Inequality and social harm: Revisiting the Spirit Level debate by reproducing and updating it, as well as reanalysing the data with qualitative comparative analysis

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between inequality and social harm, revisiting the original “Spirit Level” data from Wilkinson and Pickett, updating it for a later time period, and considering what difference it makes to their results by addressing criticisms made of their original research by using an alternative measure of inequality and expanding the range of possible causal factors. To achieve this, it makes use of both the original method used by Wilkinson and Pickett and that of a different approach, Qualitative Comparative Analysis. It finds that a measure of the kind of democracy (lower “integrative democracy”), along with higher inequality, are the key factors at the root of solutions for explaining higher social harm in both periods, which both follow up the suggestions by Wilkinson and Pickett about the role of democracy in explaining social problems, as well as making the extent and means of that relationship clearer.