is the most popular theory, writes Manza:

“The dominant political sociological model for studying comparative political inequality in recent decades has been what is loosely known as the power resources approach (Esping-Andersen, 1990; Korpi, 1983).” (7)

As Fred Solt and others also wrote, unequal economic relationships – manifested in the class structure – create organized groups. These groups can be manifested as parties that compete for power over economic redistribution.

Elections are supposed to be a way for democracy to cleanly and fairly sort out these competing interests. The result, however, has been economic inequality. Why? Because organized groups have different organizational capacities – some are better organized than others, usually because they have greater access to the economic resources that enable organizational capacity.

As Manza notes, Esping-Anderson argued that there are three types of political regimes that emerge from the many democratic class struggles:

“social democracies (typically those of Northern Europe), Christian democracies (common in Continental Europe), and liberal democracies (primarily in the Anglo-American countries). In each case, a combination of similar political forces and political institutions give rise to similar kinds of policy outputs.” (8)

There are alternatives to this simplistic tripartite typology, as exemplified in the “Varieties of Capitalism” literature.

Manza argues that the power resources model does not explain why “in an era where unions and social democratic parties are declining or retreating from historic commitments, redistributive social spending in many countries has persisted at high levels (albeit not enough to reverse rising income inequality).”

One could argue that this is a simplistic model that does not capture changes in the last few decades in the varieties of party ideologies, or why disadvantaged groups, such as the working class, support lower levels of economic redistribution.

Manza: The Globalization Hypothesis

Manza argues that political inequality has risen around the world. He provides no evidence to support the claim, unless one measures political inequality with economic inequality. Manza argues that a major aspect of globalization is the mobility of capital:

“Here, the growing international mobility of capital is viewed as inducing “race to the bottom”: that is, pressures on governments seeking to maintain competitiveness and avoid disinvestment lead governments to avoid adopting tax and transfer programs that will discourage investment. In limiting the policy options available to national governments, economic globalization provides incentive for policymakers to turn away from traditional forms of social provision in favor of growth politics that favor capital accumulation.” (8 – 9)

However, nations can do many things to protect themselves from the pernicious effects of globalization while attempting to reap benefits. Globalization does not necessarily lead to an increase in political inequality. Again, it is worth pointing out that Manza does not specify “political inequality of what?”, and thus he cannot point out any mechanism of globalization that would impact political inequality.

Manza: Participatory Inequalities, Political Insiders and Outsiders

In Manza’ essay, participatory inequalities seem to refer to access to politicians and the political decisions they make. This refers to voting and other classic forms of political participation. Manza’s point is that there are group differences in political participation.

Manza: Future Research on Political and Economic Inequality

On trying to define future research, Manza argues that we need to examine the causal link between political and economic inequalities. He advocates going deep inside a particular country to explore these mechanisms. He argues that the links between political and economic inequalities are not straightforward. For example, while most posit that “money in politics” is a problem for the US, there is little evidence that legislators’ votes are “bought” by directly by donors.

One reaches a similar conclusion about political lobbying in the US:

“Political lobbying is perhaps better viewed as an arms race—given its pervasiveness, few groups will feel comfortable not participating, so everyone does it, but the impacts are mixed, hard to pin down, and in general cannot systematically explain political inequality.” (12)

Further Reading

Ansolabehere, S., de Figueiredo, J., & Snyder, J. (2003). Why is there so little money in U.S. politics? Journal of Economic Perspectives, 17, 105–130.

Open Secrets: THE TOP 10 THINGS EVERY VOTER SHOULD KNOW ABOUT MONEY-IN-POLITICS

Political Inequality in an Age of Democracy: Cross-national Perspectives Edited by Joshua Kjerulf Dubrow, Routledge – 2014.

Lopez, Matias and Joshua K. Dubrow. 2020. “Politics and Inequality in Comparative Perspective: A Research Agenda.” American Behavioral Scientist 64(9): 1199 – 1210.

Schakel, Wouter, and Brian Burgoon. “The party road to representation: Unequal responsiveness in party platforms.” European Journal of Political Research 61, no. 2 (2022): 304-325.

The Meaning of Political Voice

September 7, 2022September 12, 2022 ~ jdubrow2000 ~ 1 Comment

What does political voice mean?

Political voice is commonly understood as an important part of democracy.

Academics and the public use the term political voice. While academics use the term often, it is more important to know how the public uses and understands the term. After all, there is more of the public than there are academics.

As part of the ongoing POLINQ project, I examined dozens of sources in magazines and newspapers to get a holistic picture of the meaning of political voice.

Here is the complete meaning of political voice

Political voice is a part of democracy, a say in the political sphere (e.g. individuals, groups, and whole populations are “finding their political voice,” explicitly in terms of vote franchise or elections, or as a seat in or near the decision-makers not necessarily party or elections-related, as demonstrations and other activism; political discussion; building social movements and lobbying), or as connected to existing social movements, organizations, or political leaders (a kind of representation), or as something expressed by politicians and other political figures, something expressed by political organizations, or as a literal, physical voice.

That’s a lot!

Political Voice Painting Created by DALL-E AI politicalinequality.org — *“Painting of Political Voice” by Dall-E*

Here is how I got to this definition. Let’s look at it, part by part.

Here are the elements of political voice as they appear in popular magazines and newspapers, and the US Congressional Record.

Below you will find the element of political voice, and examples of how magazines and newspapers across the United States have expressed that element.

