Solt, Frederick. 2009. “Standardizing the World Income Inequality Database.” Social Science Quarterly 90(2):231-242. (Final prepublication version available here.)
Objective. Cross-national research on the causes and consequences of income inequality has been hindered by the limitations of existing inequality datasets: greater coverage across countries and over time is available from these sources only at the cost of significantly reduced comparability across observations. The goal of the Standardized World Income Inequality Database (SWIID) is to overcome these limitations. Methods. A custom missing-data algorithm was used to standardize the United Nations University's World Income Inequality Database; data collected by the Luxembourg Income Study served as the standard. Results. The SWIID provides comparable Gini indices of gross and net income inequality for 153 countries for as many years as possible from 1960 to the present along with estimates of uncertainty in these statistics. Conclusions. By maximizing comparability for the largest possible sample of countries and years, the SWIID is better suited to broadly cross-national research on income inequality than previously available sources.
Solt, Frederick. 2008. “Economic Inequality and Democratic Political Engagement.” American Journal of Political Science 52(1):48-60.
What effect, if any, does the extent of economic inequality in a country have upon the political engagement of its citizens? This study examines this question using data from multiple cross-national surveys of the advanced industrial democracies. It tests the theory that greater inequality increases the relative power of the wealthy to shape politics in their own favor against rival arguments that focus on the effects of inequality on citizens' objective interests or the resources they have available for political engagement. The analysis demonstrates that higher levels of income inequality powerfully depress political interest, the frequency of political discussion, and participation in elections among all but the most affluent citizens, providing compelling evidence that greater economic inequality yields greater political inequality.
Solt, Frederick. 2004. “Civics or Structure? Revisiting the Origins of Democratic Quality in the Italian Regions.” British Journal of Political Science 34(1):123-135.
What determines the responsiveness and effectiveness of democratic governments in meeting their citizens’ needs? Based on his 1993 study of the twenty Italian regions, Robert Putnam argued that ‘civic community,’ a self-reinforcing syndrome of social engagement and political participation, is the explanation. A re-examination of Putnam’s data reveals little evidence of such a syndrome, but confirms that where more citizens participate in politics outside of networks of clientelistic exchange, more effective democratic government results. To discern the causes of variation in this self-motivated political participation, I test Putnam’s measures of social engagement against aspects of Italian socio-economic structure. Economic development and the historical distribution of land, not social engagement, are found to be powerful predictors of self-motivated political participation and in turn democratic quality.
Huber, Evelyne and Frederick Solt. 2004. “Successes and Failures of Neoliberalism in Latin America.” Latin American Research Review 39(3):150-164.
Much of the debate about the effects of neoliberal reforms in Latin America has been carried out at a political and ideological level: the image of an overblown and inefficient state that stifles market forces and private initiative has been contrasted with the model of a lean and efficient state that relies on the market to set free productive energies and thus stimulates growth and solves social problems. With this research note, we aim to make a contribution to the emerging empirically based scholarly literature that investigates the effects of neoliberal policy reforms. We find that, on average, in the Latin American countries neoliberal reforms have failed to put into place policies that firmly advance growth, stability, the reduction of poverty and inequality, and improvements of the human capital base.
Selected Working Papers
Solt, Frederick. “Diversionary Nationalism: Economic Inequality and the Formation of National Pride.” Working paper. Presented at the American Sociological Association meetings, Boston, MA, August 2008.
What accounts for differences in the extent of nationalist sentiments across countries and over time? One prominent argument is that greater economic inequality prompts states to generate more nationalism as a diversion that discourages their citizens from recognizing economic inequality and mobilizing against it. This article tests this theory against rival explanations based on international conflict and the development of new nations using survey data on national pride in the advanced democracies, data on economic inequality from the Luxembourg Income Study, and data on international conflict from the Correlates of War project. Only the diversionary theory of nationalism is supported. This conclusion is an important contribution to our understanding of nationalism as well as of the effects of economic inequality on democratic politics.
Solt, Frederick and Celeste Montoya. “Gendering Relative Power: Intersectionality and Political Engagement in the Advanced Democracies.” Working paper. Presented at the Western Political Science Association meeting, San Diego, CA, March 2008.
This paper examines how inequalities of income and gender intersect in the political engagement of citizens in the advanced democracies. On the one hand, economic inequality has been found to increase the relative power of wealthier citizens to shape the political landscape in ways that discourage lower-income citizens from engaging with politics. On the other, it has been repeatedly demonstrated that women are less politically engaged on average then men, ostensibly due to pervasive norms that privilege male political perspectives. Whether these two forms of power disparity compound each other has not previously been examined. Using multilevel models of cross-national survey data, we find that lower-income women are particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of economic inequality on political engagement. These results provide strong evidence that disparities in political power along lines of income and gender reinforce each other.