Demands For Redistribution Research Articles

The moderating role of government heuristics in public preferences for redistribution

A theory of rational attitude formation suggests public perceptions that income differences are too large should lead to demands for income redistribution. Public opinion scientists irregularly observe this at best. It is possible that the instruments we use to observe support for income redistribution are ineffective. We suggest at least part of the inconsistently observed linkages are due to unobserved confounding of government heuristics. We hypothesize that government affect provides a heuristic cue for survey respondents to answer questions on their preference for the government engaging in income redistribution. The greater the valence or quantity of reasons for a survey respondent to have negative government affect, the more perceptions of inequality and support for redistribution are decoupled and apparently inconsistent. To test this, we measured government affect at the country-time level using trust, corruption perceptions, and economic performance. We executed tests of moderation using slopes-as-outcomes regressions with ISSP data from 36 countries in 102 country-time points. Given the difficulty in fitting complex theories of society and politics into a limited number of macro-comparative cases, we ran a multiverse analysis of alternatively plausible models. There is a consistent negative moderation effect across models suggesting that our theory of government affect as opinion expression on a survey is worthy of further consideration. The findings also suggest more qualitative cognitive survey interviews to better understand this process.

Dans un miroir, obscur

Equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI)—or sometimes styled EDID by including decolonization—is an institutionalized response to demands for access, inclusion, recognition, and redistribution by communities of people excluded from traditional centres of power. Under the banner of EDI(D), educational institutions have launched an extensive program of adult education, seeking to “train” institutional actors to adhere to policies and root out bias in practice. In this paper, Bannerji situates the relations of EDI work within the broader framing of multiculturalism, racism, and ideologies of education in Canada. Drawing from Dorothy Smith’s unique articulations of ontology and ideology, Bannerji confronts the ideological praxis of EDI work and asks us to consider the politics of identity and pedagogy that constitute this particular conjuncture.

‘The Economy is Rigged’: Inequality Narratives, Fairness, and Support for Redistribution in Six Countries

Do narratives about the causes of inequality influence support for redistribution? Scholarship suggests that information about levels of inequality does not easily shift redistributive attitudes. We embed information about inequality within a commentary article depicting the economy as being rigged to advantage elites, a common populist narrative of both the left and right. Drawing on the media effects and political economy literature, we expect articles employing narratives that portray inequality as the consequence of systemic unfairness to increase demands for redistribution. We test this proposition via an online survey experiment with 7426 respondents in Australia, France, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Our narrative treatment significantly increases attitudes favoring redistribution in five of the countries. In the US the treatment has no effect. We consider several reasons for the non-result in the US – highlighting beliefs about government inefficiency – and conclude by discussing general implications of our findings.

Water for All: Community, Property, and Revolution in Modern Bolivia

Water for All: Community, Property, and Revolution in Modern Bolivia

Sorting Out the Mixed Economy: The Rise and Fall of Welfare and Developmental States in the Americas

Sorting Out the Mixed Economy: The Rise and Fall of Welfare and Developmental States in the Americas

Taxation in the Early Progressive Era: From Revenue to Social Policy

ABSTRACT This paper examines the views of three prominent Wisconsin progressives — Richard T. Ely, Tomas Sewall Adams, and John R. Commons — on taxes as social policy. In the 1890s, Wisconsin emerged as a national progressive leader, a ‘laboratory of democracy’ that produced the nation’s first minimum wage, first unemployment insurance plan, the first civil service law, and the first state-level income tax. Yet, despite often bordering on the radical, Wisconsin economists were cautious about demands for income and wealth redistribution through the tax mechanism. Instead, they conceived of taxation as an instrument of social policy via three intersecting paths: (1) that the provision of government services could serve as a vehicle by which to achieve desirable socioeconomic outcomes, (2) that properly designed tax policy could improve morality, itself a worthy end, and (3) that inequality and distributional concerns should be understood as issues of power and property rather than of wealth.

The Democratic State and Redistribution: Whose Interests Are Served?

Growing economic inequality has raised concerns that democratic governments are no longer responsive to popular demands for redistribution either because the state capacity is eroded by footloose capital or because the wealthy subvert democracy through the power of money. In this paper we critically assess these conjectures against long-standing arguments about redistribution and insurance under democracy. We test the alternatives on a new comprehensive dataset on income inequality from 17 advanced democracies between 1980 and 2019. We find that before taxes and transfers income inequality has increased markedly everywhere but also that government redistribution has played a critical role in compensating the middle class and to a perhaps surprising degree also the poor. However, the United States is a large outlier.