Political voice as…

… a part of democracy

“Democracy, which insists that everyone should have a political voice, cannot manifest itself in the absence of trust, which is now stingily meted out as though it’s a scarce and precious resource.”
Astra Taylor. (June 1, 2019). Reclaiming the Future. The New Republic

.… a say in the political sphere.

— Individuals, groups, and whole populations are “finding their political voice” (unspecified)

“It is time for a bolder approach that embraces change. Opportunities to support such fundamental reforms in such strategically important states are rare, and they give the United States a chance to endear itself to growing populations that are increasingly finding their political voice.”
JUDD DEVERMONT “Africa’s Democratic Moment?; The Five Leaders Who Could Transform the Region”. Foreign Affairs. July/August 2019July/August 2019.

“Not surprisingly, there seems to be an increasing body of American liberals out there who foretell the end of a “liberal Iraq” because religious Shia now have a political voice.”
Reuel Marc Gerecht. (February 14, 2005 – February 21, 2005). Birth of a Democracy; From the February 14 / February 21, 2005 issue: Soon the whole Middle East will see Iraq’s national assembly at work.. The Weekly Standard.

“Economic liberalization is indeed breeding a middle class with a new set of demands, including protection of private assets, access to unfiltered information, and a greater political voice. So far, however, the middle class has not organized in any meaningful way to push for wholesale political change. Instead, that change is occurring primarily in response to the negative effects of China’s market transition.”
Elizabeth Economy. (May 2004 – June 2004). Don’t Break the Engagement. Foreign Affairs.

“That agreement remained in effect for half a century–until the civil rights movement, when Southern blacks, who understandably didn’t look kindly on Confederate heroes and flags, gained a political voice.”
jason zengerle. (August 2, 2004). Lost Cause. The New Republic.

“The process in standing up the Anbar Salvation Council, a group of local tribes and former insurgents opposed to al Qaeda’s harsh brand of Taliban-like sharia law, has been ongoing since the summer of 2006….Part of the success of the Anbar Salvation Council is that it provides the Sunnis in Anbar with a political voice as well as security against al Qaeda. The Anbar Salvation Council’s political component is the Anbar Awakening. Seven new tribes have just joined the political party.”
Bill Roggio. (April 30, 2007 Monday). The Roggio Report; Anbar Awakening Spreads, Petraeus Connects Iran to Attacks in Iraq.. The Daily Standard.

“Having no political voice, the civil rights bill fails, and the civil courts fail to do them justice.”
Congressional Globe, February 22, 1867 p. 1709

… demonstrations and other activism

“Organized by a new rightist group, the Young Americans for Freedom, the event was greeted as evidence that the “silent generation” might be shaking off its apathy and finding a political voice. (The Times published a front-page report on the “spectacular” rally, and followed up with a four-part series on campus activism.)”
SAM TANENHAUS. (October 24, 2016). The Right Idea. The New Yorker.

… political discussion

“I, too, felt optimistic watching the men and women in that first group discussion. They seemed eager to debate the candidates’ relative merits and clearly relished their newfound political voice.”
SARAH E. MENDELSON (January 2015 – February 2015). Generation Putin; What to Expect From Russia’s Future Leaders. Foreign Affairs.

— Building social movements and lobbying

“Soon armed citizens acquired a political voice: in 1977, at the N.R.A.’s annual meeting, conservative activists led by Harlon Carter, a former chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, wrested control from leaders who had been focussed on rifle-training and recreation rather than on politics, and created the modern gun-rights movement. In 1987, the refashioned N.R.A. successfully lobbied lawmakers in Florida to relax the rules that required concealed-carry applicants to demonstrate “good cause” for a permit, such as a job transporting large quantities of cash.”
EVAN OSNOS. (June 27, 2016). MAKING A KILLING. The New Yorker.

“He said the about 200 persons have attended several recent organizational meetings and many have volunteered to begin voter registration drives in their areas. “We are now going to hammer out a platform and then get some of out people in power,” Brown said. “We have never had a political voice in the county, not even during the desegregation era of the 1960s.”
By Vernon C. Thompson, Washington Post Staff Writer. (March 5, 1977, Saturday, Final Edition). Blacks Form Power Base; County’s Blacks Form Coalition. The Washington Post.
(I believe this is chronicled in Black Power in the Suburbs: The Myth or Reality of African American Suburban Political Incorporation by Valerie C. Johnson, SUNY Press, 2002)

… explicitly in terms of vote franchise or elections

“Although Kurds compose roughly 20 percent of the population, they have lacked a political voice: The HDP has never won enough votes a 10 percent threshold to secure seats in parliament.”
Joseph Loconte. (June 22, 2015 Monday). Turkey, Islamism, and the West; A setback for Erdogan.. The Weekly Standard.

“Public attention to the welfare of poor children, the historian Linda Gordon has argued, coincides with eras in which women have had a strong political voice. It was therefore high when women were most actively fighting for the right to vote (from 1870 to 1920) and during the women’s-liberation movement (from 1961 to 1975).”
JILL LEPORE. (February 1, 2016). BABY DOE. The New Yorker.

“The opposing camp includes skeptics of comprehensive executive power such as myself. It finds its political voice in Tea Party advocates of the old-time Constitution and in members of Congress opposed to the president today including Republican leaders Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and backbench institutionalists Mike Lee and Ben Sasse.”
Christopher DeMuth Sr.. (June 27, 2016 Monday). Our Voracious Executive Branch. The Weekly Standard.

