Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant in Political Science: Representation and Political Support in the Face of Inequality

高度的经济不平等对民主的核心原则提出了挑战，对深化和加强民主制度构成了重大挑战。 该项目调查了经济不平等对美洲政治支持和代表性的影响，美洲是世界上不平等程度最高的地区。 它问道：在不平等的背景下，谁得到了有意义的代表权？蓝领和白领政治家在办公室推行什么政策来解决不平等问题？不平等和工人阶级的代表权如何塑造人们对民主和代表权的态度？ 有证据表明，严重的经济不平等降低了公民对政府的信任和对民主的支持，穷人和工人阶级继续受到排斥，导致整个美洲一些国家的政党制度崩溃，不民主的民粹主义领导人崛起。 这项研究通过调查不平等破坏民众对民主政府支持的条件来促进民主。 此外，这项研究强调了政治精英的阶级背景和对不平等的态度对塑造公民对民主的满意度和对平等主义政策的支持的重要性。 本研究的意义在于，即使在经济不平等的情况下，民主政府也可以通过确保经济政策的制定程序公正透明，并通过代表权赋予全体公民有意义的发言权，从而提高公民的政治支持度。本研究调查经济不平等侵蚀政治支持度、破坏民主代表权的具体情况。 尽管先前的研究已经证明了高度不平等和政治支持减少之间的明确联系，但目前还不清楚为什么公民会因不平等而指责政府，以及哪些公民群体最不喜欢不平等。这项研究的理论和测试的因果关系机制连接不平等和政治支持。 它将社会心理学研究以及公平和公正理论应用于政治支持的研究，并假设公民在评估政治制度时依赖于有关分配公平（经济结果公平）的信息以及有关政府政策和程序公平性的非经济信息。 此外，该研究项目将被忽视的精英视角纳入不平等和政治支持的研究中。 虽然以前对这个问题的研究几乎只关注大众舆论，但本项目从理论上认为，普通公民对不平等和公平的看法，以及他们随后对政治制度的评价，都是由政治精英的态度和行为塑造的。 研究者采用混合方法设计来检验假设。 特别是，它结合了民意数据的大N统计分析与来自阿根廷，墨西哥和美国的原始调查实验。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

High levels of economic inequality challenge the core principles of democracy and pose major challenges to the deepening and strengthening of democratic regimes. This project investigates the impact of economic inequality on political support and representation in the Americas, a region with the highest levels of inequality in the world. It asks: Who gets meaningful representation in a context of inequality; What policies do blue-collar and white-collar politicians promote in office to address inequality; and How do inequality and working class representation shape people's attitudes about democracy and representation? Evidence shows that high levels of economic inequality reduce citizens' trust in government and support for democracy, and the continued exclusion of the poor and working class have led to party system collapses and the rise of undemocratic populist leaders in a number of countries throughout the Americas. This research advances democracy promotion by investigating the conditions under which inequality undermines popular support for democratic governments. Moreover, this research emphasizes the importance of political elites' class backgrounds and attitudes about inequality for shaping citizens' satisfaction with democracy and support for egalitarian policies. An implication of this research is that even in a context of economic inequality, democratic governments can increase political support among citizens by ensuring that economic policies are made via fair and transparent procedures, and that all citizens are given meaningful voice through representation.This project investigates the specific circumstances under which economic inequality erodes political support and undermines democratic representation. Although prior research has demonstrated a clear connection between high levels of inequality and decreased political support, it is unclear why citizens blame the government for inequality, and which groups of citizens dislike inequality the most. This research theorizes and tests the causal mechanisms linking inequality and political support. It applies social psychology research, as well as fairness and equity theories, to the study of political support and hypothesizes that citizens rely on information about distributive fairness (fairness of economic outcomes) as well as non-economic information about the fairness of government policies and procedures, when evaluating the political system. Additionally, the research project incorporates an overlooked elite perspective into studies of inequality and political support. Although prior research on this topic focuses almost exclusively mass public opinion, this project theorizes that ordinary citizens' perceptions of inequality and fairness, as well as their subsequent evaluations of the political system, are shaped by the attitudes and behaviors of political elites. The researcher uses a mixed-methods design to test the hypotheses. In particular, it combines large-N statistical analyses of public opinion data with original survey experiments from Argentina, Mexico, and the United States.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.