Perceptions of Inequality and Political Participation: The Moderating Role of Ideology
| Author | Nanuli Silagadze,Henrik Serup Christensen,Rasmus Sirén,Kimmo Grönlund |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14789299221082037 |
| Published date | 01 May 2023 |
| Date | 01 May 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/14789299221082037
Political Studies Review
2023, Vol. 21(2) 285 –305
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/14789299221082037
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Perceptions of Inequality and
Political Participation: The
Moderating Role of Ideology
Nanuli Silagadze1,4 ,
Henrik Serup Christensen2,4 ,
Rasmus Sirén3,4 and Kimmo Grönlund3,4
Abstract
While much research has been devoted to the effects of inequality on political participation, little
attention has been paid to how different kinds of subjective perceptions of social inequality affect
citizens’ political behaviour. This is important since these perceptions shape the message that
reaches political decision-makers when addressing concerns over social inequalities. This article
differentiates between sociotropic and egocentric perceptions of social inequality and explores
to what extent individuals’ perceptions of such inequality affect engagement in institutionalized
and non-institutionalized political participation between elections. Engagement was evaluated
with a survey among a segment of the Finnish population (n = 1673). Our results indicate that
citizens with sociotropic concerns are more likely to get involved in both institutionalized and
non-institutionalized forms of political participation, whereas egocentric perceptions have less
of an impact. Furthermore, the associations are moderated by left–right ideology: sociotropic
concerns are more strongly expressed among left-wing voters, whereas right-wingers are more
likely to be propelled to action by egocentric concerns.
Keywords
social inequality, political participation, ideology, sociotropic, egocentric
Accepted: 3 February 2022
Introduction
Citizens increasingly believe that social rights and efforts to combat social inequalities
constitute a central element of democratic citizenship (Oser and Hooghe, 2018). For deci-
sion-makers to be able to enact the appropriate social policies with which to address wor-
ries over social inequality, citizens need to channel their concerns into the formal political
1Åbo Akademi Ekonomisk-statsvetenskapliga fakulteten, Turku, Finland
2Åbo Akademi University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Business and Economics, Turku, Finland
3Åbo Akademi Fakulteten för samhällsvetenskaper och ekonomi, Turku, Finland
4Åbo Akademi University, Social Science Research Institute (Samforsk), Turku, Finland
Corresponding author:
Nanuli Silagadze, Åbo Akademi University, Social Science Research Institute (Samforsk),, 20500 Turku,
Finland.
Email: nanuli.silagadze@abo.fi
1082037PSW0010.1177/14789299221082037Political Studies ReviewSilagadze et al.
research-article2022
Article
286 Political Studies Review 21(2)
decision-making process. The most common mechanism for establishing a link between
citizens and decision-makers is political participation, in various forms (Esaiasson and
Narud, 2013). It is therefore important to appreciate how worries over social inequality
are associated with the different forms of political participation.
Despite decades of research on the link between inequality and political participation,
there is still no agreement on how inequalities affect participation.
First, there are different forms of inequality such as economic, political and social
inequality. We here focus on the latter, which we conceive as unequal distribution of
opportunities in society (Hurst et al., 2016; Neckerman, 2004). It is therefore a broader
concept than economic inequality, which focuses on inequalities in economic resources.
Social inequality is more about ‘unequal access to valued resources, services, and posi-
tions in the society’ (Kerbo, 2003: 11) and implies lack of equality of outcome. Economic
inequality may affect social inequality, but the two should not be equated since other fac-
tors may also affect the level of social inequality, such as ethnicity and cultural resources.
Most previous studies have examined the link between participation and more objec-
tive measures on different types of inequality, such as the Gini coefficient at the societal
level (Beramendi and Anderson, 2008; Mahler, 2002; Schäfer and Schwander, 2019; Solt,
2004; Stockemer and Scruggs, 2012; Wichowsky, 2012) or individual income or educa-
tional attainment at the individual level (Dalton, 2017; Marien et al., 2010). While these
studies provide important insights, they do not establish whether individuals perceive
these differences or see them as problematic. While we are unable to establish whether
objective or subjective measures are more important, we focus on subjective measures
since this is arguably an important element for assessing the impact of how social ine-
quality affects political behaviour since perceptions of inequality do not always match
objective realities (Chambers et al., 2014; Cruces et al., 2013; Gimpelson and Treisman,
2018; Kuhn, 2019).
Furthermore, perceptions of social inequality may take different forms. Research on
voter behaviour has long distinguished between sociotropic and egocentric voting when
it comes to financial concerns (Kinder and Kiewiet, 1981), where the former involves
concerns over the situation of society at large, whereas the latter concerns worries over
one’s own economic situation. A similar distinction can be made when it comes to worries
over inequalities. A person may be worried over social inequalities because of the societal
impact (sociotropic), for example, a general worry that the number of poor people in
society is growing, while others may worry about social inequality because of the impli-
cations on oneself (egocentric), for example, because they may be experiencing financial
problems. While these differences are likely to have important implications on political
participation, previous research has not examined the implications of these different con-
ceptualizations of social inequality.
Another important element to consider is the range of political activities that are at the
disposal of citizens who want to voice their concerns. Many studies focus on the impact
of inequalities on voter turnout and voting behaviour (Beramendi and Anderson, 2008;
Mahler, 2002; Schäfer and Schwander, 2019; Solt, 2004; Stockemer and Scruggs, 2012;
Wichowsky, 2012), but few studies examine the link to participation between elections.
While perceptions of social inequality may obviously also be important for determining
turnout, it is important to understand the link to participation between elections. These
activities include more issue-specific forms of participation, for instance signing petitions
or getting involved into protests over a particular topic (Verba et al., 1995). We in this
study therefore focus on participation between elections rather than turnout, which has
been examined extensively by previous scholarship.
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