Written by Lily Liang
The ability of citizens to influence public policy with votes is the fundamental character of democracy, making the upcoming election day one of the most highly anticipated political events. Without continuous elections, policy makers have relatively little incentives to respond to preferences of the governed. However, as inequality rises in the U.S. and developed countries around the world, it is natural for us to wonder: how much do elections help ensure that people’s voices are heard? Or do elections empower only a small set of privileged citizens who are most capable of influencing politics and election outcomes?
Political scientist Martin Gilens was one of the first scholars that studied the issue. In his research, Gilens compared preferences of voters at different income percentiles and their effects on public policy in the US, specifically when well-off and poorer voters disagree on policy issues (2005).The study concluded that when voters at the top 10 income percentile disagree with those at the bottom income percentile, policy outcomes favor preferences of the rich and are completely unrelated to the preferences of poorer voters. The voices of middle-class Americans, similarly, are significantly less represented in policymaking. For instance, if we compare the probability of policy change when support for a certain policy rises by the same magnitude among high-income voters and among median income voters, policy change is much more likely to occur when the shift occurred among the former.
Other researchers have explored political responsiveness in a comparative framework and found similar results in European democracies. In European countries, interestingly, scholars also found evidence that as the preference gap between rich voters and poorer voters widens, the positive relationship between income and political influence becomes stronger（Elsässer & Schäfer, 2020). In other words, the preferences of more affluent voters get especially over-represented when their preferences conflict with those of poorer voters. In short, many works of research on the topic point to an uncomfortable conclusion: democracy is often unequal, and rich people rule.
Meanwhile, the conclusion that economic inequality translates to unequal political representation is not unchallenged. Some researchers have provided a more optimistic view on the political economy of elections: Elkjær and Iversen, for example, argued that the methodological setup of Gilens and others are biased towards the preferences of the rich, and that instead middle class voters remain the most influential income group (2020). Another form of criticism focuses on the fact that despite different political influence, different income groups often have similar preferences for policies, making the differentials in political responsiveness less severe. However, it is also worth reflecting on the question of whether a democracy can still be considered equal if poorer people only get represented when their interests coincide with the more privileged.
One of the most direct channels through which economic inequality can translate into unequal political representation is the direct influence on elections of lobbying by business interest groups. Interest groups that favor parties with specific ideologies can support their election campaigns financially. They can also await specific political returns for the funding they provide, and parties may be influenced in their policies in order to get the financial support. In their book Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class, for instance, Simon and Schuster addressed how interest groups used lobbying to block fiscal and economic changes that might negatively affect them (Coulter, 2019). Similarly, in his research, Erikson (2015) also found that interest groups can slow the pace of liberal change. As elections got more expensive over time, special interest groups have become more influential in campaign finance. In the 2024 elections, an unprecedented amount of dark money (i.e. spending meant to influence political outcomes where the source of the money is not disclosed) has flooded election finance, potentially reflecting increasing influence of special interests in elections (Massoglia, 2024).
In addition, descriptive representation, or the phenomenon that the representative and the represented usually have salient similarities, also provide convincing explanations for unequal political representation (Rosset, 2016). As most political representatives have higher levels of education and come from higher-status and higher-earning occupations, the privileged class is usually better represented in policy making systems. Such unequal descriptive representation can lead to unequal political representation indirectly.
Lastly, research centering around systematic differences between voters attempt to explain unequal political representation through different voter turnouts and information asymmetry between income classes. Due to barriers such as less flexible schedules, higher transportation costs, and language barriers, higher-income voters have consistently higher turn-out rates than low-income groups (“New census data“， 2023). Inequality in political participation can make lower-income voters less represented (Peters & Ensink, 2014). A different stream of research focuses on information asymmetry between income groups: Access to accurate, up-to-date information on the economy usually increases with income, and wealthier citizens’ preferences usually better reflect current economic and political conditions. Thus, when governments pursue standard economic policies such as stabilizing measures, high-income groups’ preferences are better represented coincidentally due to information asymmetry between high-income groups and lower-income groups (Elkjær, 2020). Inequality in political representation in this case is less problematic, as it means that the interests of the rich were not weighed more heavily in policy making.
While democracy is meant to amplify all voices, the reality is far more complex than the ideal of equal representation. As political representation increasingly aligns with economic privilege, it’s crucial to critically examine the process of elections and policymaking and explore potential ways to promote greater equality in political representation, such as promoting voter turnout for all income classes and regulating election finance as well as special interest groups.
References
Coulter, S. (2019, April 2). Book review: Winner-take-all politics: How Washington made the rich richer and turned its back on the middle class by Paul Pierson and Jacob S. Hacker. LSE Review of Books. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2012/04/01/book-review-winner-take-all-politics-how-washington-made-the-rich-richer
Elkjær, M. A. (2020). What Drives Unequal Policy Responsiveness? Assessing the Role of Informational Asymmetries in Economic Policy-Making. Comparative Political Studies, 53(14), 2213-2245.
Elkjær, M. A., & Iversen, T. (2020). The political representation of economic interests: subversion of democracy or middle-class supremacy?. World Politics, 72(2), 254-290.
Elsässer, L., Hense, S., & Schäfer, A. (2020). Not just money: Unequal responsiveness in egalitarian democracies. Journal of European Public Policy, 28(12), 1890–1908. https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2020.1801804
Erikson, R. S. (2015). Income inequality and policy responsiveness. Annual Review of Political Science, 18(1), 11-29.
Eytan, T. (2024). To Defend Multiracial Democracy, Progressives Must Embrace Court Reform [Photograph]. American Constitution Society. https://www.acslaw.org/expertforum/to-defend-multiracial-democracy-progressives-must-embrace-court-reform/
Gilens, M. (2005). Inequality and democratic responsiveness. Public Opinion Quarterly, 69(5), 778-796.
Massoglia, A. (2024, March 13). Unprecedented surge in “dark money” floods 2024 elections . OpenSecrets News. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2024/03/unprecedented-surge-in-dark-money-floods-2024-elections/
Peters, Y., & Ensink, S. J. (2014). Differential responsiveness in Europe: The effects of preference difference and electoral participation. West European Politics, 38(3), 577–600. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2014.973260
Rosset, J. (2016). Explaining Unequal Representation. In: Economic Inequality and Political Representation in Switzerland. Contributions to Political Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27117-0_3
Schakel, W. (2019). Unequal policy responsiveness in the Netherlands. Socio-Economic Review, 19(1), 37–57. https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwz018
“New census data reveal voter turnout disparities in 2022 midterm elections. National Low Income Housing Coalition”. (2023, May 15). https://nlihc.org/resource/new-census-data-reveal-voter-turnout-disparities-2022-midterm-elections