Socioeconomic Differences in Electoral Responses to Crime: How Poverty Reduces Politicians' Incentives to Reform Security Policies

Abstract: In democracies, how can coercive security policies that violate the rights of many be so pervasive, even when those most affected by their negative consequences are a large share of the population? I argue that the explanation can be found by examining voters' incentives to demand security vis-a-vis other policies. Among low-income citizens, security concerns compete with other immediate needs, including food and shelter, thereby reducing the relative importance of violence as the primary driver of political demands. In response, strategic politicians become less responsive to the preferences of the poor on this policy dimension. With a multi-method research approach, I test the implications of my theory using a difference-in-differences-in-differences (DDD) design of electoral results and an original survey experiment with politicians. I find that low-income voters are less responsive to spikes in violence and that politicians emphasize security concerns less when trying to attract the vote of low-income citizens relative to the wealthy.