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By using cross-national public opinion data from East Asia, we examine
whether the wealthy differ from the poor in support for democracy or opposition to
dictatorship and whether any differences between them vary across levels of
income inequality. The sample cases are divided into two groups: one consisting of
countries with low income inequality (Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) and the
other consisting of those with high income inequality (Indonesia, Mongolia, the
Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand), and then OLS regressions are
performed separately. Four targets of regime support are used as dependent
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5
variables. They are democracy in general, inclusive citizenship, checks and
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balances and dictatorship. Standard socio-demographic characteristics, such as
gender, age, and education are introduced as controls.
As the small R-squared values indicate, the political economy theories based
on distributional conflicts of material interests seemed limited in accounting for the
individual-level variation in support for democracy or opposition to dictatorship. First,
Table 2 shows evidence from unequal countries with the Gini coefficient of 35.0 or
above. Falling in the richest quintile instead of the poorest one had positive effects
on democracy in general and checks and balances. Similarly, falling in the richest
quintile instead of the poorest one had negative effects on dictatorship. It is
notable that although the difference was not significant, the wealthy appeared to be
less supportive of inclusive citizenship than the poor. Of socio-demographic
characteristics, age had positive effects on democracy in general and checks and
balances while it had negative effects on dictatorship. Education had positive

5 To measure support for democracy in general, two questions are used. One asked
เอกสารประกอบการอภิปรายร่วมระหว่างผู้แทนจากต่างประเทศ
respondents to choose from the following three statement” (1) “Democracy is always preferable
to any other kind of government”; (2) “Under some circumstances, an authoritarian government
can be preferable to a democratic one”; and (3) “For people like me, it does not matter whether
we have a democratic or nondemocratic regime.” The other asked respondents whether they
agreed or disagreed with the statement” “Democracy may have its problems, but it is still the
best form of government.”
6 To measure support for inclusive citizenship, two agree-disagree statements are used:
“Women should not be involved in politics as much as men” and “people with little education or
no education should have as much say in politics as highly educated people.”
7 To measure support for checks and balances, two agree-disagree statements are used:
“When judges decide important cases, they should accept the view of the executive branch” and
“If the government is constantly checked by the legislature, it cannot possibly accomplish great
things.”
8 To measure support for dictatorship, two agree-disagree statements are used: “We should
get rid of parliament and elections and have a strong leader decide things” and “The army
(military) should come in to govern the country.”