Tag: political voice
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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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President Obama on Money in Politics
The influence of money in politics continues to undermine American democracy. Despite former President Obama’s well-intentioned efforts to tackle this pervasive problem, his administration’s attempts fell short. We explore Obama’s fight against the corrupting power of money in politics, including the various initiatives he championed and the obstacles he faced, such as the Citizens United…
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Piketty: Policy, Institutions, and a Brief History of Equality
Does equality rise? What is the role of policy, institutions, and collective mobilization for increasing equality? This post delves into the work of French economist Thomas Piketty, whose influential books examine wealth and income inequality. Piketty highlights the long-term trend towards greater political, economic, and social equality, driven by political mobilizations, social struggles, and institutional…
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Ray Dalio on Power, Money, and Societal Collapse
What is the relationship between money, power, and the collapse of society? This blog post presents the ideas of Ray Dalio, billionaire investor and author of “Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail.” Dalio explores his ideas about a Big Cycle and international relations, highlighting the interplay of how…
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Effects of Political Inequality on Society
Inequality — economic, political, social — is at the heart of society’s troubles. Political inequality is a particular kind and it has many definitions. In the main, it refers to structured differences in influence and outcomes of political processes. What are the effects of political inequality on society? Here we explore the consequences of political…
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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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Gender Quotas in Politics
Gender quotas in politics are rules that aim at providing opportunities for women to be in parliament or to appear on candidate lists in elections for political office. In this post, we discuss the types of gender quotas in politics, how parliaments in democracy adopt quotas, whether they are effective in placing more women in…
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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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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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The Meaning of Political Voice
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…
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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…
Political Inequality: A blog since 2010 