Voter Preferences and Redistributive Outcomes: Exploring Determinants of Unequal Representation

A growing body of research demonstrates how policy-making in the United States and beyond is more responsive to the preferences held by the more affluent as opposed to middle- and low- income citizens. Despite the accumulating evidence from different countries and policy areas, little is currently known about whether this so-called unequal representation is equally prevalent or even inevitable across different democratic systems and if not, under what conditions representation can be expected to be more balanced across different income groups. In this paper, we focus on the issue of redistribution as a major line of conflict between the more and the less affluent to explore the extent and variation of unequal representation across political systems. To that end, we harmonize and integrate a vast number of comparative survey series spanning more than 50 countries and four decades to measure income-group-specific preferences for redistribution and income equality via group-level latent variable models. We combine this data with high-quality, time-varying, standardized measures of redistributive outcomes produced by taxation and transfers. We then assess whether the extent of (un)equal representation is conditioned by electoral and political factors such as turnout and government composition or by non-electoral factors such as the strength of organized labor. Together, this allows us to gain a better understanding of unequal representation and its drivers across time and space.