This survey documents the different arguments discussed in the academic literature on whether and how economic inequality and the emergence and stability of democratic political systems are connected. While early research in this domain has often focused on new and emerging democracies, this...

How do political crises affect the interaction between economic and political outcomes? In this paper, we study one of the consequences of political turmoil by empirically examining whether the Arab Spring influenced the relationship between corruption and income inequality. Using panel data...

The paper reexamines Lipset's theory of democratization, by distinguishing the role of (economic) development from that of education, inequality, and (natural) resources. We highlight two contrasting effects of education and human capital accumulation. On the one side, education prompts economic...

This paper investigates the macroeconomic and social determinants of voting behavior, and especially of political polarization, in 20 advanced countries using annual data ranging from 1970 to 2016 and covering 291 parliamentary elections. Using a panel estimation approach and rolling...

While scholars and pundits alike have expressed concern regarding increasing social polarization based on partisan identity, there has been little analysis of how social polarization impacts voting. In this paper, we incorporate social identity into a principal-agent model of political...