This study explores why democratization does not necessarily result in inequality reduction in
emerging democracies and reveals the determinants of income inequality in emerging democracies
where the average level of inequality continues to be higher and where there is a larger
variance of inequality levels than in advanced democracies. Apart from economic demographic
and social factors the book highlights political factors that obstruct redistributive
policies. In contrast to conventional studies on advanced democracies which emphasize the
relations between different classes this study asserts that several political factors cause
malfunctioning of democratic institutions at various phases of the political process in
emerging democracies: multidimensional preferences the failure of the political market and
weak state capacity. The book employs econometric methods to examine the effects of these
political factors. The results indicate their significant effects. The multilevel analysis
using the World Values Survey demonstrates that multidimensional preferences operationalized
as ethnic fractionalization weaken demand for income inequality. Political market quality and
state capacity are measured by the age of the largest opposition party and the Quality of
Government indicator is used for the unbalanced panel analysis covering the 1985-2012 period
for 75 democracies. Both political market quality and state capacity reduce inequality but the
latter takes more time to show its effect.
