经济不平等与西方民主社会中的选举参与

Economic Inequality and Electoral Participation in Western Democratic Societies:An Analysis based on the Sixth Wave of World Value Survey

日渐扩大的经济不平等已经对世界政治的整体走向产生了重大影响,它一方面导致社会趋于不稳定乃至发生政权更迭,另一方面也深刻影响了西方民主社会中的选举政治。作者借助第六轮世界价值观调查数据,通过匹配宏观数据,建构多层次模型检视经济不平等与西方民主社会中民众选举参与之间的关系。研究发现,经济不平等削弱了西方民主社会中民众选举参与的意愿,而民众选举参与的下降则削弱了西方民主制度的活力和代表性,动摇了民主政体的根基。其中,不同收入群体对选举参与的意愿不尽相同,不平等可能导致弱势群体在选举参与中处于更加不利的境地。因此,经济不平等与强调政治平等的西方民主政体之间存在着难以调和的张力,深刻地影响了西方民主社会内部的政治运行,冲击了西方民主理论中“多数人同意”的根本原则,形成了所谓“参与悖论”。

Increasing economic inequality has a major impact on the development of world politics.Economic inequality has not only led to social unrest and even political transition,but also affected the electoral participation in Western democratic regimes.By combining the sixth wave of World Value Survey data with macro data,this paper adopts the hierarchal model to analyze the relationship between economic inequality and electoral participation in western democratic societies.This paper finds that economic inequality reduces voters willingness to vote,and the reduction of willingness to participate weakens the dynamics and representativeness of Western representative democracy and shakes its foundation.At the same time,different income groups have different attitudes towards voting.Those who initially suffered from negative political outcomes are getting worse because of economic inequality.Therefore,economic inequality has huge and irreconcilable tension with western democratic polity that emphasizes the equality,and greatly affects the inner political processing of western democracies.In addition,economic inequality also challenges the basic principle of“majority consent”in Western democratic theory and forms the so-called“participation paradox”.