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What is the relationship between income inequality and redistributive policies? This question carries with it important implications for both scholars of comparative politics and for core political dynamics in contemporary world politics. We contend that the current literature fails to provide satisfactory answers. It generally does not acknowledge heterogeneity in the relationship between inequality and redistributive policies across space and time, nor does it use cross-nationally comparable data on government redistribution and income. In this note, we compare the relationship between inequality and redistribution over time, as well as among clusters of developed and less developed countries. We use a number of statistical models to address the complexity of the relationship.We find a positive, short-term association between inequality and redistribution, controlling for endogeneity between redistribution and market income inequality. We also find that, over the long term, inequality increases redistribution in developed democracies, but appears to decrease it in a number of developing nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a formal model of international bargaining between two states in which one government must negotiate with a domestic opposition faction to secure tax revenue for military spending. The model examines how robust the international order is to domestic political crises that activate a stark trade-off to a governing coalition. Namely, offering fiscal relief to stave off domestic revolution can simultaneously undermine the larger international political order by facilitating military spending that can, under some circumstances, result in sizable shifts in the relative distribution of military power between states. We find that two key domestic conditions influence the likelihood of preventive war: the distribution of income within the state's economy and the relative economic stake that opposition groups possess in international settlements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of the growing federal deficit, pressure is mounting to cut federal spending. If the budget for social security programs is cut who will suffer? This article presents the results of a study that investigated the degree to which taxes and public income transfers change the level of income, the degree of inequality in income distribution, and the poverty rates of various demographic groups. Major findings are that public income transfers are more powerful than taxes in equalizing the income distribution and that poverty reduction through non-means-tested transfer programs is more effective among elderly people, white people, and people in married-couple families, whereas poverty reduction through means-tested transfer programs is more effective among nonelderly people, black people, and people in female-headed families. Implications for social work practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]