2008. “Economic Inequality and Democratic Political Engagement

2Since Aristotle, who observed that great economic inequality leads the wealthy to seek a share of power matching their share of resources and so to subvert democratic government, scholars of politics have theorized that the proper functioning of a democracy depends on a relatively equal distribution of economic resources. Inequality, though, has been rising in the nearly all of the world’s rich and upper-middle-income democracies since the at least the mid-1980s, and in many countries this trend began in the early 1970s (Smeeding 2002). This paper investigates whether these increases in economic inequality have had a negative effect on the functioning of democracy, focusing specifically on citizens ’ political engagement. The argument linking greater economic inequality with lower levels of political engagement is straightforward. Its starting point is the recognition that economic resources can be used to influence others or to resist others ’ influence; that is, they can be readily converted into political resources. Those with higher incomes and more wealth, therefore, enjoy more potential political influence than those of fewer means, and elected representatives are, as a result, more responsive to their preferences. The effect of th