Preferences for redistribution policies among politicians and citizens

This paper compares the “mental maps” of redistribution among politicians and citizens across seven parliaments, using original in-person surveys of sitting MPs and nationally representative citizen samples. Fairness beliefs and ideology are the strongest correlates of support for redistribution in both groups, while misperceptions of wealth concentration matter for citizens but much less for politicians. A central finding is that politicians hold markedly more polarized views on redistribution than citizens, including within the same party families. We also find systematic elite-voter gaps: left MPs are more supportive than their voters (notably on inheritance taxation), whereas right/liberal MPs are less supportive than theirs. These patterns point to a representation concern and to a narrower bargaining space among elites than in the electorate.