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The Economic Roots of External Efficacy: Assessing the Relationship between External Political Efficacy and Income Inequality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 February 2016

Mikel Norris
Mikel Norris*
Affiliation:
Coastal Carolina University
*
Department of Politics and Geography, Coastal Carolina University, PO Box 261954, Conway SC 29528-6054, Email: mnorris1@coastal.edu
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Abstract

External political efficacy, the belief that government is responsive to the demands of its citizens, has been declining in the United States since the 1960s. However, scholars do not yet fully understand the reasons for its decline. Nor have they found suitable explanations for why it fluctuates within the electorate. Drawing on the growing literature on the effects of income inequality on public policy, I posit that increasing income inequality factors into the decline of external political efficacy. Using multilevel regression models accounting for individual and contextual factors, I find increasing state-level income inequality has a substantial negative effect on external political efficacy. It is greater than most state and national-level economic measures or individual-level variables on external political efficacy. These results have important implications both for research on income inequality and political participation and also for research on income inequality and distributional public policy.

Résumé

Aux États-Unis, l'efficacité politique extérieure—la conviction que le gouvernement répond aux demandes de ses citoyens—est en constant déclin depuis les années soixante. Néanmoins, les chercheurs ne comprennent pas complètement les raisons de ce déclin. Ils n'ont pas trouvé non plus d'explications satisfaisantes à ces fluctuations parmi les électeurs. En faisant appel au volume croissant de la littérature au sujet des effets de l'inégalité de revenus sur la politique publique, je pose comme principe que l'augmentation de l'inégalité des revenus contribue au déclin de l'efficacité politique extérieure. En utilisant les modèles de régression à plusieurs niveaux pour les facteurs individuels autant que contextuels, je trouve que l'augmentation de l'inégalité des revenus au niveau des États a un effet négatif fondamental sur l'efficacité politique extérieure. Cet effet a un impact sur l’efficacité politique extérieure plus important que celui de la plupart des mesures économiques au niveau national ou étatique, ou que celui des variables au niveau individuel. Ces résultats ont des implications importantes sur la recherche sur l'inégalité des revenus et la participation politique, ainsi que sur la recherche sur l'inégalité des revenus et la politique publique de distribution.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 48 , Issue 4 , December 2015 , pp. 791 - 813
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 2016 

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