Working paper
OA Policy
English

The brahmin left, the merchant right, and the bloc bourgeois

Number of pages41
Collection
  • Working Papers of the Department of History, Economics and Society – Political economy; 01/2020
Publication date2020
Abstract

Changes in the structure of political divides in developed democracies have been the focus of many studies in political science as well as in political economy. Some of these contributions argue that a new educational divide related with the attitude towards globalisation has supplemented and even sometimes replaced the traditional left/right cleavage. Piketty (2018, 2019) for instance finds that the left has become the party of the high-skilled and considers the emergence of a multi-elite party system: financially rich elites vote for the right (merchant right), high-education elites vote for the left (brahmin left). Using ISSP data for 17 countries, this paper tests the influence of income and education inequalities on political leaning and a variety of policy preferences: the support for redistribution, for investment in public education, for globalisation and immigration. Results show that income levels are still relevant for the left-right divide, but the influence differs across education levels. Our findings also point to a certain convergence of opinion among the brahmin left and the merchant right, which could lead to a new political divide beyond the left and the right, uniting a new social bloc, the bloc bourgeois.

Keywords
  • Political cleavage
  • Redistribution
  • Inequality
  • Political economy
Classification
  • JEL : P16
Citation (ISO format)
AMABLE, Bruno, DARCILLON, Thibault. The brahmin left, the merchant right, and the bloc bourgeois. 2020
Main files (1)
Working paper
accessLevelPublic
Identifiers
  • PID : unige:132236
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First validation02/18/2020 11:49:00 AM
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