“By the time of the Depression, as hardpressed consumers became even more price-conscious, small retailers found their political voice in an anti-chain-store movement first in certain states, and then nationally, spearheaded by the populist Texas congressman Wright Patman.”
Jay Weiser. (April 29, 2013 Monday). The Big Store; The mythology of small business meets a retailing giant.. The Weekly Standard.

“Even though unions remain the loudest political voice for workers’ interests, resentment has replaced solidarity, which helps explain why the bailout of General Motors was almost as unpopular as the bailouts of Wall Street banks.”
James Surowiecki. (January 17, 2011). State Of The Unions. The New Yorker.

… something expressed by politicians and other political figures

“Rory Stewart, the former Conservative cabinet minister – who was almost a lone political voice calling for a lockdown in early March – blamed the prime minister for failing to ask the right questions.”
Rob Merrick. (June 11, 2020 Thursday). Coronavirus: Minister says UK has world’s second-highest death toll because ‘we are a global travel hub’; Many argue the UK had advantages as an island, able to easily close its borders -yet it allowed in travellers from hotspots. The Independent (United Kingdom).

… something expressed by political organizations

“Mr CORWIN….What did that mean ? You shall never have another slave State in the Union. You shall never establish slavery in another Territory of thie United States. The political voice of the Democratic party of Ohio had spoken in that language in 1848. In 1852, the embodiment of it in the gubernatorial office of that State proclaimed the sentiments that I have read.”
Appendix to The Congressional Globe (US), pp. 147 – 148, House of Representatives January 24, 1860

… a literal, physical voice

“The scar down his face from an operation for melanoma in 2000 is less pronounced than it once was. And he continues to have the best political voice–husky and commanding, without being condescending–since Ronald Reagan.”
john b. judis. (October 16, 2006). Neo-McCain. The New Republic.

“Kris Aquino, youngest daughter of the Philippine President, singing yesterday in Lubao at a political rally for the Senatorial elections that are to be held May 11.”
(March 16, 1987, Monday, Late City Final Edition). A Political Voice. The New York Times.

Conclusion: The Meaning of Political Voice

Everyday people use the term “political voice” in modern democracies in many different ways. It ranges from social movements to a literal speaking voice in which politics is the subject, and from voting to proximity to decision-makers in the halls of power.

Citizens hold dear the idea of political voice. We can hope that people will use it for the betterment of democracy.

Register to vote to express your political voice!

Here is how to register to vote in the USA: https://www.usa.gov/register-to-vote
Here is how US citizens can register to vote overseas (important for expats and military families): https://www.fvap.gov/
Here is how to register to vote in the UK: https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote
Here is how to register to vote in Australia: https://www.aec.gov.au/enrol/
Here is how to register to vote in Nigeria: https://cvr.inecnigeria.org/
Here is how to register to vote in the Philippines: https://comelec.gov.ph/

Table of Contents

What does political voice mean?

Gender and Political Inequality in Eastern Europe: Open Access Resources from the POLINQ Project

September 5, 2022September 15, 2022 ~ jdubrow2000

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 those decisions.

Women have been unequal to men in representation, whether it is fewer parliamentary seats than men, or whether it is in policy.

While much attention on gender and political inequality is about the USA and Western Europe, scholars have paid far less attention to the problem in Eastern Europe. We need updated, open access resources on the problem of gender and political inequality in Eastern Europe.

Scholarship on Gender and Political Inequality in the POLINQ Project

The POLINQ project partnered with scholars from the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences, to produce three free & open access resources for activists, NGOs, politicians, students, and scholars to use.

Gender Quotas in Eastern Europe

Gender quotas are rules that aim at providing opportunities for women to be in parliament or to appear on candidate lists in elections for political office. Quota policy should be designed to provide substantial equitable opportunities and access to those decision-makers and their political decisions by the creation of new, favorable circumstances for women to be parliamentarians.

To understand gender quotas in Eastern Europe, the POLINQ project partnered with Dr. Adrianna Zabrzewska on the free, open access book:

Dubrow, Joshua K. and Adrianna Zabrzewska (eds.). 2020. Gender Quotas in the Post-Communist World: Voice of the Parliamentarians. IFiS Publishers.

This book is available on this website and was funded by the National Science Centre, Poland (2016/23/B/HS6/03916)

Gender, Politics and Protest in Eastern Europe

Whereas just and fair democratic societies require gender equality, in Eastern Europe, as well as countries around the world, past and present, gender inequality is the norm.

To achieve equality, we need knowledge of the world, past and present.

The POLINQ project partnered with Adrianna Zabrzewska and Magda Grabowska to create the website:

Women, Politics, and Protest in Central and Eastern Europe

This website provides basic knowledge for high school students and undergraduates, as well as any reader who is unfamiliar with the history and current issues of gender and politics in Eastern Europe. The project tells the story of gender and political change from the rise of Communism, the revolutions of 1989, and on to the present day.

Funding for this website comes from the Title VI Comprehensive National Resource Center grant from the International and Foreign Language Education division of the U.S. Department of Education, awarded to The Ohio State University’s Center for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (CSEEES).

Gender and Protest in Poland over the Abortion Ban

In autumn 2020, as the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic began, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal issued a ruling that severely restricted access to abortion. Massive street protests, led by Strajk Kobiet (Women’s Strike), quickly followed.

