Journal
JOURNAL OF CHINESE POLITICAL SCIENCE
Volume 27, Issue 2, Pages 375-398Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s11366-021-09772-1
Keywords
income inequality; political polarization; political attitude; populism
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Funding
- Shanghai Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Sciences [2018BZZ003]
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This study utilizes six waves of World Values Survey data from 1990 to 2020 to investigate the global linkages between widened income inequality and growing political polarization. The findings indicate a significant positive correlation between levels of income inequality and political polarization across countries. The results suggest that improved equality in income distribution can contribute to mitigating the development of political polarization.
Both income inequality and political polarization have increased dramatically in much of the world over the past few decades. One might wonder how these two phenomena correlate with each other. Are there any striking similarities in the correlated patterns of income inequality and polarization across the globe? More importantly, how can improved equality in income distribution contribute to mitigate political polarization? Although the potential polarizing effects of income inequality is a growing concern, the evidence provided by the existing literature, however, has been mixed and incomplete. This research seeks to address the shortcomings of the current scholarship by using the repeated cross-sectional data from six waves of the World Values Survey from 1990 to 2020, to investigate whether and how widened income inequality and growing political polarization are linked globally. The findings indicate that there is a positive and statistically significant cross-country association between levels of income inequality and political polarization. The results remain robust to different specifications. This research has the potential for advancing the study of linkages between income inequality and its political consequences.
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