Polarization of the Rich
The New Democratic Allegiance of Affluent Americans and the Politics of Redistribution
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6325380 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sam Zacher (0000-0001-6208-3970, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 338-356 |
| Publication date | 2024-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Perspectives on Politics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1537-5927 • E-ISSN: 1541-0986 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s1537592722003310 |
| OpenAlex | W4319602121 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 12 |
| References cited | 55 |
Affluent Americans used to vote for Republican politicians. Now they vote for Democrats. In this paper, I show detailed evidence for this decades-in-the-making trend and argue that it has important consequences for the U.S. politics of economic inequality and redistribution. Beginning in the 1990s, the Democratic Party started winning increasing shares of rich, upper-middle income, high-income occupation, and stock-owning voters. This appears true across voters of all races and ethnicities, is concentrated among (but not exclusive to) college-educated voters, and is only true among voters living in larger metropolitan areas. In the 2010s, Democratic candidates’ electoral appeal among affluent voters reached above-majority levels. I echo other scholars in maintaining that this trend is partially driven by the increasingly “culturally liberal” views of educated voters and party elite polarization on those issues, but I additionally argue that the evolution and stasis of the parties’ respective economic policy agendas has also been a necessary condition for the changing behavior of affluent voters. This reversal of an American politics truism means that the Democratic Party’s attempts to cohere around an economically redistributive policy agenda in an era of rising inequality face real barriers
Allegiance · Appeal · Democracy · Development economics · Economic inequality · Economics · Elite · Inequality · Polarization (electrochemistry · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Politics of the United States · Redistribution (election · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Political and Economic history of UK and US · Social Policy and Reform Studies
The Equality Positions and Policies of Governments, 1970–2020
Ignorance Is Strength
Opposing Misperceptions of Wealth
Battleground Michigan
The Politics of Status Preservation
Bridging the Blue Divide
Who Wants Stakeholder Capitalism? Public and Elite Perceptions of the Role of Business Leaders in Politics
Anti‐Democratic Influence
The Partisan Realignment of American Business
Unpolitical solutionism
Why Do High-Income Democrats Support Redistribution? The Roles of Partisanship, Racial Attitudes and Fiscal Populism
Plutopopulism
Chain Reaction
The Transformation of European Social Democracy
What Unions No Longer Do
The Politics of Income Inequality in the United States
White-Collar Government
Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913
Polarized America
Political man
Transformations of the American Party System
America's Inequality Trap
Don't Blame Us
Is the United States Still a Land of Opportunity? Recent Trends in Intergenerational Mobility
The Politics of Resentment
Brahmin Left Versus Merchant Right
Retreating from Redistribution? Trends in Democratic Party Fidelity to Economic Equality, 1984–2020
Public positions, private giving
The decline of the working-class vote, the reconfiguration of the welfare support coalition and consequences for the welfare state
Why Cities Lose
Let Them Eat Tweets
Electoral competition in Europe's new tripolar political space
Conditional Status Quo Bias and Top Income Shares
The Transformation of the Republican and Democratic Party Coalitions in the U.S
The Structure of American Income Tax Policy Preferences
Where Self-Interest Trumps Ideology
Doing Well and Doing Good
What Do Partisan Donors Want
Who Wants to Raise Taxes
Inequality, Self-Interest, and Public Support for “Robin Hood” Tax Policies
Partisan Politics, Financial Deregulation, and the New Gilded Age
Testing Theories of American Politics
Class Bias in Voter Turnout, Representation, and Income Inequality
From “Freedom Now!” to “Black Lives Matter
After the “Master Theory
The White Working Class and the 2016 Election
Recalibrating social protection
Wealth Inequality and Democracy
Predispositions and the Political Behavior of American Economic Elites
How Parties Shape Class Politics
When Does Income Inequality Cause Polarization
Explaining Social Policy Preferences
Why Hasn't Democracy Slowed Rising Inequality
Post-Materialism in an Environment of Insecurity
Competition, Constituencies, and Welfare Policies in American States
Party Cleavages and Welfare Effort in the American States
An Asset Theory of Social Policy Preferences
Insecure Alliances
Donald Trump, legitimisation and a new political rhetoric
Secular Partisan Realignment in the United States
Financialization of the Economy
| Unique citing works | 12 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2026 (4) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 12 |