To understand this protest movement in Poland, the POLINQ project partnered with Dr. Adrianna Zabrzewska on the free, open access book:

Zabrzewska, Adrianna and Joshua K. Dubrow (eds.). 2022. Gender, Voice, and Violence in Poland: Women’s Protests during the Pandemic. IFiS Publishers.

This book is available on this website and was funded by the National Science Centre, Poland (2016/23/B/HS6/03916)

POLINQ: Political Inequality and Political Voice across Nations and Time

Featured ~ jdubrow2000

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 Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences, and featured PhD students from the Graduate School for Social Research.

POLINQ moved forward the study of political inequality across nations and time.

Table of Contents

What is POLINQ Political Inequality?

POLINQ Theoretical Model

POLINQ’s main theoretical elaboration is on the relationships between voice, inequality, and institutions across various regime types and for various social groups.

Political voice can be defined minimally or maximally

Minimally, political voice is the expression of interests within the political system.

Maximally, political voice is (a) participation – verbal, physical, symbolic, monetary, or otherwise – in the political sphere by individuals, organizations, social groups, interest groups, or entire populations in electoral and non-electoral situations. In this maximalist sense, voice is also (b) representation by movements, organizations, or political leaders and other figures. From a voice perspective, representation is someone or something engaged in the expression of interests in the political sphere on behalf of others or to promote an idea.

Political voice’s two main dimensions — participation and representation– appear in different contexts and scholars can study voice from various methodological approaches.

Mechanisms for why political inequality endures: Elite coordination and mass discoordination

How does political inequality endure? We posit two mechanisms.

One mechanism is how elites reproduce inequalities, or “elite coordination.” A second mechanism is how social inequalities structure participation and contestation. We call this second mechanism, “mass discoordination.” The two key mechanisms of elite coordination and mass discoordination feed off of each other. The uneven distribution of power resources encourages the elite — who head the democratic institutions and set the rules — to pursue greater concentration; meanwhile, the elite-led institutions that allow such disparities to occur promote roadblocks that either prevent groups from participating, such as in the case of disenfranchised citizens, or discourages collective coordination around shared interests. The masses remain aggrieved yet disorganized.

For everyday citizens, structured gender, economic, and age inequalities, in their intersection, prevent representative politics and political action from producing equality. Representation and participation should empower those at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. Yet, across nations and time, an individual’s position in the social structure interacts with the economic and political environment to repress the mass actions that could, potentially, push the elites toward fair economic redistribution.

Political participation is a core aspect of POLINQ and it is a foundation of European democracies. Of the social forces that act in tandem to influence political participation, economic inequality, social spending, and clientelism loom large. Whereas economic inequality in modern capitalist societies is associated with the maldistribution of political power and unequal political engagement, institutional contexts of the political economy can amplify or dampen the impact of economic inequality. In theory, social spending should mitigate the negative externalities of economic inequality through the provision of the social and economic resources to individuals and social groups that they need to participate in politics. Equitable social spending across socioeconomic strata should relieve social and economic burdens that make it difficult for disadvantaged groups to participate in democratic life, and thus buoy the participatory environment. Yet, social spending is not necessarily equally distributed; clientelism intervenes to push resources towards already politically and economically advantaged groups, thus lowering the level of political participation.

Some conclusions of the POLINQ project

Political voice inequality is the inequality in influence – directly via political participation and indirectly through party representation – over the government decisions that impact society. Exacerbating voice inequality are economic conditions, including economic inequality. Whereas macro-level economic inequality matters under some conditions, what matters more is how structural inequalities, economic ones included, impact vulnerable disadvantaged social groups. Grievances of the masses are multi-dimensional – economic, as well as social and political – such that low income and low political opportunities leads to political dissatisfaction with external institutions and, at points, is associated with lower protest potential; however, perceived societal discrimination based on social attributes can increase protest potential. Across democracies, the youth are both the future of democracy and are among the most economically vulnerable groups. They may blame the political institutions for growing economic problems. We find that their distrust in political institutions can lead to democratic backsliding. To understand representational inequalities of social groups, we needed better data. To this end, POLINQ created two new publicly available datasets that, taken together, form the POLINQ Database: Party Representation of Social Groups (PaReSoGo) and POLINQ-Participation: Political Inequality of Voice.

Published Results of the POLINQ Project

POLINQ’s main published results are conceptual and theoretical articles, methodological articles and notes, and substantive articles.

POLINQ Conceptual and Theoretical Articles

We sought to elaborate on extant concepts in the field of studies of political voice, institutions, and inequality. This includes:

(a) The definition of political voice

Dubrow, Joshua K. “Guest Editor’s Introduction: Political Voice in Europe.” International Journal of Sociology 51, no. 4 (2021): 257-259.

(b) The elucidation of the role of economic and political grievances in generating political inequality

Muliavka, Viktoriia. “Bringing grievances back into social movement research: the conceptual and empirical case.” Social Movement Studies (2020): 1-19.

Li, Olga. “Grievances and political action in Russia during Putin’s rise to power.” International Journal of Sociology (2021): 1-17.

and of the roles of cognition and attitudes in political inequality

Lavrinenko, Olga. “Cognition and protest in democratic and authoritarian regimes, 1981–2020.” International Sociology (2022): DOI: 02685809211068664.

