Inequality and Democratization: Individual-Level Evidence of Preferences for Redistribution under Autocracy

34 Pages Posted: 1 Aug 2011 Last revised: 25 Aug 2011

See all articles by Ben W. Ansell

Ben W. Ansell

University of Oxford - Department of Politics and International Relations

David J. Samuels

University of Minnesota - Twin Cities - Department of Political Science

Date Written: 2011

Abstract

While some research has explored the relationship between individual income and demand for redistribution under democracy -- finding little support for median-voter theories of redistribution -- no research has explored this relationship under autocracy, even though this connection is a crucial assumption of redistributivist theories of democratization (Boix 2003; Acemoglu and Robinson 2006). We explore the relationship between individual income and support for redistributive government policies in autocratic societies using micro-level data from the World Values Surveys, finding no empirical support for the core assumption of median-voter models that regime change is a function of elites’ fear of the redistributive demands of the poor.

Keywords: inequality, democratization, median voter model

Suggested Citation

Ansell, Ben W. and Samuels, David J., Inequality and Democratization: Individual-Level Evidence of Preferences for Redistribution under Autocracy (2011). APSA 2011 Annual Meeting Paper, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1903333

Ben W. Ansell (Contact Author)

University of Oxford - Department of Politics and International Relations ( email )

Manor Road
Oxford, OX1 3UQ
United Kingdom

David J. Samuels

University of Minnesota - Twin Cities - Department of Political Science ( email )

Minneapolis, MN 55455-0410
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.polisci.umn.edu/~dsamuels/

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