Does Economic Inequality Drive Voters' Disagreement about Party Placement?

Abstract

Does economic inequality warp voters' views about party platforms? If so, are voters' perceptual biases systemically shaped by their economic status? Drawing from a psychological theory of class conflict, we argue that income inequality heightens disagreement about party positions among people with different economic status. Analyzing survey responses on perceived ideological positions of 700+ parties in over 110 elections, we reveal that poorer and richer voters systematically misperceive the positions of parties in opposite directions, and that the extent to which they do so is larger in more unequal societies. We also show that class-based perceptual disagreement is particularly salient among left-and right-leaning parties, but not among centrist parties. Our findings question a fundamental principle of representative democracy, suggesting that even a basic consensus on the ideological placements of parties cannot be taken for granted in highly unequal societies.