This book analyzes the link between economic and political inequalities and investigates the mechanisms that lead to economically rooted inequalities in the political representation of citizens’ policy preferences. Focusing on the case of Switzerland and evaluating data from the post-electoral survey, Selects 2007, the author demonstrates that the policy preferences of members of the Federal Assembly best reflect those of rich citizens. This pattern is explained by differential levels of political participation and knowledge across income groups, party finance, the fact that representatives tend to come from higher economic strata, and the failure of the party-system structure to reflect the complexity of policy preferences among citizens.
This book analyzes the link between economic and political inequalities and investigates the mechanisms that lead to economically rooted inequalities in the political representation of citizens’ policy preferences. Focusing on the case of Switzerland and evaluating data from the post-electoral survey, Selects 2007, the author demonstrates that the policy preferences of members of the Federal Assembly best reflect those of rich citizens. This pattern is explained by differential levels of political participation and knowledge across income groups, party finance, the fact that representatives tend to come from higher economic strata, and the failure of the party-system structure to reflect the complexity of policy preferences among citizens.
Gender Equality has not yet been achieved in many western countries. Switzerland in particular has failed as a forerunner in integrating women in politics and economy. Taking Switzerland as a case study, the authors critically reflect the state of gender equality in different policy areas such as education, family and labour. The collection of articles reveals how gender policies and cultural contexts interact with social practices of gender (in)equality. They also outline the gender(ed) effects of recent changes and reform strategies for scientists, politicians and practitioners.
This book describes the levels of unequal electoral participation in thirty-six countries worldwide, examines possible causes of this phenomenon, and discusses its consequences.
The empirical starting point for anyone who wants to understand political cleavages in the democratic world, based on a unique dataset covering fifty countries since WWII. Who votes for whom and why? Why has growing inequality in many parts of the world not led to renewed class-based conflicts, seeming instead to have come with the emergence of new divides over identity and integration? News analysts, scholars, and citizens interested in exploring those questions inevitably lack relevant data, in particular the kinds of data that establish historical and international context. Political Cleavages and Social Inequalities provides the missing empirical background, collecting and examining a treasure trove of information on the dynamics of polarization in modern democracies. The chapters draw on a unique set of surveys conducted between 1948 and 2020 in fifty countries on five continents, analyzing the links between votersÕ political preferences and socioeconomic characteristics, such as income, education, wealth, occupation, religion, ethnicity, age, and gender. This analysis sheds new light on how political movements succeed in coalescing multiple interests and identities in contemporary democracies. It also helps us understand the conditions under which conflicts over inequality become politically salient, as well as the similarities and constraints of voters supporting ethnonationalist politicians like Narendra Modi, Jair Bolsonaro, Marine Le Pen, and Donald Trump. Bringing together cutting-edge data and historical analysis, editors Amory Gethin, Clara Martnez-Toledano, and Thomas Piketty offer a vital resource for understanding the voting patterns of the present and the likely sources of future political conflict.
The contributions in this book highlight, contextualize and analyze different aspects of social inequality. What are the various cause and effects of inequality? How have these changed over recent decades? Which social policies might be best able to intervene? Written by authors from a variety of disciplines and geographical regions, these contributions provide a rich account of inequality within contemporary society. The role of the state, the media and the market in exacerbating and alleviating patterns of equality are all accessed alongside analysis of changing patterns of exclusion and hierarchy.
Democratic theory considers it fundamental for parties in government to be both responsive to their electorate and responsible to internal and international constraints. But recently these two roles have become more and more incompatible with Mair’s growing divide in European party systems between parties which claim to represent, but don’t deliver, and those which deliver, but are no longer seen to represent truer than ever. This book contains a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the behaviour of the opposition parties in eleven European democracies across Western and East Central Europe. Specifically, it investigates the parliamentary behaviour of the opposition parties, and shows that the party context is increasingly diverse. It demonstrates the emergence of two distinct types of opposition: one more cooperative, carried out by the mainstream parties (those with government aspirations), and one more adversarial focusing on government scrutiny rather than on policy alternatives (parties permanently excluded from power). It systematically and analytically explores the sources of their behaviour, whilst acknowledging that opposition is broader than its mere parliamentary behaviour. Finally, it considers the European agenda and the economic crisis as two possible intervening variables that might have an impact on the opposition parties’ behaviour and the government-opposition relations. As such, it responds to questions that are major concerns for the European democracies of the new millennium. This text will be of key interest to students and scholars of political parties, European politics, comparative politics and democracy.
Interest in democratic socialism is on the rise, but this wide-ranging comparison of two systems shows that the Nordic model of capitalism achieves virtually everything that contemporary democratic socialists say we should want. Socialism is back in the conversation, and recent polls suggest the share of young Americans who have a favorable impression of socialism is about the same as the share that have a favorable view of capitalism. The case for a modern democratic socialism is that capitalism is bad, or at least not very good, and that socialism would be an improvement. To fully and fairly assess democratic socialism's desirability, Lane Kenworthy argues in Would Democratic Socialism Be Better?, we need to compare it to the best version of capitalism that humans have devised: social democratic capitalism. Kenworthy offers a close look at the evidence about how capitalist economies have performed on an array of outcomes. He finds that social democratic capitalism achieves virtually everything that contemporary democratic socialists say we should want.