People weigh salaries more than ratios in judgments of income inequality, fairness, and demands for redistribution

Five experiments (total n = 2422, with U.S. American and French participants, four preregistered) show that people are more likely to use median salaries rather than CEO-median employee compensation ratios when making inequality and fairness judgments based on company compensation data. In separate evaluation of companies, we find no significant impact of compensation ratios, which express objective levels of income inequality, but a significant impact of median salaries. In joint evaluation, ratios have an impact, but median salaries have a bigger impact. Our results point to a difference between perceived and actual inequality indicators: people do not perceive inequality based on a widely-used indicator of inequality (compensation ratios), but rather use representative workers’ salaries, and believe lower representative wages are connected to higher inequality. We discuss theoretical implications for the psychological understanding of economic inequality, and practical implications for the regulation of the presentation of compensation data.

Terapia ocupacional social, justiça social e população LGBTI+: com quem produzimos nossas reflexões e ações?

Abstract This reflection article had the purpose of discussing possible relationships between social occupational therapy, the concept of social justice, and possible justifications for the production of knowledge and practices with the LGBTI+ population. For this, the conceptual production of social justice developed by Nancy Fraser was taken as a basis, which for the author can be analyzed through demands for redistribution, recognition, and representation. Furthermore, the main elements for the identification and conceptual delimitation of the subjects with which this theoretical-methodological perspective decides to focus its reflections and actions together were sought in the history of the constitution of social occupational therapy. It was possible to highlight the relevance of the themes of genders and sexualities for the production of reflections and practices from the theoretical-methodological perspective of social occupational therapy, since the dissident subjects and groups of genders and sexualities experience, in their daily lives, social inequalities, and injustices that prevent them from accessing certain social rights, exercising their citizenship, having their demands represented in state political dimensions and having their existence recognized in different social realities. This proposal for reflection is not based on the understanding that these subjects and groups demand professional actions because they are considered “vulnerable”, but because they understand that by producing experiences that go beyond gender and sexuality norms, these subjects and groups go through numerous situations of violence and oppression, different forms of social injustice, and neglect of social rights.

Inclusive businesses as a development strategy to fight poverty

Inclusive businesses implement policies aimed at bringing a marginalized part of the global population into value chains. This paper analyzes these social inclusion strategies which have gained increasing importance in the development debate. In order to do so, we have examined the role of two multilateral organizations – the United Nations and the World Bank – in constructing the concept of inclusive businesses and analyzed 107 cases which are considered inclusive. From the analysis of how inclusive businesses incorporate low-income people and microenterprises into value chains, we identified three central approaches: inclusion through consumption, distribution chains, and supply chains. We rely on Boltanski and Chiapello's (1999) theoretical model to understand the assumptions and dynamics behind each of these three approaches and to grasp the moral justifications that legitimize them. In this sense, such strategies are understood here as a response by capitalism to its critics, a kind of response that allows neoliberal capitalism to absorb the less threatening demands of the progressive agenda and promote new forms of engagement in the system. We conclude that these development strategies do not address the structural asymmetries of the global productive and distributive system, since they replace an agenda for decreasing inequality and poverty eradication with one of mere poverty relief and overshadow the role of the state in the development process. The first step to move beyond this approach requires bringing collective and redistributive demands back into the center of development debate.

Secessionist conflict as diversion from inequality: The missing link between grievance and repression

Why do some secessionist claims turn violent and others stay peaceful? This study elucidates the role of inequality and diversionary tactics of states in secessionist violence. Horizontal inequality increases the grievances of minorities and fuels rebellion. States with high vertical inequality prefer to suppress peripheries instead of increasing redistribution and alleviating their material grievances. States shun redistributing toward peripheral regions because sharing with one group prompts demands for redistribution among other groups, including the dominant group. Fearing resource reallocation at the national scale and potential loss of their elevated social status, the elites opt for violent solutions for secessionist crises. Using a new dataset on self-determination movements I test these conjectures and find strong support for them.

Expanding Welfare State Borders: Trade Unions and the Introduction of Pro-Outsiders Social Policies in Italy and Argentina

AbstractThis article investigates the drivers of trade union choices in the social policy arena in the age of austerity. Against the background of a political economy literature mostly emphasising trade union support for their stronger constituency – i.e. the ‘insiders’ – the article shows the existence of mechanisms potentially inducing trade unions to broaden their demands. Empirically, the study rests on an in-depth comparative analysis of the political process inducing the two largest trade unions in Argentina and Italy, the CGT and the CGIL, to support ‘pro-outsider’ social policy actively. Besides the comparison of two different geographical areas – though not so different in terms of original welfare state configuration – the main contribution of this article is outlining how the combination of dwindling organizational resources and growing competition from social movements and/or new radical unions leads traditionally insider-oriented unions to reach out to new constituencies and advocate expanded redistributive demands.

Bread or Roses: How Economic Inequality Affects Regime Support in China?

