Democracy or Oligarchy? Unequal Representation of Income Groups in European Institutions

Lefkofridi, Zoe; Giger, Nathalie

doi:10.17645/pag.v8i1.2526

Cited by 17 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…The wealthiest groups regularly share societal and political ideals and preferences that set them apart (Kantola & Kuusela, 2019a, 2019b; López, 2013; Reis, 2005; Suhay et al., 2021). Moreover, such groups are often successful in policy advocacy through lobbying and networking, and many policy outcomes of recent decades seem to have excessively benefitted the wealthiest groups (Gilens & Page, 2014; Lefkofridi & Giger, 2020; Schakel et al., 2020). As the nationally steered economies have turned into globalised markets, the wealth elites are also functioning in a new environment (Kantola et al., 2019).…”

Section: The Rise Of Unpolitical Sentiments and The Wealth Elitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unpolitical solutionism: Wealth elite sentiments against democracy and politics

Kuusela

Kantola

2023

British Journal of Sociology

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The last few decades have been marked by discourses that challenge many basic presumptions supporting liberal democracy. Populist parties in particular have raised criticism against democratic systems, and authoritarian programmes have made electoral gains. This article offers the elite's perspective on this phenomenon, which is often discussed in the context of lower income groups. Drawing from qualitative interviews with 90 Finnish top earners, the article shows how wealth elites sustain strong discontent towards liberal democracy and see it as an ineffective and sometimes fundamentally flawed system. They are concerned with its alleged (in)efficiency and disagreements typical of democratic processes and are correspondingly fascinated by solutions that are presented as self‐evident but that no one has the courage to execute. In this article, we refer to this type of reasoning by introducing and developing the term unpolitical solutionism, which refers to a preoccupation with quick solutions to complex problems that are political in nature. The concept of unpolitical solutionism builds on discussions of unpolitical democracy (Urbinati) and technosolutionism (Morozov) and brings them to our dialog. By analysing wealth elites' views in a Nordic democracy and by developing the concept of unpolitical solutionism, this article contributes to recent discussions on different forms of unpolitical argumentation in the context of (liberal) economic thinking.

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Section: The Rise Of Unpolitical Sentiments and The Wealth Elitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unpolitical solutionism: Wealth elite sentiments against democracy and politics

Kuusela

Kantola

2023

British Journal of Sociology

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“…Figure 6 illustrates the range of variation in 36 countries. There is evidence of differential responsiveness to rich and poor citizens across European countries and at the EU level as well (Giger, Rosset, and Bernauer 2012;Lefkofridi and Giger 2020;Peters and Ensink 2015;Rosset, Giger, and Bernauer 2013). 98 This cross-national literature on political inequality is still in its infancy: as of 2021 there were only two books devoted to explaining variation (Gallego 2015;Verba, Nie, and Kim 1987).…”

Section: If We Interpret Opinions As a Guide To Interests This Would ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Centripetal Representation

