Economic inequality has emerged a persistent topic in the popular press, academic circles, and election cycles. Indeed, mounds of evidence suggest the gap between the rich and the poor is not only growing in the United States, but also around the globe. While much research exists on the economic fallout of inequality, we have less understanding of the political repercussions of this expanding wealth gap. My dissertation, comprised of three main chapters, aims to address this lacuna and revise conventional wisdom by highlighting the consequences of economic inequality on our political systems and politics. In particular, I examine how economic inequality yields more extreme policy positions by political parties, how it fosters public discontent with democracy, and how it moves voters to prioritize redistributive issues. Each chapter features a clear micro-level model of how the rising economic inequality affects electoral incentives and redistributive preferences among party elites and voters. Together, they contribute to our understanding of how changes in economic inequality affect party-voter’s distributional linkage, redistributive attitudes, democratic processes, and democratic accountability.
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