The Politics of Place and the Limits of Redistribution

Regional differences in wealth strongly affect national politics. Most politicians represent the interests of territories, and political debate to distribute government resources is a competition to bring money back to their district. The more wealth differs across districts, the wider policy preferences for citizens and their representatives will diverge, heightening conflict in national political institutions and influencing policy outcomes. How this affects countries depends fundamentally on the structure of their political systems. Using a large dataset of developed and developing countries in all regions of the world from 1980-2010, this book documents the extent of within-country differences in wealth and how that influences elections, political parties, executives, and federalism, and results in divergent education and health policy.

Numerous scholars have noticed that certain political institutions, including federalism, majoritarian electoral systems, and presidentialism, are linked to lower levels of income redistribution. This book offers a political geography explanation for those observed patterns. Each of these institutions is strongly shaped by geography and provides incentives for politicians to target their appeals and government resources to localities. Territorialized institutions also shape citizens’ preferences in ways that can undermine the national coalition in favor of redistribution. Moreover, territorial institutions increase the number of veto points in which anti-redistributive actors can constrain reform efforts. These theoretical connections between the politics of place and redistributive outcomes are explored in theory, empirical analysis, and case studies of the USA, Germany, and Argentina.