Ferris

2022

American J Political Sci

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Growing political complexity is one of the defining features of contemporary rich post-industrial society. Patterns of electoral, administrative, and societal representation have become more complex over the past fifty years as organizations and policymaking processes have stretched across borders, as relatively stable patterns of post-war party competition have broken down, and as more dynamic and ad-hoc governance networks have sprung up alongside older bureaucratic hierarchies. While populist leaders have capitalized on voters' desire to "take back control" of institutions whose opacity they find alienating, deliberative democratic and constructivist theorists of representation tend to express substantial enthusiasm for more complex representative systems.They show why pluralizing processes of representation can promote wiser, more inclusive, more dynamic, and, ultimately, more democratically legitimate processes of self-rule.iii However, the fragmentation of processes of political representation can pose a serious threat to democratic legitimacy and should be countered by a specific kind of democratic simplification. Complexity exacerbates information asymmetries between representatives and constituents that afflict the resource-poor worse than others, biasing the representative system against them. Simplifying systems of political representation can help ordinary people understand and engage with their representatives and push back against gridlock, collusion, capture, and shirking. Broad inclusion of pluralistic claims, actors, and institutions on the periphery of the representative system should therefore be combined with substantial democratic simplicity at its core, with networked responsiveness in between. I use the metaphor of centripetal motion to captures the idea that pressure and influence should flow "inwards" from a heterogeneous assemblage of claims, actors, and institutions on the periphery to a relatively small and organized group at the centre.The theory of centripetal representation can help political theorists, social scientists, and political practitioners think about how to manage complexity and shape our evolving systems of representation in ways that promote democratic legitimacy by helping ordinary people to be seen and heard, rather than allowing the powerful to hide. iv Acknowledgments This dissertation first began to take shape under the guidance of Simone Chambers, whose work has long been an important model for my own. Her incisive judgement has helped me not stray too far from the right path and her somewhat pugilistic style has been a constant spur to professionalism. I was influenced at a decisive stage by Michael Donnelly, an erstwhile committee member whose inspiring teaching got me excited about the way political scientists study political representation. I am extremely lucky that Andy Sabl happened to come to Toronto, as there are few democratic theorists so independent in their orientation and so closely engaged with empirical work. Certainly, there cannot be many who are ...

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“…As laid out in this introduction, this 'politics turn' is accompanied by an increased interest in research on political behavior of individual and collective actors in the EU multi-level system The various contributions in this thematic issue link research on party organization (Pittoors, 2020), electoral behavior (Braun & Tausendpfund, 2020;Schmitt, Sanz, Braun, & Teperoglou, 2020), interest groups (Berkhout, Hanegraaff, & Statch, 2020), party competition (Lefkofridi, 2020), responsiveness (Lefkofridi & Giger, 2020) as well as government politics and parliamentary behavior (Euchner & Frech, 2020;Heinkelmann-Wild, Kriegmair, & Rittberger, 2020) more broadly to the multi-layered systems within EU Member States, but also between EU Member States (Koß & Séville, 2020). Although the "European polity is a complex multi-level institutional configuration, which cannot be adequately represented by theoretical models that are generally used in international relations or comparative politics" (Scharpf, 2010, p. 75), the conceptual, theoretical, and empirical insights gained in this thematic issue shed light on various aspects of political behavior in the EU multi-level system beyond the predominant focus on electoral politics across multiple levels of government (see, e.g., Golder, Lago, Blais, Gidengil, & Gschwend, 2017).…”

Section: Locating This Thematic Issue In the Debatementioning

confidence: 99%

Political Behavior in the EU Multi-Level System

Braun

Groß

Rittberger

2020

PaG

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Together with its further widening and deepening, the character of the EU has changed fundamentally during the last two decades. Acknowledging this development, the politics-dimension has become visibly more relevant in research on the EU. This “politics turn” is accompanied by an increased interest in research on political behavior of individual and collective actors—voters, parties, interest groups, executive agencies, mass and social media—in the EU multi-level system. The objectives of this thematic issue are to conceptually, empirically, and methodologically capture the different facets of this newly emerged interest in actors’ political behavior in the EU multi-level system. To this end, the thematic issue strives to highlight the connections between political processes and behavior at the European level and other political layers in the EU Member States’ multi-level systems. In particular, we aim to broaden the scope of research on political behavior in the EU and its strong focus on electoral politics across multiple levels of government. To this end, the thematic issue links research on voting behavior with work on party competition, electoral campaigns, public opinion, protest politics, responsiveness, (interest group) representation, government and opposition dynamics, and parliamentary behavior more broadly to the multi-layered systems within EU Member States.

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Democracy or Oligarchy? Unequal Representation of Income Groups in European Institutions

Cited by 17 publications

References 46 publications

Unpolitical solutionism: Wealth elite sentiments against democracy and politics

Unpolitical solutionism: Wealth elite sentiments against democracy and politics

Centripetal Representation

Political Behavior in the EU Multi-Level System

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