CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020
| Author | Martin, Pedro |
|---|---|
| Title | Demobilized Poor, Reduced Altruism, or None? A Test of the Literature on the Effects of Ethnic Diversity on Preferences for Redistribution |
| Summary | Motivated by an extensive literature inspired by social identity theory, under which ethnic differences generate dynamics that affect negatively redistributive demands, this thesis will address the following two research questions. Is ethnic diversity in a country detrimental to the public demand for redistribution? What are the channels by which ethnic diversity impact individuals’ redistributive demands, i.e., are richer or poorer individuals most affected by ethnic divisions? While much of the literature focuses only on objective indicators of income to tackle these questions while relying on class identity notions, I test these questions by incorporating subjective class. The arguments in the literature can thus be tested beyond the scope in the OECD area by posing the following three main hypotheses. First, what I call the demobilization hypothesis: low-class individuals have lower preferences for redistribution in ethnically heterogeneous countries (H1). Second, labeled as the altruistic bias hypothesis: upper-class individuals have lower preferences for redistribution in ethnically heterogeneous countries (H2). Finally, the common hypothesis present in the literature: ethnically heterogeneous countries have on average lower preferences for redistribution (H3). By relying on the World Value Survey dataset, the hypotheses are tested on an extensive set of countries from all the continents, applying multilevel models with country-level covariates. Various empirical strategies lead to rejecting the three hypotheses, casting doubts on the validity of the arguments drawn by the literature around the effects of ethnic heterogeneity on redistributive demands, especially beyond Europe and the US. |
| Supervisor | Duman, Anil |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2020/martin_pedro.pdf |
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