Replication Data for: The Political Representation of Economic Interests: Subversion of Democracy or Middle-Class Supremacy?

Rising inequality has raised concerns that democratic governments are no longer responding to majority demands, an argument we label the Subversion of Democracy Model (SDM). It comes in two varieties. One uses public opinion data to show that policies are strongly biased towards to the preferences of the rich; another uses macro-level data to show that governments are not responding to rising inequality. This paper critically reassesses the SDM. We point to potential biases and propose solutions that suggest a different interpretation of the data, which we label the Representative Democracy Model (RDM). We test the SDM against the RDM on both public opinion data and on a new dataset on fiscal policy and find that middle-class power has remained remarkably strong over time, even as inequality has risen. The rich have little influence on redistributive policies, and the democratic state appears not to be increasingly constrained by global capital.日益加剧的不平等引发了人们的担忧：民主政府已不再回应多数民众的诉求，我们将这一论断命名为民主颠覆模型（Subversion of Democracy Model，SDM）。该模型包含两种分支范式：其一借助民意数据证实政策存在显著的富人偏好偏向；其二则通过宏观层面数据表明，政府并未对不平等程度加剧作出有效回应。本文对民主颠覆模型进行批判性重新评估，指出其潜在的方法论偏误，并提出修正方案，据此对数据给出全新解读，我们将这一解读框架命名为代议制民主模型（Representative Democracy Model，RDM）。本文分别基于民意数据与全新的财政政策数据集，对民主颠覆模型与代议制民主模型进行对照检验，结果发现：尽管不平等程度持续攀升，中产阶级的政治影响力始终保持显著强劲的态势。富人阶层在再分配政策层面几乎不具备影响力，且民主国家似乎并未因全球资本流动而愈发受到其约束。