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Who Wants to Redistribute? An Analysis of 14 Post‐Soviet Nations
Author(s) -
Habibov Nazim
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
social policy and administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.972
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1467-9515
pISSN - 0144-5596
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9515.2011.00834.x
Subject(s) - redistribution (election) , inequality , welfare state , ideology , population , development economics , demographic economics , welfare , individualism , political science , economics , political economy , economic system , market economy , sociology , politics , demography , mathematics , law , mathematical analysis
We investigate population groups' attitude regarding inequality reduction in post‐Soviet transitional countries of the Baltic, Central Asia and the Caucasus, as well as the Slavic countries and Moldova. Empirical evidence presented in this article demonstrates that despite skyrocketing inequality, erosion of social provisions and efforts to introduce an individualistic market economy ideology during the last 15 years, overall support for redistribution and welfare state efforts to counterbalance rising inequality remained strongly legitimized among citizens in all post‐Soviet countries. Nevertheless, there are differences between population groups in attitude: the older, the less educated, the poor and women express more support for redistribution; while the younger, the better educated, the rich and men tend to not support redistribution. Populations in transitional countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia that face higher inequality and less effective redistribution policies expressed a strong desire for more redistribution and more active social welfare policies.