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in the social sciences. Moreover, the notion that income and income inequality matter to
democratic processes and the quality of democratic outcomes is widely accepted. Yet,
while scholars have investigated the impact of citizens’ resources in terms of social
status, education, or levels of income on participation with much vigor, the issue of how
relative income at the individual level and income inequality at the macro-level affect
civic participation has received relatively little attention from social scientists.
This relative lack of attention about the question of how income inequality cross-
nationally and differences in income at the level of individual citizens affect civic life is
surprising, given the normative importance attached to inequality’s effects on democracy.
After all, it has long been argued that economic inequality leads to inferior democratic
outcomes because it concentrates power among a smaller group of people and increases
politicians’ responsiveness to an ever smaller group of advantaged citizens (Bartels 2002;
Dahl 1971; Pateman 1971; Schattschneider 1960; Solt 2004a).
Arguably, income inequality reflects in part the presence of heterogeneous
preferences in society. If inequality in incomes reflects a diverse set of preferences
(about, say, defending or changing the status quo with regard to economic, social, or tax
policy, for example), one would predict that distance from the median income produces
incentives to participate to either defend the status quo (at the upper end of the income
distribution) or to change the status quo (among those at the lower end). If this is the
case, inequality as an indicator of heterogeneous preferences would imply more political
conflict among a greater number of people and greater incentives to become politically
involved. In this way, then, inequality would be viewed as an engine of politics at both
ends of the income distribution, where more inequality begets more political activity
Convention