Political Polarization, Income Inequality and Government

This paper empirically investigates the determinants of political polarization. Size of government and income distribution are the main independent variables along with other controlling variables. The statistical analysis uses OLS and 2SLS methodogies. The sample of countries includes 61 countries and time period spans between 1990 and 2015. Results of regressions analysis indicate that increased income inequality increases political polarization. Political polarization is derived from World Values Survey ( WVS). It is measured as standard deviation of responses to the question “what is role for government”. In addition, results of our empirical analysis indicates that increased governemt size reduces the political polarization. The paper explains the links for these findings.