(c) Contentious politics and repertoires of action in low-level democracies

Zelinska, Olga. “How Protesters and the State Learn From One Another: Spiraling Repertoires of Contention and Repression in Ukraine, 1990-2014.” American Behavioral Scientist 64, no. 9 (2020): 1271-1298.

(d) The dueling roles of elites and masses in economic redistribution

Lopez, Matias and Joshua K. Dubrow. 2020. “Politics and Inequality in Comparative Perspective: A Research Agenda.” American Behavioral Scientist 64(9): 1199 – 1210.

POLINQ Methodological Articles and Notes

POLINQ sought to understand the relationship the bases of political voice from a methodological point of view. POLINQ tested various ways to measure political inequality of voice, and the results are two datasets that, combined are the POLINQ Database.

As befitting an intellectually open project that evolved over time, POLINQ made various discoveries.

(a) POLINQ explored the potential impact of major economic and political events during survey fieldwork:

Muliavka, Viktoriia. “Political Participation and Institutional Trust of Young Adults in Ukraine: Matching Conditions of Economic Grievance and Political Mobilization with European Social Survey Fieldwork Periods, 2004-2012.” Ask: Research and Methods 27, no. 1 (2018): 61-86.

Voicu, Bogdan. 2019. “Do Differences in Fieldwork Period Affect Survey Comparability? Examining World Values Survey and European Values Study in Romania, 2017 – 2018.” Harmonization: Newsletter on Survey Data Harmonization in the Social Sciences (The Ohio State University and the Polish Academy of Sciences) 5(2): 20 – 27.

(b) POLINQ explored the potential impact of wording of survey items in major cross-national surveys:

Tomescu-Dubrow, Irina, Joshua K. Dubrow, Ilona Wysmulek, and Kazimierz M. Slomczynski. 2018. “Have Done ‘Ever’ Political Participation Items in Cross-national Surveys: Origins and Implications for Analyses,” Harmonization: Newsletter on Survey Data Harmonization in the Social Sciences (The Ohio State University and the Polish Academy of Sciences) 4(2): 2 – 11.

Dubrow, Joshua K., Irina Tomescu-Dubrow, and Olga Lavrinenko. 2022. “Contacting a public official: Concept and measurement in cross-national surveys, 1960s–2010s” Social Science Quarterly DOI: 10.1111/ssqu.13177

(c) POLINQ investigated quantitative problems and solutions in accounting for intersectionality with cross-national surveys, including structural equation modeling and mixed-methods

Dubrow, Joshua K. and Corina Ilinca. 2019. “Quantitative Approaches to Intersectionality: New Methodological Directions and Implications for Policy Analysis,” pp. 195 – 214 in The Palgrave Handbook of Intersectionality in Public Policy edited by Olena Hankivsky and Julia S. Jordan-Zachery. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

(d) the local sources of error and bias in cross-national data

Dubrow, Joshua K. 2021. “Local Data and Upstream Reporting as Sources of Error in the Administrative Data Undercount of Covid 19.” International Journal of Social Research Methodology. DOI: 10.1080/13645579.2021.1909337

POLINQ sources of information and data

In addition to providing methodological knowledge for the international scientific community, we also sought to provide sources of information and data. These included:

(a) Open access sourcebooks on gender and politics:

Dubrow, Joshua K. and Adrianna Zabrzewska (eds.). 2020. Gender Quotas in the Post-Communist World: Voice of the Parliamentarians. IFiS Publishers.

Zabrzewska, Adrianna and Joshua K. Dubrow (eds.). 2022. Gender, Voice, and Violence in Poland: Women’s Protests during the Pandemic. IFiS Publishers.

(b) POLINQ Database:

Zelinska, Olga; Dubrow, Joshua K.: Party Representation of Social Groups (PaReSoGo) [data]. Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences [producer], Warsaw, 2021. PADS21317. Polish Social Data Archive [distributor], Repozytorium Danych Społecznych [publisher], 2021. https://doi.org/10.18150/NPXPAT, V1

Described in: Zelinska, Olga, and Joshua K. Dubrow. “PaReSoGo: Dataset on party representation of social groups for 25 countries, 2002–2016.” Party Politics (2021).

Dubrow, Joshua K.; Lavrinenko, Olga: POLINQ-Participation: Political Inequality of Voice [data]. Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences [producer], Warsaw, 2021. PADS22001. Polskie Archiwum Danych Społecznych [distributor], Repozytorium Danych Społecznych [publisher], 2022. https://doi.org/10.18150/PC8QZQ, V1

POLINQ Substantive Findings

POLINQ analyzed cross-national data for our substantive discoveries. These included:

(a) Stability of the individual determinants of political participation in Europe across time

Dubrow et al 2022 “Contacting a public official: Concept and measurement in cross-national surveys, 1960s–2010s” Social Science Quarterly

(b) Protest under conditions of democratic backsliding

Kwak, Joonghyun, Irina Tomescu-Dubrow, Kazimierz M. Slomczynski, and Joshua K. Dubrow. 2020. “Youth, Institutional Trust, and Democratic Backsliding.” American Behavioral Scientist 64, no. 9: 1366- 1390.

(c) The relationship between economic inequality, policies of economic redistribution, attitudes toward economic redistribution and economic inequality, and protest potential

Lavrinenko, Olga. “Cognition and protest in democratic and authoritarian regimes, 1981–2020.” International Sociology (2022): DOI: 02685809211068664.

