Between Political and Economic Inequality: How Western Democracies Represent the Policy Interest of the Affluent Rather Than the Whole Population

A growing body of literature documents that political elites are less responsive to political preferences of poor citizens than they are to the ones of richer citizens. One central interpretation of these studies that mostly concentrate on the US case is that the rise of economic inequality in recent decades is linked to growing inequalities in the representation of less affluent citizens and that political and economic inequalities are reinforcing one another. We test this argument of a vicious cycle in a comparative setting which longitudinal data. Recent trends towards post-industrialism leave the poor in most West European societies without stable partner in the political realm which will also negatively affect the representation of their interests within political systems. So, we posit that political parties are less responsive to the preferences of less affluent citizens and that this responsiveness gap is a function of economic inequality. In settings with high economic inequalities, political parties have even less incentives to represent the interest of the poor. We make use of Eurobarometer data that cover 12 West European democracies over the period 1973–2002 as well as of information about economic inequality based on the Luxemburg Income Study. Our findings suggest that the responsiveness of European political parties is highly skewed towards the more affluent and that macroeconomic is mediating this gap in representation. These findings have important implications for our understanding of representation in Europe. In particular, they suggest that the macroeconomic context plays a major role in shaping party behaviour and representational quality.