Much comparative politics scholarship has examined whether economic inequality affects democratic values or political support in democracies. Nevertheless, they lack a close examination of the political effects of economic inequality and, more importantly, how economic inequality shapes political support in non-democracies. We provide an empirical test of the effect of economic inequality on regime support using the China data from the Asian Barometer Survey between 2002 and 2015. We argue and demonstrate that perceived economic inequality significantly reduces regime support in China. Moreover, using a causal mediation analysis, we find that the detrimental effect of perceived economic inequality on regime support is not driven by demands for redistribution, but rather by the political value orientation. These findings advance our understanding of the connection between economic inequality and political values and the economic base of political legitimacy in non-democracies.

The politics of welfare state financialisation: the case of Israel’s ‘Saving for Every Child’ programme

ABSTRACT Expanding financialisation of the economy and society represents a constitutive feature of the neoliberal regime. This process is also underway in various domains of state action, including the welfare state. This article uses a case study of financialisation of a cash transfer programme – the establishment of the Israeli ‘Saving for Every Child’ programme – to tackle two main questions: Which political constellations are likely to promote financialisation in social policy? And, what are the ramifications of financialisation for the politics of the welfare state? The study suggests that in a context of conflict between redistributive demands and opposition to the decommodifying effects of universal cash benefits, financialisation provides a political solution which satisfies the former while subordinating it to principles of commodifying social investment. The study further indicates that the financialisation of redistributive policies changes the politics of the welfare state by making financial market actors and considerations an integral part of welfare policy-making processes

Editors' Note

Editors' Note Kate Masur and Gregory P. Downs As we write this editors' note in summer 2021, we are hopeful that many in-person activities will soon resume, including the conferences, seminars, workshops, and writing groups that are so important to our collective work. Our issue features three research essays about men's lives that touch on politics, ideology, and power. Daniel Crofts takes a new look at a famous diarist in "Sidney George Fisher and the Coming of the Civil War: How Southern Overreach Alarmed a Conservative Philadelphian." An elite Philadelphian, Fisher had generally conservative political instincts. Yet he became increasingly troubled by southern politicians' demands for dominance in the 1850s, eventually siding with the Republicans and, when war came, even supporting emancipation. The story of Fisher's political evolution is a reminder of the diversity and contentiousness of the Republican coalition. In "William Henry Trescot, Pardon Broker," Cynthia Nicoletti follows Trescot, a South Carolina lawyer and politician (and historian), to Washington, DC, where he lobbied President Andrew Johnson to restore land to his state's planter elite. Trescot entered directly into political negotiations about the future of land confiscated from Confederates during the war, using his legal savvy and political connections to discredit demands for land redistribution by South Carolina freedpeople and O. O. Howard, the commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau. Tarik Yiğit explores Civil War veterans in Egypt in "Reconstructing the American under the Most Unimaginable Conditions: Civil War Veterans in the 'Arabian Nights.'" Egypt's leader, Ismail Pasha, sought American advisors after the war, and many U.S. and Confederate veterans were happy to oblige. Impelled by the chance to earn an income and an associated sense of manhood, Civil War veterans in Egypt contributed their skills in surveying, military training, and armed conflict itself. Many had known each other before the war, and Egypt became a site where Americans who had fought on both sides grappled with one another and with the Civil War's legacies. In his review essay, "The Common Soldier of the Civil War: His Rise and Fall," Gerald Prokopowicz examines evolving scholarly interest in Civil War soldiers. Historical scholarship on the rank and file has been shaped by subsequent wars and by historians' changing approaches to the past. What was once represented as a generalizable "common soldier" experience—atleast [End Page 447] for Confederate soldiers on the one hand and US ones on the other—has been shattered, but questions of why people fought endure. With this issue, we say goodbye to our editorial assistant, Megan Hildebrand, a PhD candidate at Penn State, whose term is ending and whose excellent work we have appreciated tremendously. Edward Green is the new editorial assistant, and we welcome him to the team. We also express special gratitude to the authors, peer reviewers, and book reviewers who made time to contribute to the journal during the difficult months of the pandemic. We hope they and all our readers are faring well and that we'll see one another soon. [End Page 448] Copyright © 2021 The University of North Carolina Press

State Segmentation and Democratic Survival in Latin America

Popular models portray that high inequality induces elites to sponsor coups and reverse democratization as a means for repressing redistributive demands. Challenging this prediction, Latin America shifted from a historical pattern of systematic democratic breakdowns to one characterized by the resilience of democracy despite extreme levels of inequality. This article argues that the reminiscence of state-led repression under democracy explains why elites more regularly waive coups as solutions to distributive conflict in Latin American democracies. I call this state segmentation, a concept that describes the asymmetries between the enforcement of citizenship rights for those in privileged positions and for the poor. Wherever state segmentation is high, the odds of democratic breakdown should be lower. I test the argument using logistic regression models to predict the probability of coups and mandate interruptions considering different levels of state segmentation in Latin America using V-Dem data. Results show that asymmetries in access to citizenship rights indeed prevent democratic breakdowns.

