Economic inequality, income, and their effects on electoral and civil society participation in authoritarian regimes
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Economic inequality, income, and their effects on electoral and civil society participation in authoritarian regimes Lars Pelke
Received: 14 January 2020 / Revised: 7 October 2020 / Accepted: 23 October 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract What effect does economic inequality in authoritarian regimes have upon the political participation of its citizens? Do individual income and repression each have a greater effect than economic inequality? Three prominent theories, namely the Conflict, Relative Power, and Resource Theories address the inequality-participation puzzle in the context of democracies. However, theoretical arguments and empirical evidence for non-democratic regimes are scarce. I argue that it is individual income and the level of repression rather than economic inequality that explain political participation in autocracies. Using three-level hierarchical models that combine micro and macro level data for 65,000 individuals covering a various set of 31 authoritarian regimes and 54 country-years, this analysis demonstrates that higher levels of economic inequality hardly suppress political participation among all citizens. However, individual income has a more powerfully effect on civil society participation, while the level of repression decreases the voting likelihood more powerful than income. These findings suggest that the Resource Theory generates the greatest empirical support for autocracies. Keywords Economic inequality · Political participation · Voting · Civil society · Authoritarian regimes · World Value Survey
Replication files and the data are available at Harvard Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/ SMGOZH. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/ s12286-020-00463-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. L. Pelke () Institute of Political Science, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany E-Mail: [email protected]
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L. Pelke
Ökonomische Ungleichheit, Einkommen und ihre Effekte auf elektorale und zivilgesellschaftliche Partizipation in autoritären Regimen Zusammenfassung Welchen Effekt hat ökonomische Ungleichheit auf die politische Partizipation der Bürger in Wahlen und der Zivilgesellschaft? Ist der Effekt von Einkommen und Repression größer als der Effekt von ökonomischer Ungleichheit? Drei bedeutende Theorien (Konflikt Theorie, Relative Macht Theorie, und Ressourcen Theorie) beschäftigen sich mit diesen Fragen für Demokratien. Theoretische Beträge und empirische Untersuchungen für nicht-demokratische Regime sind jedoch selten. In dieser Studie argumentiere ich, dass das individuelle Einkommen und das Repressionslevel politische Partizipation in Autokratien erklärt und nicht ökonomische Ungleichheit. Mit Hilfe hierarchischer Modelle, in denen Mikro- und Makro-Daten für 65.000 Individuen aus 31 Autokratien und 54 Länderjahren gesammelt werden, zeigt die Analyse, dass ökonomische Ungleichheit kaum politische Partizipation in Autokratien vermindert. Individuelles Einkommen hat
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