Lavrinenko, Olga. “Exploring Protest in Europe with a Multi-Level Cross-National Test of the Structural Cognitive Model.” International Journal of Sociology (2021): 1-15.

(d) The relationships between economic inequality, economic and political grievances, and protest

Muliavka, 2020 “Bringing grievances back into social movement research: the conceptual and empirical case,” Social Movement Studies

(e) Protest within authoritarian regimes and other un-democratic institutions

Li, Olga. “Grievances and political action in Russia during Putin’s rise to power.” International Journal of Sociology (2021): 1-17.

POLINQ Guest Edited Issues of International Peer Reviewed Journals

POLINQ produced two guest edited issues. They are:

Dubrow, Joshua K. 2021. Political Voice in Europe. International Journal of Sociology, Volume 51, Issue 4.

Lopez, Matias and Joshua K. Dubrow. 2020. “Why Political Inequality Endures: Elites, Contestation and Participation in Modern Democracies.” American Behavioral Scientist 64(9).

Seminars of the POLINQ Project

The POLINQ project organized two rounds of seminars, pre-Covid 19 pandemic.

The first was at the University of Bucharest, Romania 2017 – 2018. The seminar centered on (a) the connection between politics and inequality across nations and time and, to add to graduate student training, (b) moving from ideas to manageable research projects, and publishing, in the social sciences. The second was at IFiS PAN 2019 – January 2020. This was a monthly meeting in which we discussed the latest academic research in the social sciences on the subject of politics.

Conferences of the POLINQ Project

POLINQ organized two major international conferences.

The international conference, “Politics and Inequality across Nations and Time: Theoretical and Empirical Approaches,” was held at IFiS PAN, December 12 – 14, 2018 in Warsaw, Poland. Presentations were on substantive and methodological issues related to political voice and economic inequality. There were 34 attendees from Europe, the United States, and Latin America. Of the fifteen conference presenters: eight were from institutions outside of Poland, and there were eight advanced researchers, three recent PhDs, and four PhD students. Students from the Graduate School for Social Research and the University of Warsaw attended. Participants hailed from across the social sciences, including sociology, political science, and economics.

POLINQ conducted post-conference interviews with some of the participants: Renira C. Angeles, Catherine Bolzendahl, Constantin Manuel Bosancianu, Gwangeun Choi, Jan Falkowski, Katerina Vrablikova, and Piotr Zagorski.

The second international conference, “Building Multi-Source Databases for Comparative Analyses,” was held December 16-20, 2019 at IFiS PAN and was in cooperation with the project “Survey Data Recycling: New Analytic Framework, Integrated Database, and Tools for Cross-national Social, Behavioral and Economic Research”, a joint endeavour of the The Ohio State University and IFiS PAN. It explored the sources of data for the POLINQ project, including survey and administrative data.

Training of PhDs and Post-Docs of the POLINQ Project

Within the grant period, one of our research assistants achieved their PhD in sociology (Olga Zelinska, 2020, IFiS PAN), and three of our young researchers – Marta Kolczynska (2019/32/C/HS6 /00421) (former post-doc), Olga Zelinska (2021/40/C/HS6/00229) (Graduate Research Assistant), and Olga Lavrinenko (2021/40/C/HS6/00150) (recent Post-doc) – were awarded National Science Centre, Poland Sonatina Post-Doctoral Scholarships.

Party Issue Positions and Legislative Actions on Corruption in Ukraine, 2002 – 2017

December 6, 2019September 12, 2022 ~ jdubrow2000

by Nika Palaguta, Graduate School for Social Research, Polish Academy of Sciences

This research was funded by the Preludium grant of the National Science Centre, Poland [Narodowe Centrum Nauki]. Project number: 2017/25/N/HS6/01174. Project Name: Influence of party ideology and characteristics of parliamentarians on legislative actions on war, corruption and inequality in Ukraine [Wpływ ideologii partii i charakterystyk parlamentarzystów na działania ustawodawcze w sprawie wojny, korupcji i nierówności na Ukrainie].

What is corruption?

The most widely known definition of corruption is “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain” (Holmes 2015). Transparency International suggests three types of corruption: grand, petty and political. Grand corruption is a type of corruption happening on the highest levels of power and disrupting the functioning of state institutions; petty corruption is a small scale corruption that occurs among lower level state officials; political corruption, in contrast, is a manipulation of policies and rules for personal gain (Transparency International).

Corruption in Ukraine until Euromaidan

Corruption has been endemic in Ukraine since the country gained independence in 1991. Due to lack of government control on the initial stage of independence, corruption in Ukraine has become ubiquitous (Kalman 2004, Spector et al. 2006). After Euromaidan 2013/2014, when the country faced large-scale protests against attempts of implementation of authoritarian political practices by the dominant ruling party, the government officials should have started to implement some new anti-corruption legislation complying with the international norms (Fluri and Badrak 2016).

Ideology of Political Parties in Ukraine

Ideological positions expressed in electoral manifestos of political parties should be an indicator of the subsequent actions of the parliamentarians. Yet, when faced with countries with a weak party system, such as Ukraine (Kononchuk and Yiarosh 2010), the questions about the relevance of ideological positions for legislative action need to be revisited. Considering the last 25 years of electoral politics in Ukraine, the question arises as to the extent to which ideologies guide parties or the idea of “power for power’s sake” guides them. While there are more than 200 political parties in Ukraine, scholars suggest that major parties and blocs, and their parliamentarians, are more interested in the representation of business interests than that of the citizenry (Prymush 2014, Shveda 2012, Goniukova 2014, Kuzio 2014).

