Not Visible Enough? Elites’ Explanations of Inequality and Their Consequences

• In Event: Political Elites, Economic Inequality and Unequal Representation

Abstract

Despite rising levels of inequality, we witness little political action about it. Politicians play an important role in this regard, as they are key players when deciding about redistributive policies. However, how they see and evaluate inequality has not received a lot of scholarly attention so far, especially for what concerns their motivations to act against inequality. In this study, we focus on this line of argument highlighting how biased responsiveness, and in particular the low visibility of the less affluent, can have consequences for elite’s views and evaluations of inequality. Using a survey experiment with local Swiss politicians (N around 2500) that was fielded in October 2018, we induce politicians to think about the living conditions of the less affluent. We then analyse if the increased saliency of poor citizens affects politicians’ view of inequality, and their willingness to act against it. Our results show that the visibility of low-income citizens has an effect, although only to a limited degree, and conditional on whether politicians’ consider the poor to be deserving or not. In sum, increased visibility can even have a reversed effect on the willingness of politicians to act against inequality.

Authors

• Nathalie Giger, University of Geneva

• Elisa Volpi, University of Geneva