While democracies rest on egalitarian ideals, we encounter an unequal reality when examining who is involved in politics. We know that higher levels of inequality negatively affect both the level and distribution of electoral participation in advanced democracies. At the same time, alternative forms of participation have been drawing increasing attention as the effects of the financial crisis come to fore and the gap between the haves and have-nots continues to expand.
My paper examines the ways in which welfare policies combat the deleterious effects of inequality across multiple spheres of political participation—ranging from the widely studied voter turnout to less institutionalized forms of engagement such as participation in demonstrations and boycotts or contacting politicians and signing petitions. The policy feedback literature has revealed that beyond influences of individual resources or socialization, we must also consider the impact of public policy on political behavior. Policies affect people much like formal political institutions do—they too transmit norms and impose rules. Why should we expect welfare policies to shape political participation? Such policies confer material benefits that enhance participatory capacity; strong welfare commitments may signal that interests are protected and valued, thereby enhancing political efficacy; and where lives are more tied to policy outcomes, people may have a greater interest in politics. At the same time, welfare policies may exert differential impacts depending on the type of activity. It could be that generous social policy has an equalizing effect on more conventional political activities like voting, yet quells other forms of activity based on protest.
To test the relationships between political participation and welfare policies, I compare individual political participation in 30 democracies using multilevel analysis. Additional models test whether welfare policies have a uniform effect across groups, or if the effect varies in strength or direction depending on income.