To study what Ukrainian political parties, blocs and parliamentarians in terms of their ideological positioning are inclined to embrace fight with corruption, I study electoral manifestos and legislative roll call voting on anti-corruption legislation in 2002 – 2017.

First, I measured ideological positions of political parties and blocs creating two scales of ideological positions (1) value positioning: conservative authoritarianism – liberalism; (2) economic positioning: state interventionism (statism) – economic liberalism. In addition, the third scale measures positioning on the (3) populism scale: populism – pluralism. Then, to observe the link between issue position and legislative action, I used roll call voting data (the record of voting for each legislative act in the parliament) and parliamentary debates data.

To identify the legislation that deals with corruption, I use a targeted search using the key words: (a) corrupt (corruption) (“коруп”); (b) state serv… (state service) (“держ служб”); (c) publ… inform (publicly available information) (“публ інформац”). In total, I have collected 28 legislative acts. I merged the roll call voting data and coded manifesto data with EAST Pac Ukraine to (a) examine voting on particular legislative act and (b) construct multilevel cross-classified regression models exploring the associations between party ideological positions and voting for groups of legislative acts. I complemented the roll call voting data with the parliamentary debates data to study the motivation behind adoption of certain legislative acts and policies. (1) East European Parliamentarian and Candidate Database (EAST PaC)[1] containing the universe of parties, candidates, and parliamentarians for national elective office in Ukraine (2002 – 2014).

Analyses and Results

I found that Ukrainian political parties and blocs pay attention to the issues related to corruption in their manifestos. Nonetheless, adoption of anti-corruption legislation has been slow so far: using the key-words search, I have identified 28 legislative acts dealing with corruption. The results of quantitative analysis show that Ukrainian there is a small (0.07) statistically significant association between populist parties and blocs and voting for the anti-corruption legislation: the more populist the party is the more the parliamentarians belonging to this party are inclined to support this type of legislation. Value positions (conservative authoritarianism – liberalism) and economic positions (statism – economic liberalism) show no statistically significant associations with voting for the anti-corruption legislation.

Conclusion

Overall, while the topic of corruption and adoption the anti-corruption legislation appears frequently in the manifestos of political parties and blocs, parliamentarians are reluctant to support implementation of necessary legislation regardless of their ideological positions.

References

Fluri, Philipp and Valentyn Badrak. 2016. Anti-Corruption Measures in Ukraine after the Revolution of Dignity: Key Legislative Aspects, Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies, Kyiv.

Goniukova, Lilia. 2014. ‘Political Parties in Ukraine: Modernity and Development Prospects’ [Політичні партії України: сучасність та перспективи розвитку]. Information-analytical edition ‘Analitical Notes’ [Аналітичні записки], Democratic Intitiatives Fundation of Ilka Kucherev [Демократичні ініціативи імені Ілька Кучеріва].

Kalman, Alexander G. 2004. Organized Economic Crime and Corruption in Ukraine 2004. The Report by U.S. Department of Justice.

Kononchuk, Svitlana and Oleh Yiarosh. 2010. Ukrainian Party System: Ideological Dimension. Kyiv: Ukrainian Independent Center for Political Studies.

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[1] EAST PaC is a product of the research grant, “Who Wins and Who Loses in the Parliamentary Elections? From Formal Theory to Empirical Analysis,” funded by Poland’s National Science Centre (Sonata Bis decision number 2012/05/E/HS6/03556) PI: Joshua Kjerulf Dubrow.

Political Inequality of Women in Ukraine: Conservatism and Enduring Stereotypes

December 5, 2019September 12, 2022 ~ jdubrow2000

by Nika Palaguta, Graduate School for Social Research, Polish Academy of Sciences

Political inequality of Women in Ukraine

Women have a long-standing high level of political inequality in national legislatures in Ukraine. Despite that gender equality principles in national legislation should guarantee equal rights and opportunities in economic and political life to both men and women, some national policies may enhance gender stereotypes and hamper advancement of women’s rights. The former Soviet Union had ambiguous approach to gender equality, which despite encouraging women’s participation in some areas of economic life, kept their political influence very limited. According to data from the Inter Parliamentary Union, from 1991 to 2018, the share of women in the Ukrainian parliament never exceeded 12 per cent.

Political Consequences of Conservativism and Stereotypes of Women in Ukraine

I argue that one of the reasons for enduring political inequality of women in Ukraine stems from the conservative views shared by political parties and parliamentarians. I have found that Ukrainian political parties and blocs have paid little or no attention to promotion of gender equality and women’s rights in their manifestos without talking against women.

The analysis of the party and block manifestos reveals that only five parties in the Ukrainian Rada over the span of 15 years have mentioned in their electoral documents gender equality or women’s rights. Family values, traditions, and motherhood in contrast appear 44 times. Support for the low income and large families as well as promotion of state assistance for the childbirth remains the main issue addressed in the electoral manifestos of the parties.

