Economic Inequality and Political Polarization

Krige Siebrits

《Taiwan Journal of Democracy》 18卷1期 (2022/07) Pp. 41-60

摘要

This essay reviews and interprets research into the relationship between economic inequality and political polarization in high-income democracies. It shows that several empirical studies have linked polarization in these countries to large or growing inequalities, but also points to others that have questioned the existence of such a relationship. In addition, the essay presents an overview of trends in the distributions of income and wealth. While confirming that inequality has been increasing in most high-income democracies, this overview shows that it is difficult to ascertain whether the levels of and increases in inequality in these countries indubitably have caused political polarization. Against this background, it argues that understanding of the polarization effects of economic inequalities would be advanced by assimilation of research findings about the accuracy of inequality perceptions and the political implications of growing actual or perceived economic insecurity.

關鍵字

Economic insecurity ； income inequality ； perceived inequality ； political polarization ； wealth inequality

參考文獻

Yanfeng Gu and Zhongyuan Wang, “Economic Inequality and Global Political Polarization: The Economic Origin of Political Polarization in the World,” Online First article, Journal of Chinese Political Science (2021): 5, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11366-021-09772-1 (accessed December 13, 2021).

Nolan M. McCarty, Polarization: What Everyone Needs to Know (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 2.

Laurence Whitehead, “Political Polarization: A Conceptual Survey,” in this issue of the Taiwan Journal of Democracy

Thomas Carothers and Andrew O’Donohue, Democracies Divided: The Global Challenge of Political Polarization (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2019), 1-2.

Daryna Grechyna, “On the Determinants of Political Polarization,” Economics Letters 144 (2016): 10-14