Inequality, Alienation, and Alternative Forms of Political Participation

• In Event: Class, Political Engagement, and Voting Behavior

Abstract

The United States’ decades long rise in economic inequality has led many scholars to assess how these growing disparities have shaped American politics. One area of research in particular asks whether greater levels of inequality have influenced political participation. These studies have used various theoretical approaches to develop a series of competing expectations. One approach suggests that as the US has become more unequal, political competition also grows given that the electoral stakes are higher. These higher levels of competition signal to the public the importance of electoral outcomes, thereby increasing overall levels of voter turnout. Another approach argues that more inequality is associated with less turnout. This view makes the case that economic disparities are linked to distortions in political power, creating scenarios where elites can more easily keep inequality and related issues off of the political agenda altogether. Without any clear political path to address inequality, the public becomes alienated from the political process and less likely to participate. Finally, a third perspective suggests that economic inequality has little influence on voter participation, largely because the public is mostly unaware of or indifferent to growing income differences.

While recent evidence is increasingly pointing to economic inequality having a depressive effect on voter participation, our study builds on this existing literature in two important ways. First, we argue that it is possible for inequality to have a negative effect on voter turnout but at the same time increase other forms of political and civic participation. We suggest a substitution effect is possible under some circumstances, where individuals react to growing inequality by being less likely to participate in elections but shifting the focus of their political involvement by increasing the relative likelihood of alternative political activities. This is particularly true when inequality has an alienating effect that is specific to elections but also leads people to engage in activities they view as potentially more fruitful, like joining a political group or volunteering for civic organization.

Second, our study explicitly tests whether growing inequality leads to higher levels of political alienation. Although many scholars cite alienation as a link between inequality and participation, we are unaware of any analyses that directly examine whether inequality influences political alienation. Recent literature has made great strides in demonstrating that when political parties and elites fail to offer policy solutions to address inequality the public is less likely to participate in elections. We argue that inequality can also lead to broader forms of alienation through means other than candidate agenda setting. Specifically, even if a political party or candidate advocates for inequality reducing policies, greater alienation will be a likely outcome if government inaction persists and these proposals are ignored.

We test these expectations using a combination of data on inequality in the US and individual level survey data from the ANES. The ANES allows to measure the relative frequency of various forms of political participation, as well as political alienation. The results of our research offer implications for the quality of US democracy in an era of rising economic inequality.

Authors

• Ash V. Elswick, Pennsylvania State University

• William W. Franko, West Virginia University