Mapping and Explaining Territorial Inequalities

Inequalities are a challenge for societies around the globe. Most states have experienced an increase of socio-economic inequality in the last decades (most prominently, Piketty 2014). Even in countries with strong welfare states, such as Germany or Denmark, the pre-tax national income of the bottom 50 % of the population has steadily declined, whereas the one of the top 10 % has increased (see World Inequality Database at https://wid.world/). Growing inequalities have various political consequences (Savage 2021). For instance, recent studies show links between income inequality and radical right support (Engler & Weisstanner 2021; Han 2016), democratic political engagement (Solt 2008), and populism (Stötzer, Giesecke & Klüver 2021). Existing research predominantly focuses on socio-economic inequalities between individuals, or ‘interpersonal inequalities’. But inequality also has a territorial dimension (e.g., Beramendi 2012; della Porta et al. 2021; Gónzalez 2019). In many countries, public services are provided at the subnational level — whether these states are federal, unitary, and/or regionalized systems. Consequently, where you live may determine the availability and quality of medical care or the equipment of schools and universities you receive. One reason is that the resources of subnational units – constituent units in federal systems, the regional tier in unitary countries, municipalities, or metropolitan areas – have rarely caught up with the number of responsibilities they need to fulfill. While this dilemma is somewhat ubiquitous, there are subnational units which are better off than others. As a result, there are differences in the distribution of resources, which can lead to ‘territorial inequalities’ in the provision of public services. Even though citizens generally support decentralization, they dislike such inequality in the access to public services (Henderson et al. 2014). Like interpersonal inequalities, territorial inequalities can therefore have disruptive effects on society. The workshop seeks to answer the following research questions: • How can territorial inequalities be measured? Currently, territorial inequality is mostly operationalized in economic terms, relying on indicators such as regional GDP per capita or household income. While the workshop welcomes contributions using these indicators, researchers are encouraged to present novel indicators, for example with a stronger focus on policy outputs and/or policy outcomes. • What are the factors that drive territorial inequalities? Second, the workshop seeks to explain territorial inequalities, thus uses regional disparities in federal, decentralized, or regionalized states as the dependent variable. It hence invites papers that identify determinants of the emergence and persistence of territorial inequalities and explain different degrees of territorial inequalities. • What mechanisms and arrangements help to reduce territorial inequalities? Third, contributions are invited that help us to understand how territorial inequalities can be avoided or reduced. Equalization arrangements exist in many countries to redistribute resources from “poorer” to “richer” parts to endow subnational units with the resources to provide similar or comparable levels of public services. Central government grants and intergovernmental coordination are also expected to reduce territorial inequalities. Contributions are welcome that investigate the effectiveness of such and other mechanisms and arrangements in mitigating territorial inequality.