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The role of perceived economic inequality in the formation of political preferences

  • Economic inequality, i.e. income and wealth inequality, varies across time and space. Preferences for and concerns about economic inequality in particular and political preferences in general are remarkably independent of such variation in economic inequality. Empirically, the mechanisms linking economic inequality and political preferences are difficult to study since economic inequality as a macro-level phenomenon can influence individual political preferences in many ways. A typical assumption in theoretically and empirically studying the effects of economic inequality on the formation of political preferences is that individuals have full information about economic inequality. This assumption, while analytically helpful, is conceptually and empirically contested. I study the formation of political preferences under incomplete, potentially biased, information about inequality by considering perceived economic inequality as linking mechanism between economic inequality and political preferences. Chapter 2 studies the relevance of inequality perceptions for the formation of preferences for redistribution and finds that inequality perceptions are strong predictors for preferences for redistribution. I further find that inequality perceptions are independent of actual levels of income inequality but dependent on individual socio-economic and ideological positions. Chapter 3 builds upon this argument but looks at perceptions of tax inequality rather than income inequality and its effects on preferences for taxation. It shows that individuals perceive tax rates for different income groups differently depending on their own income position. Preferred tax rates for different income groups, however, are rather similar across individual income positions. Chapters 2 and 3 indicate that there is heterogeneity in perceived inequalities and that these perceptions are relevant to the formation of political preferences. While these chapters use individual level observational data to study potential mechanisms correlationally, I apply a quasi-experimental design to test whether perceived inequality—modelled as experience of inequality—causally influences political preferences in chapter 4: Studying populist voting in Germany, I find that experiencing regional inequality can affect populist voting. This dissertation presents empirical evidence that considering perceived inequalities can help us to better understand why individual political preferences do not necessarily reflect levels and changes in economic inequality.

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Metadaten
Document Type:Doctoral Thesis
Language:English
Author(s):Licia BobzienORCiD
Advisor:Anke Hassel, Tobias Wolbring, Bernhard Kittel, Roland Verwiebe
Hertie Collections (Serial Number):Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School (15/2021)
Publication year:2021
Publishing Institution:Hertie School
Granting Institution:Hertie School
Thesis date:2021/06/21
Number pages:143
DOI:https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-4177
Release Date:2021/10/27
Notes:
Partly published here: 

Bobzien L. Polarized perceptions, polarized preferences? Understanding the relationship between inequality and preferences for redistribution. Journal of European Social Policy. 2020;30(2):206-224. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0958928719879282
Notes:
Shelf mark: 2021D015 + 2021D015+1
Hertie School Research:Jacques Delors Centre
Publications PhD Researchers
Licence of document (German):Creative Commons - CC BY - 4.0 International
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