Political Equality: What is it and why it matters?

Political inequality is a distinctive type of inequality and cannot be reduced to the factors that routinely go into thinking about economic inequalities or inequalities of power, although both have effects. Its currency is performative, not distributive, and is fundamentally about the nature and quality of social relations; politics is intrinsically process-oriented, comprising various ‘political transactions’ across citizens, representatives and interest groups, among others. Thus, to understand political equality, we need to appreciate how individuals relate to one another through the democratic process.

In this lecture, Professor Margaret Levi presented the conceptual framework, that she, along with Professors Tim Besley and Pablo Beramendi developed since the publication of their paper, Political Equality: What is it and why does it matter? which forms the basis for their book-in-progress. A discussion and question and answer session followed the presentation.

The Cadario Visiting Lecture in Public Policy was established through the extraordinary generosity of Paul Cadario, Distinguished Fellow in Global Innovation at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto.