The Politics Of Place And The Limits Of Redistribution (Routledge Advances In International Relations And Global Politics) - 9780415824323

Regional differences in wealth strongly affect national politics. Most politicians represent the interests of territories, and political debate to distribute government resources is a competition to bring money back to their district. The more wealth differs across districts, the wider policy preferences for citizens and their representatives will diverge, heightening conflict in national political institutions and influencing policy outcomes. How this affects countries depends fundamentally on the structure of their political systems. This book addresses this very important and little examined aspect of politics through a comparative lens. Using a large dataset of developed and developing countries in all regions of the world from 1980-2010, this book documents the extent of within-country differences in wealth and how that influences elections, political parties, executives, and federalism, and results in divergent education and health policy. The concept of regional inequality, the new data collected for this book, and the data analysis employed, are path breaking for the study of inequality in political systems. A highlight for readers is the in-depth case analysis of political dynamics in the United States, Argentina, Belgium, South Korea and Russia, among others, to illustrate the important political consequences of regional differences in wealth.

• | Author: Melissa Ziegler Rogers
• | Publisher: Routledge
• | Publication Date: Nov 05, 2015
• | Number of Pages: 214 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Hardcover
• | ISBN-10: 041582432X
• | ISBN-13: 9780415824323