Dismantling Democracy: The Challenge of Inequality to Political Engagement

Abstract

While inequality has long been a mainstay in economics, its recent political and social ramifications are undeniable and can be seen changing the landscape of modern democratic states. Recent work, in the form of academic and cross-over books, academic journal publications and other reports such as the OECD’s “Divided We Stand”, address this issue. Finally, and most visibly to a broader audience, other manifestations such as the “Occupy” protest movements occurring throughout developed countries continue to try to maintain public and political interest in this issue. The culmination of these efforts has produced clear evidence that income and other inequalities have far reaching political, economic and social implications that are increasing in both visibility and importance on national political agendas worldwide. While the causes of income inequality are manifold and mainly revolve around increasing gaps in market and capital income, weakening redistributive effectiveness of taxation policies and in-kind benefits, changing household structures or less effective employment protection legislation and processes of globalisation, there is widespread worry and acknowledgment on its disturbing challenges to social cohesion and political stability. As but one recent example, according to Wilkinson and Pickett’s influential study (2009) societies with high levels of income inequality have manifold undesirable social and political profiles. In addition, an increasing number of works are beginning to document how high or increasing levels of inequality induce corruption, distrust, bad governance, weakening political support and citizens’ disenchantment with politics. Thus, it is here that we seek to draw together those working on the political and social consequences of inequality in modern democratic society onto a panel. While we seek individual-level and group-level effects (in the form of political participation and civil society), we are amenable to work that empirically documents larger shifts in democratic politics, electoral changes, and the application of (re)distributive policies.

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