Stanford's Margaret Levi — Political Equality: What is it and why does it matter?

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. The lecture will discuss the conceptual framework, Professors Margaret Levi, Tim Besley and Pablo Beramendi have 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. Speaker: Margaret Levi, Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University The Cadario Visiting Lecture in Public Policy is possible because of the generous support of Paul Cadario, Distinguished Fellow, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy.