Why Parties Ignore High Inequality but React to Rising Inequality

📊 New Crowd-Coded Dataset Tracks Party Messages, 1970–2020

A novel dataset of 850,000 party statements from 12 OECD countries (1970–2020) is used to measure party emphasis on economic equality and redistribution. The dataset is crowd-coded to separate positive references to economic equality and redistribution from the rising use of equal-rights/anti-discrimination rhetoric, which previous studies have conflated with economic claims.

🔎 What Was Measured and How

• 850,000 party statements spanning 12 OECD countries over five decades
• Crowd-coding that distinguishes:
• positive pro-equality/redistribution references, and
• upward-trending equal-rights/anti-discrimination rhetoric
• Comparison with prior measures shows that established indicators miss parties' explicit emphasis on economic equality and redistribution

🧭 Theory: Why Parties Respond Differently to Levels Versus Changes

A three-part argument explains why parties often fail to address high inequality but do respond to rising inequality:

• Low visibility: High, persistent inequality often lacks salience and visibility as a political issue.
• Status quo bias: Parties favor the existing distribution unless a clear change creates political opportunity.
• Turnout effects: The mobilization consequences of long-standing inequality are muted compared to visible increases that threaten constituencies.

Rising inequality is a visible change in the status quo and can pose a threat that prompts partisan responses, particularly from the left.

📈 Key Findings

• Responses identified in previous literature do not capture explicit party emphasis on economic equality and redistribution.
• Left parties increase attention to economic equality and redistribution when inequality is rising.
• Left parties do not systematically respond to (high) levels of inequality alone.
• An important exception: left-party responses are weaker when the gains driving inequality are less tangible and accrue mainly to the most affluent.

⚖️ Why It Matters

These results explain a puzzle about the persistence of inequality: because parties are more likely to react to visible increases than to entrenched high inequality, political competition does not automatically self-correct unequal outcomes. The distinction between inequality levels and rising inequality, and between economic redistribution rhetoric and equal-rights language, is crucial for understanding party behavior and the prospects for redistributive policy.