Similarly, I found that Ukrainian political parties and blocs, regardless of their ideological positions, pay much more attention to the defense of family values, traditions, and motherhood, while the questions of gender equality and women’s rights are lesser addressed. Out of 145 legislative acts identified through targeted search that concern women, 107 deal with family, children, childbirth and state aid for the large and low-income families, and four more promote childbirth increase. The more ideologically conservative is the Ukrainian party or bloc parliamentarians belong to, the more they are inclined to support such legislation with their votes. Parliamentarians mostly explain their decisions family related legislation by the low birthrate and difficult demographic situations. Overwhelmingly, the parliamentarians defend their positions by pointing out the need to support traditional families. Many insist that women should have as many children as possible to solve Ukrainian ‘demographic crisis’, others insist on the teleological arguments, highlighting that motherhood is either a ‘purpose’ of women, or a debt to the society. Others reject the very notion of ‘gender’ perceiving it, along with homosexuality, as a part of alien Western values that they consider to be detrimental for Ukrainian society.

The pattern of supporting the image of women-mothers and child-minders persists overtime and is vocalized by the parties and blocs of otherwise polar political positions and originating in various parts of the country. In contrast, gender egalitarian positions have not received wide popularity in electoral manifestos, legislation, or debates. Economic reasons and traditions largely dictate the persistence of the overall trend of the promotion of women’s roles as mothers and child-minders. In many instances, parliamentarians support such trends invoking a conservative view of what is beneficial for women without intention to discriminate against them. However, these conservative views apparently reinforce a belief of connection between gender and homosexuality, which many parliamentarians fiercely oppose and address in dismissive manner or with negative comments. Nonetheless, there are many liberal parliamentarians who support equality of genders and sexualities and vocalize their opinion during the debates. Frequently such speakers are women.

What is power inequality?

Political Voice

Economic Control

Relationship between Political Voice and Economic Control

Theoretical model of power inequality

Figure 1. Theoretical Model of Power Inequality

Trends in Power Inequality

Figure 2. Power Distributed by Socioeconomic Position in Europe, East and West, 1989 – 2020s

Figure 3. Social class equality with respect to civil liberties, East and West, 1989 – 2020s

V-Dem: “Power distributed by gender”

V-Dem: “Power distributed by sexual orientation”

Why does economic inequality rise in democracies?

Rising Inequality in Democracy: Elite Distribution and Voting Suffrage

Economic Redistribution Stopped Reducing Economic Inequality in the 1970s

Freeman’s Thesis: Vox Populi Lost Control over the Economy

Neoliberalism and Democracy

Monetary Policy, Trade Agreements, and Democracy

International Financial Institutions and Democracy

Summary and Conclusion

Social Scientist Jeff Manza Explored Political Inequality

Manza: Economic Inequality is Political Inequality

Manza: Elite and Oligarchic Theories

Manza: Power Resources

Manza: The Globalization Hypothesis

Manza: Participatory Inequalities, Political Insiders and Outsiders

Manza: Future Research on Political and Economic Inequality

What does political voice mean?

Here is the complete meaning of political voice

Here is how I got to this definition. Let’s look at it, part by part.

Political voice as…

… a part of democracy

.… a say in the political sphere.

… a seat in or near the decision-makers (not necessarily party or elections-related)

… demonstrations and other activism

… political discussion

… explicitly in terms of vote franchise or elections

… connected to existing social movements, organizations, or political leaders (a kind of representation)

… something expressed by politicians and other political figures

… something expressed by political organizations

… a literal, physical voice

Conclusion: The Meaning of Political Voice

Register to vote to express your political voice!

What is the relationship between gender and political inequality (POLINQ)?

Scholarship on Gender and Political Inequality in the POLINQ Project

Gender Quotas in Eastern Europe

Gender, Politics and Protest in Eastern Europe

Gender and Protest in Poland over the Abortion Ban

What is POLINQ Political Inequality?

POLINQ Theoretical Model

Political voice can be defined minimally or maximally

Mechanisms for why political inequality endures: Elite coordination and mass discoordination

POLINQ, social structure, and social groups

POLINQ, economic inequality, social welfare, and clientelism

Some conclusions of the POLINQ project

Published Results of the POLINQ Project

POLINQ Conceptual and Theoretical Articles

(a) The definition of political voice

(b) The elucidation of the role of economic and political grievances in generating political inequality

(c) Contentious politics and repertoires of action in low-level democracies

(d) The dueling roles of elites and masses in economic redistribution

POLINQ Methodological Articles and Notes

(a) POLINQ explored the potential impact of major economic and political events during survey fieldwork:

(b) POLINQ explored the potential impact of wording of survey items in major cross-national surveys:

(c) POLINQ investigated quantitative problems and solutions in accounting for intersectionality with cross-national surveys, including structural equation modeling and mixed-methods

(d) the local sources of error and bias in cross-national data

POLINQ sources of information and data

(a) Open access sourcebooks on gender and politics:

(b) POLINQ Database:

POLINQ Substantive Findings

(a) Stability of the individual determinants of political participation in Europe across time

(b) Protest under conditions of democratic backsliding

(c) The relationship between economic inequality, policies of economic redistribution, attitudes toward economic redistribution and economic inequality, and protest potential

(d) The relationships between economic inequality, economic and political grievances, and protest

(e) Protest within authoritarian regimes and other un-democratic institutions

POLINQ Guest Edited Issues of International Peer Reviewed Journals

Seminars of the POLINQ Project

Conferences of the POLINQ Project

Training of PhDs and Post-Docs of the POLINQ Project

What is corruption?

Corruption in Ukraine until Euromaidan