Inequality Democracy And Economic Development

Examines the sources of democracy, the relationship between economic development and thresholds of democracy, and responses to democratization.

In terms accessible to non-economists, Marcos José Mendes describes the ways democracy and inequality produce low growth in the short and medium terms. In the longer term, he argues that Brazil has two paths in front of it. One is to create the conditions necessary to boost economic performance and drive the country toward a high level of development. The other is to fail in untying the political knot that blocks growth, leaving it a middle-income country. The source of his contrasting futures for Brazil is inequality, which he demonstrates is a relevant variable in any discussion of economic growth. Inequality illuminates causes of seemingly-unconnected problems. This book, which includes freely-accessible documents and datasets, is the first in-depth analysis of an issue that promises to become increasingly prominent. Contrasting visions of Brazil’s future described in economic terms Easy-to-understand graphs and tables illustrate analytical arguments All Excel-based data available on a freely-accessible website

The rise of populism in new democracies, especially in Latin America, has brought renewed urgency to the question of how liberal democracy deals with issues of poverty and inequality. Citizens who feel that democracy failed to improve their economic condition are often vulnerable to the appeal of political leaders with authoritarian tendencies. To counteract this trend, liberal democracies must establish policies that will reduce socioeconomic disparities without violating liberal principles, interfering with economic growth, or ignoring the consensus of the people. Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy addresses the complicated philosophical and moral issues surrounding the distribution of economic goods in free societies as well as the empirical relationships between democratization and trends in poverty and inequality. This volume also discusses the variety of welfare-state policies that have been adopted in different regions of the world. The book’s distinguished group of contributors provides a succinct synthesis of the scholarship on this topic. They address such broad issues as whether democracy promotes inequality, the socioeconomic factors that drive democratic failure, and the basic choices that societies must make as they decide how to deal with inequality. Chapters focus on particular regions or countries, examining how problems of poverty and inequality have been handled (or mishandled) by newer democracies in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia. Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy will prove vital reading for all students of world politics, political economy, and democracy’s global prospects. Contributors: Dan Banik, Nancy Bermeo, Dorothee Bohle, Nathan Converse, Alberto Díaz-Cayeros, Francis Fukuyama, Béla Greskovits, Stephan Haggard, Ethan B. Kapstein, Robert R. Kaufman, Taekyoon Kim, Huck-Ju Kwon, Jooha Lee, Peter Lewis, Beatriz Magaloni, Mitchell A. Orenstein, Marc F. Plattner, Charles Simkins, Alejandro Toledo, Ilcheong Yi

The gap between the richest and poorest Americans has grown steadily over the last thirty years, and economic inequality is on the rise in many other industrialized democracies as well. But the magnitude and pace of the increase differs dramatically across nations. A country’s political system and its institutions play a critical role in determining levels of inequality in a society. Democracy, Inequality, and Representation argues that the reverse is also true—inequality itself shapes political systems and institutions in powerful and often overlooked ways. In Democracy, Inequality, and Representation, distinguished political scientists and economists use a set of international databases to examine the political causes and consequences of income inequality. The volume opens with an examination of how differing systems of political representation contribute to cross-national variations in levels of inequality. Torben Iverson and David Soskice calculate that taxes and income transfers help reduce the poverty rate in Sweden by over 80 percent, while the comparable figure for the United States is only 13 percent. Noting that traditional economic models fail to account for this striking discrepancy, the authors show how variations in electoral systems lead to very different outcomes. But political causes of disparity are only one part of the equation. The contributors also examine how inequality shapes the democratic process. Pablo Beramendi and Christopher Anderson show how disparity mutes political voices: at the individual level, citizens with the lowest incomes are the least likely to vote, while high levels of inequality in a society result in diminished electoral participation overall. Thomas Cusack, Iverson, and Philipp Rehm demonstrate that uncertainty in the economy changes voters’ attitudes; the mere risk of losing one’s job generates increased popular demand for income support policies almost as much as actual unemployment does. Ronald Rogowski and Duncan McRae illustrate how changes in levels of inequality can drive reforms in political institutions themselves. Increased demand for female labor participation during World War II led to greater equality between men and women, which in turn encouraged many European countries to extend voting rights to women for the first time. The contributors to this important new volume skillfully disentangle a series of complex relationships between economics and politics to show how inequality both shapes and is shaped by policy. Democracy, Inequality, and Representation provides deeply nuanced insight into why some democracies are able to curtail inequality—while others continue to witness a division that grows ever deeper.

Contributors examine challenges that social inequities present to democratic governments, arguing that issues of poverty and inequality are becoming more important in the global environment. They consider the effects of globalization on the distribution of income and wealth within state borders, the impact of inequality on the stability and quality of democratic governance, and the future of vulnerable democracies in light of the decline in the ability of governments to reduce inequality. Tulchin is director of the Latin American Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

India is a federal parliamentary democratic republic. The Constitution defines the organization, powers and limitations of the Central and State Governments. India has a multi-party system, consisting of various types of national as well as regional political parties. Political parties represent different sections and regions and play a major role in the politics of India. Through the electoral process, the people of India choose their representatives to run the government. There is a widespread perception in the country that disparities amongst states, and regions within states, between urban and rural areas, and between various sections of the community, have been steadily increasing in the past few years. The gains of rapid growth witnessed in recent past have not reached all parts of the country and all sections of the people in an equitable manner. That this perception is well-founded is borne by available statistics on a number of indicators. Widening income differentials between more developed and relatively poorer states is a matter of serious concern. Livelihood options in rural areas are also limited as agriculture does not provide adequate returns and industry is virtually absent leading to limited trade and services. People seeking employment in low skill and hence low paying jobs is a common manifestation of these constraints in many rural areas. In short, the pattern of economic development over the years has left in its trail a variety of inequalities which have caused socio-politico tensions. The present volume contains 11 papersauthored by scholars in the fieldwhich provide an in-depth analysis of various issues confronting the Indian economy, and how they are to be resolved within the democratic framework of the country.

This book offers a new theory of the historical relationship between economic modernization and the emergence of democracy on a global scale, focusing on the effects of land and income inequality.

This study explores why democratization does not necessarily result in inequality reduction in emerging democracies and reveals the determinants of income inequality in emerging democracies, where the average level of inequality continues to be higher and where there is a larger variance of inequality levels than in advanced democracies. Apart from economic, demographic, and social factors, the book highlights political factors that obstruct redistributive policies. In contrast to conventional studies on advanced democracies, which emphasize the relations between different classes, this study asserts that several political factors cause malfunctioning of democratic institutions at various phases of the political process in emerging democracies: multidimensional preferences, the failure of the political market, and weak state capacity. The book employs econometric methods to examine the effects of these political factors. The results indicate their significant effects. The multilevel analysis using the World Values Survey demonstrates that multidimensional preferences, operationalized as ethnic fractionalization, weaken demand for income inequality. Political market quality and state capacity are measured by the age of the largest opposition party, and the Quality of Government indicator is used for the unbalanced panel analysis covering the 1985–2012 period for 75 democracies. Both political market quality and state capacity reduce inequality, but the latter takes more time to show its effect.