The Political Economy of Inequality and Social Integration

It is a book by the research group of ‘Political Economy of Inequality and Social Integration’ launched in 2014. Zeroing in on the principle of democracy, the authors note that it is the immediate goal to understand the realities of dissimilarity with democratic principles, which are mitigated by voting behavior. As can be seen from the table of contents, the research results of this book are largely centered on three areas. However, the consistency of the research team, which can be confirmed even when the target is different, is the relationship between economic inequality and political stability.

Firstly, attention to the advanced democratic states represented by the OECD countries is an effort to understand the policy responses that have been made to deepening inequality. Secondly, it is a task to understand the inequality of the newly democratic states located in East Asia. Inequality is an important factor in understanding the consolidation and regression of democracy after the transition to democracy in the 1980s. Thirdly, it is a study of the state and authoritarian state in the democratic transition period. For the counties in transition, economic inequality may delay the transition and threaten the legitimacy of the authoritarian regime. The deepening of economic inequality and political stability are inseparable, and it is essential to pay attention to economic inequality for the understanding of democracy.

• Foreward
• 1. Deepening inequality of OECD countries and social integration 
  Chapter 1.  Re-thinking of comparative political economy: perspective of growth model
  Chapter 2. The Status of the Welfare State:
  Unemployment Rate, Labor Market Policy, and Inequality in the Working Welfare Era
  Chapter 3. Do losers of digitization vote  for extreme right-wing parties?
• 2.  Inequality and social integration of South Korea
  Chapter 4. Analysis of Ideological Structure of Korean Voters Using Ideological Index
  Chapter 5. Structure and Change of Korean Generation Conflict:
  Analysis of Time Series Integrated Data
• 3. Inequality in low-income countries and the survival of authoritarian regimes
  Chapter 6. Privatization and Inequality in the Transition Economy Process of the Post-Socialist State: Comparison between Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia
  Chapter 7 Preferential trade agreements, income inequality, and the survival of the authoritarian regime
  Chapter 8 Inequality, voting behavior and democracy in Indonesia