Since the 1980s, economic inequality has been increasing in all advanced democracies. For example, in the United States, the richest 10% of Americans held over half of the country’s total. This course will provide a broad overview of the causes and consequences of this growing economic inequality in the U.S.A. and Europe. In doing so we will consider the relationship between inequality and the functioning of democracy. The course will begin by discussing what is meant by the term “economic inequality” and we will explore trends in inequality to place the current state of economic disparity in historical context. We will also touch on the question of why inequality should be studied in the first place— that is, why should anyone care about the growing gap between the rich and the poor? Some of the major themes of the course are: the causes of growing economic inequality, poverty, public opinion, inequalities in political voice and representation, the role of money and politics, and public policy.

­       Reading list: 

­       Milanovic, B. (2013). Global Income Inequality in Numbers: in History and Now. Global Policy, 4(2), 198-208.

­       Stiglitz, J.E. (2012). The Price of Inequality, Chapter 1.

­       Polacko M. (2021), Causes and Consequences of Income Inequality – An Overview, Section 3.

­       Esping-Andersen, Gøsta, and John Myles, ' Economic Inequality and the Welfare State', in Brian Nolan, Wiemer Salverda, and Timothy M. Smeeding (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Economic Inequality

­       Polacko M. (2021), Causes and Consequences of Income Inequality – An Overview

­       Autor, D. H. (2014). Skills, education, and the rise of earnings inequality among the" other 99 percent". Science, 344(6186), 843-851.

­       Payne, K., The Broken Ladder, Chapter 1

­       Buttrick, N. R., & Oishi, S. (2017). The psychological consequences of income inequality. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 11(3), e12304.

­       Lierse, H., Lascombes, D. K., & Becker, B. (2022). Caught in the Middle! Wealth Inequality and Conflict over Redistribution. Social Justice Research, 1-26.

­       Mijs, J. J. (2021). The paradox of inequality: Income inequality and belief in meritocracy go hand in hand. Socio-Economic Review, 19(1), 7-35.

­       Trump, K. S. (2018). Income inequality influences perceptions of legitimate income differences. British Journal of Political Science, 48(4), 929-952.

­       https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/income-gap-at-the-polls-113997/

­       Engler, S., & Weisstanner, D. (2021). The threat of social decline: income inequality and radical right support. Journal of European Public Policy, 28(2), 153-173.

­       O’Grady, Tom (2019). “Careerists versus coal-miners: Welfare reforms and the substantive representation of social groups in the British Labour party”. In: Comparative Political Studies 52.4, pp. 544–578.

­       Tavits, Margit and Joshua D Potter (2015). “The effect of inequality and social identity on party strategies”. In: American Journal of Political Science 59.3, pp. 744–758.

­       Gilens, M. (2005). Inequality and democratic responsiveness. Public Opinion Quarterly, 69(5), 778-796.

­       Elkjær, M. A., & Klitgaard, M. B. (2021). Economic inequality and political responsiveness: A systematic review. Perspectives on Politics, 1-20.

­       Carnes, N., & Lupu, N. (2015). Rethinking the comparative perspective on class and representation: Evidence from Latin America. American Journal of Political Science, 59(1), 1-18.

­       Rosset, J., & Kurella, A. S. (2021). The electoral roots of unequal representation. A spatial modelling approach to party systems and voting in Western Europe. European Journal of Political Research, 60(4), 785-806.

­       Jover, J., & Díaz-Parra, I. (2020). Gentrification, transnational gentrification and touristification in Seville, Spain. Urban Studies, 57(15), 3044-3059.

­       https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2021/09/climate-change-and-inequality-guivarch-mejean-taconet

­       Green, F., & Healy, N. (2022). How inequality fuels climate change: The climate case for a Green New Deal. One Earth.

­       Stiglitz, J.E. (2012). The Price of Inequality, Chapter 10.

­       https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/03/pikettys-new-book-explores-how-economic-inequality-is-perpetuated/

­       Bidadanure, J. U. (2019). The political theory of universal basic income. Annual Review of Political Science, 22, 481-501.

­       https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/2/19/21112570/universal-basic-income-ubi-map