Inequality and Governance in Unstable Democracies: The Mediating Role of Trust

理解全球经济不平等加剧如何影响世界各地的治理制度，是当今社会科学面临的一个关键问题。从历史上看，不平等的急剧增加导致了政治和社会秩序的剧烈变化(Gurr 1970，Skocpol1979,1994)。然而，关于不平等对治理的因果影响的现有知识令人惊讶地有限。在宏观层面上，研究表明，经济不平等与治理机构的质量总体上存在负相关(Acemoglu和Robinson，2006，Rothstein，2011)，但尚未就可能解释这种关系的因果机制达成共识。在微观层面上，迄今为止的证据显示，不平等对形成治理机构的一些因素的影响喜忧参半，这些因素包括投票行为、对民主和法治的态度、公民参与、集体动员和政治暴力(Alesina and La Ferrara 2005，Bardhan 2005，Solt 2008)。这些复杂的影响并不令人意外，因为公民参与政治舞台并集体动员起来推动变革的方式是由不平等本身塑造的。一个恰当的例子--我们目前在世界许多地方观察到的--是不平等的加剧使得政治决策过程被受益者夺走，侵蚀了群体之间的社会关系和对机构的信任(Piketty 2013，Stiglitz 2013)。然而，尽管这些复杂关系对全球稳定和民主价值观产生了巨大影响，但迄今为止，人们对可能调停日益加剧的不平等与治理结果之间关系的因素的了解有限。当这种证据存在时，它仅限于少数几个国家。这个项目的主要目的是探索一个关键因素--信任--如何在民主制度可能不稳定或受到威胁的情况下调解不平等与治理之间的关系。该项目围绕三个主题领域组织：(I)在不平等加剧的背景下，社会团体内部和社会团体之间以及对治理机构的信任是如何产生和发展的；(Ii)对不平等社会的信任如何通过两个干预因素--政治行为和社会动员--塑造治理结果；以及(Iii)这种干预因素的变化有时可能导致包容性治理结果，但在其他时候则会导致治理崩溃的途径。这些领域中的每一个都将纳入四个国家--哥伦比亚、埃塞俄比亚、巴基斯坦和西班牙--国家以下一级的详细理论和经验分析，这些国家受到日益加剧的不平等的影响，其特点是民主制度不稳定或紧张。缺乏系统的定性、定量和行为数据阻碍了在了解北美和西欧以外国家的不平等、信任和治理之间的联系方面取得进展。该项目力求汇编若干未开发的数据来源，并相对收集这些其他国家的新数据，以填补这一关键差距。这种数据收集将涉及：(1)个人层面的比较调查，以了解当代的信任水平以及对正式和非正规地方治理机构的态度；(2)在不同不平等和政治背景下进行行为实验，以更好地了解不同情景下信任的形成；(3)深入访谈政府中的主要政治行为者、社会运动成员和公民组织，以了解不平等如何影响治理的观念和政治动员战略；以及(4)详细汇编档案数据，使我们能够更好地了解不平等和态度如何随时间演变，以及不同的历史关头可如何塑造我们今天观察到的治理结果。

Understanding how global rises in economic inequality are affecting governance regimes across the world is a critical question to the social sciences today. Historically, sharp increases in inequality have generated drastic changes in political and social order (Gurr 1970, Skocpol 1979, 1994). However, existing knowledge about the causal effects of inequality on governance is surprisingly limited. At the macro-level, studies show in general a negative association between economic inequality and the quality of governance institutions (Acemoglu and Robinson 2006, Rothstein 2011), but have not reached a consensus about the causal mechanisms that may explain this relationship. At the micro-level, the evidence so far reveals mixed effects of inequality on a number of factors that shape governance institutions, including voting behaviour, attitudes towards democracy and the rule of law, civic participation, collective mobilisation and political violence (Alesina and La Ferrara 2005, Bardhan 2005, Solt 2008). These mixed effects are not surprising because the ways in which citizens participate in the political arena and mobilise collectively to drive change are moulded by inequality itself. One case in point - which we currently observe in many parts of the world - is when rises in inequality allow the capture of political decision-making processes by those that benefit from them, eroding social relations between groups and trust in institutions (Piketty 2013, Stiglitz 2013). However, despite the enormous consequences of these complex relationships for global stability and democratic values, there is to date limited knowledge about the factors that may mediate the relationship between rising inequalities and governance outcomes. When this evidence exists, it is restricted to a handful of countries. The main aim of this project is to explore how one key factor -trust- mediates the relationship between inequality and governance in settings where democratic institutions may be unstable or under threat.The project is organised around three thematic areas: (i) how trust within and between social groups and towards governance institutions emerges and evolves in contexts of rising inequality; (ii) how trust in unequal societies shapes governance outcomes through two intervening factors - political behaviour and social mobilisation; and (iii) the pathways through which changes in such intervening factors may sometimes result in inclusive governance outcomes, but in the breakdown of governance at other times. Each of these areas will incorporate detailed theoretical and empirical analyses at the subnational level in four countries -Colombia, Ethiopia, Pakistan and Spain- affected by rising inequalities and characterised by unstable or strained democratic institutions.The absence of systematic qualitative, quantitative and behavioural data has hindered progress in understanding the links between inequality, trust and governance in countries outside North America and Western Europe. The project seeks to compile a number of unexplored data sources and collect new data comparatively across these other countries in order to fulfil this critical gap. This data collection will involve: (i) comparative individual-level surveys to understand contemporaneous levels of trust, and attitudes towards formal and non-formal local governing institutions, (ii) behavioural experiments under different inequality and political contexts to better understand the formation of trust under different scenarios, (iii) indepth interviews with key political actors in government, members of social movements and citizen organisations to understand how inequalities affect perceptions of governance and strategies of political mobilisation, and (iv)detailed compilation of archival data that will allow us to better understand how inequalities and attitudes have evolved across time and how different historical junctures may shape the governance outcomes we observe today.