Mobility Optimism in an Age of Rising Inequality

ABSTRACT Four decades of rising incomes at the top, combined with income stagnation and declining intergenerational social mobility for the majority of American households, have combined to produce what has been widely described as a “new gilded age” in the United States. Yet analyses of the best available survey data reveal little evidence of a proportional increase in policy demands for redistribution over time. What explains this puzzling pattern of non-responsiveness? One classical explanation, revived in recent economic literature, postulates that high and persisting levels of optimism about the chances for advancement and social mobility reduce Americans’ willingness to support redistributive public policies. Although seemingly paradoxical in the current economic environment, the “prospect of upward mobility” (POUM) hypothesis is consistent with cross-national survey evidence revealing relatively high levels of support for such beliefs. What about trends over-time? This raises an important and largely unexamined question: Have underlying beliefs about POUM also shaped Americans’ attitudes toward redistributive policies during the era of rising inequality? In this paper, we examine the POUM-policy preference link, and how it has changed in recent decades. We find that POUM beliefs have shaped how individuals form policy attitudes toward inequality and taxes, net of partisanship, income, and confidence in government. Study findings provide new and provocative evidence in support of the POUM hypothesis, and we discuss implications for models of inequality attitudes and more generally scholarship on the politics of rising inequality.

The Hobbesian Bargain: State-Building, Fiscal Capacity, and Preferences for Redistribution in Fragile States

What explains citizens' preferences for redistribution in fragile states? We examine fiscal capacity in the context of modern state-building in Afghanistan. As emergent governments struggle to supply their end of an Hobbesian bargain by establishing political order after state collapse, we argue that citizens' expectations of the government's policy direction are conditioned by newly-functioning political institutions. Absent a demonstrated record of fiscal capacity on the part of the state, these expectations importantly shape citizens' redistributive demands. We test our argument using nation-wide survey data from Afghanistan and an exogenous source of variation in individuals' political inclusion to proxy for perceptions of government policy direction. Results show that individuals who gain greater political inclusion through shared loyalties with elected politicians in the new regime demonstrate less support for redistribution, while those who perceive rent-seeking in government service delivery are more likely to spread the wealth around. Forms of quasi-voluntary compliance and risk aversion are two conditions that mediate preferences in favor of redistribution, conditional on a fragile state's demonstration of fiscal potential. Findings remain robust to numerous sensitivity analyses and alternative explanations. The analysis contributes to important theoretical and policy questions focused on the institutional components of state-building, fiscal institutions, and economic development.

Subjective social class and individual preferences for redistribution

PurposeThe recent increase in economic inequalities in many countries heightened the debates about policy preferences on income distribution. Attitudes toward inequality vary greatly across countries and numerous explanations are offered to clarify the factors leading to support for redistribution. The purpose of this paper is to examine the link between subjective social class and redistributive demands by jointly considering the individual and national factors. The author argues that subjective measures of social positions can be highly explanatory for preferences about redistribution policies.Design/methodology/approachThe author uses data from 48 countries gathered by World Values Survey and empirically tests the impact of self-positioning into classes by multilevel ordered logit model. Several model specifications and estimation strategies have been employed to obtain consistent estimates and to check for the robustness of the results.FindingsThe findings show that, in addition to objective factors, subjective class status is highly explanatory for redistributive preferences across countries. The author also exhibits that there is interaction between self-ranking of social status and national context. The author’s estimations from the multilevel models verify that subjective social class has greater explanatory power in more equal societies. This is in contrast to the previous studies that establish a positive link between inequality and redistribution.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to the literature by introducing subjective social class as a determinant. Self-ranked positions can be very relieving about policy preferences given the information these categorizations encompass about individuals’ perceptions about their and others’ place in the society.

Trade and redistribution: trade politics and the origins of progressive taxation

AbstractWhat explains variation in tax progressivity before World War I? I argue that trade politics shaped the emergence of progressive taxation. If labor could provide a useful ally, trade policy coalitions meant compromise on redistributive demands: progressive taxes, especially where inequality was lower. In time-series cross-sectional analysis, I find that trade interest proximity between labor and elites was associated with more progressive taxation in ten European countries between 1870 and 1913 under conditions of low inequality. The coalition and compromise mechanism is evident in sub-national evidence from Britain. Where constituency interests favored free trade, Liberal–Labour electoral alliance was more likely in 1906, and the local MP was more likely to support the 1909 “People's Budget” for progressive taxation.