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2 การประชุมวิชาการ
สถาบันพระปกเกล้า ครั้งที่ 21
ลดช่องว่างความเหลื่อมล้ำ สร้างคุณภาพประชาธิปไตย

when inequality is at middling levels. Ansell and Samuels (2014) claim that
income inequality is more likely to promote democratization. Houle (2009)

suggests that inequality harms consolidation but has no net effect on
democratization. Democratic transition and consolidation in South Korea and

Taiwan, countries with low levels of income inequality, seem consistent with the
view of Boix and that of Houle but inconsistent with that of Acemoglu and
Robinson and that of Ansell and Samuels. Democratic transition and

consolidation in Indonesia, Mongolia, and the Philippines, countries with high
levels of income inequality, seem to contradict the view of Boix as well as that

of Acemoglu and Robinson but are consistent with that of Ansell and Samuels
and that of Houle. The absence of democratic transition in Malaysia and
Singapore, countries with high levels of income inequality, seems consistent with

the view of Boix and that of Acemoglu and Robinson but appears to contradict
that of Ansell and Samuels. East Asia seems to offer puzzles and questions to

be solved.

IV

In connecting inequality and distributive politics, much of prior research

builds on the median voter theorem which emphasizes the redistributive
preference of the median voter (Meltzer and Richard 1981). Scholarly efforts

have largely been concentrated on accounting for variation in distributive
outcomes in affluent democracies and developing theories of distributive politics
in democracies (Iversen 2006). Recently there have been growing efforts to

understand the political consequences of income inequality, such as electoral
turnout, political involvement, political representation, partisan alignment, policy
เอกสารประกอบการอภิปรายร่วมระหว่างผู้แทนจากต่างประเทศ
responsiveness, political polarization, and quality of governance (McCarthy et al.
2006; Bartels 2008; Beramendi and Anderson 2008; Solt 2008; Uslaner 2008;
Bermeo 2009).

One of the areas of research pertains to the impact of inequality on

support for democracy, which will be addressed here. There are political
economy theories linking inequality to democracy at the macro-level with

contrasting expectations. First, the redistribution-democracy theory assumes that
in unequal societies the wealthy are less supportive of democracy, especially
institutions of majority rule, while being less opposed to dictatorship than the