Calendrier du 11 décembre 2020
EPCI (Economie politique du changement institutionnel) Seminar
Du 11/12/2020 de 11:00 à 12:30
AMABLE Bruno (U. Genève)
The brahmin left, the merchant right, and the bloc bourgeois. ZOOM :https://pantheonsorbonne.zoom.us/j/94995153219?pwd=RkFsUkVHV1prbDQ3cDRibzhYSFVkZz09
écrit avec avec Thibault Darcillon (Paris 8, LED)
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.