The Social Science Journal 49 (2012) 392–394

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Book review

Rich Democracies, Poor People: How Politics ExplainPoverty

By D. Brady; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009,268 pp.

“. . .if poverty was lower in the United States, fewer of ourcities would contain ghettos. If poverty was lower, millionsmore children would have a real chance at the Americandreams. . .” (p. 5).

Poverty discourse is not new in post-industrial society.Much of the research of Nobel Laureate Economist AmartyaSen and widely acclaimed Columbia University’s ProfessorJeffrey Sachs centered on the definitions and real causes ofpoverty and how we can get rid of it in our generation. Bothhave emphasized the importance of the state and politicsin shaping the poverty situation in our society. Like Sen orSachs, David Brady also explains that poverty is not simplythe result of an individual’s attributes, behavior, or abilities,but rather he demonstrates, poverty is the result of politics.

Since the early 1960s, poverty has been a small branchof research for social scientists and development prac-titioners with its emphasis primarily on poverty anddevelopment challenges in the global south. Brady comesup with an interesting proposition that a large portionof poverty research results/conclusions are misleadingbecause they are the result of asking the wrong ques-tions. Most poverty research focuses on the demographicand behavioral characteristics of the poor and emphasizesthe individual’s role rather than the political sources ofpoverty, and therefore pointing public policy down ineffec-tive avenues rather than focusing toward politically basedstrategies that might actually work in practice.

Brady’s book discloses American myths about the causesof poverty in a highly understandable and persuasive way.Brady finds that welfare state generosity and its politi-cal predecessors ultimately drive variations in levels ofpoverty, and thus, poverty, Brady argues, is a result of polit-ical choice, not an individual choice or destiny.

The extent and magnitude of poverty vary widely acrosswestern affluent high-income regions regardless of their

comparable living standards. Despite the fact that Anglo-Saxon countries in general have witnessed greater poverty,particularly in the early industrial and post-World WarII era, until now poverty has remained significantly and

0362-3319/$ – see front matterhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.soscij.2012.04.005

consistently higher and visible in American society. Per-ceived American poverty, as according to Brady, is almostthree times higher than many western European countries,particularly the Scandinavian ‘Nordic’ countries (Finland,Sweden, Norway, and Denmark).

The extent and magnitude of poverty can differ for anumber of reasons, including those that have to do withhistorical contexts, socioeconomic structures, and policyefforts. However, Brady finds “. . .The influence of (WestEuropean) welfare states on poverty can be spelled out interms of the three crucial roles. . .first, welfare states man-age risks. . .second, welfare states organize the distributionof economic resources. . .third, welfare state institution-alize equality. . .” (pp. 7–8). Even though welfare statesystems can have positive impacts in lessening state-wide poverty, Brady also highlights the opposite scenarioas mentioned by Bane and Ellwood (1994), Darity andMyers (1987), and Leisering and Leibfried (1999). Theysuggest welfare generosity encourages dependency andlonger poverty spells. Thus, the welfare state might havepositive effects on poverty, but it indirectly provides anincentive for unemployment and labor force nonpartici-pation. If the welfare state encourages unemployment andlabor force nonparticipation, that substantially reduces theimpetus for entrepreneurial creativity, economic growth,and increased productivity both at the individual and soci-etal level.

Systematic explanations of poverty variations acrosscountries and regions (welfare and non-welfare) withcomparable living standards are difficult to make. Bradyattempts to do this, and he often comes up with intellectu-ally provocative question, such as, “. . .why some societieshave so many that fall behind while other societies have sofew?” (p. 19).

With time series data of more than thirty years fromeighteen affluent countries, Brady shows cross-nationaland historical deviations in poverty are predominantlydriven by differences in the generosity of the welfare states.Brady’s work relies largely on the power resource the-ory, which is at the core of the political discourse on thewelfare state and equality challenges. This theory pro-vides a compelling narrative of how the working class can

mobilize to overcome the power of business in order toexpand the welfare state. In particular, power resourcetheory mentions holds that “. . .business maintains greaterpolitical power in capitalist democracies. Only when the

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orking class is allied with the middle class can theirower resources be sufficiently mobilized in the polity toush for redistribution” (p. 6). In Brady’s view, democracyannot always ensure the equal distribution of politicalower, even though it should be in an ideal situation. Sociallass or stratification is a vivid reality in contemporaryociety, and Brady therefore views “institutional powerelations theory” as an alternative discourse. Brady writeshat “. . .institutionalized power relations theory explicitlyrioritizes the role of formal organizations of Leftist polit-

cal actors participating in the formal political arena. Thisheory is called institutionalized power relations instead ofimply power relations in order to highlight that politicsatters most for poverty when it occurs in the formal polit-

cal system. . .” (p. 11). In a practical sense, where povertys low and human dignity is usually respected, equality haseen institutionalized, and on the contrary, where poverty

s widespread and pervasive, exemplified by the U.S., therebviously has been a failure to institutionalize equality.

Brady tries to go further than much of the efforts byiberal economists or structural sociologists, especially inhe United States, who have applied ‘individualistic’ frame-orks that plan and envision an individual’s interactionith the market at the core. Here Brady challenges “. . .theainstream view that poverty is an inescapable, if per-

aps unfortunate, outcome of an individual’s failings or society’s labor market and demography” (p. 6) and fur-her extends his argument “. . .to push the explanationackward toward the fundamental causes of poverty” (p.9). Placing ‘collective choices’ at the core, rather than

ndividual choices, Brady’s work utilizes the institutionalramework to demonstrate that “. . .choices are acted uponn the organizations and states that govern societies, andhen become institutionalized through the welfare states”p. 6).

In Brady’s view the welfare state is “a complex of socialolicies and programs that distribute economic resourcesisproportionately to a nation’s vulnerable populations” (p.1). For greater understanding of the impact the welfaretate has on poverty, Brady investigates several measuresf poverty rates in contemporary, well-off Western democ-acies. In each case, except for the public employmentates, the welfare state reduced poverty. The most intrigu-ng measure is ‘welfare state generosity’, which is itself anndex combining other measures. Brady defines the welfaretate as “a stable and powerful poverty reduction mecha-ism” (p. 92).

Brady also examines the propositions that welfare gen-rosity results from Left politics: “Leftist politics do greatlyeduce poverty. . .. Mostly, the influence of Leftist poli-ics on poverty is channeled through the welfare state. . ..eftist politics trigger an expansion of the welfare state”p. 119). The interpretations are clear. Brady cites, there-ore, again that a “comprehensive and effective strategy toeduce poverty should concentrate on formal, institution-lized Leftist politics” (p. 120).

Rich Democracies, Poor People consists of eight chapters.

n the first three chapters, Brady analyzes the theoreticalnderpinnings of the poverty framework, offers read-rs an insightful overview of the technical and politicalontroversies and discourses of poverty measurement,

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and describes poverty measurement outcomes during theperiod 1969–2002 in 18 affluent western countries basedon the data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS).

In the first chapter, Brady introduces the dominatingview of poverty, which is embedded in individualism. Hementions that to fully represent the poverty research itis convincingly realistic to highlight that social science ofpoverty varies across a continuum with individualism atone end and at the opposite side of the continuum as beingmore societal and interlinked with the greater frameworkof politics.

Chapter two focuses on the essentials of the bases ofand approaches to poverty measurement by making argu-ments for the use of post transfer incomes at the householdlevel and relative approaches. Here Brady aims to facilitatethe integration of theoretical and methodological advancesinto an empirical measurement of poverty. Briefly thischapter stresses the need for a timely restructuring ofpoverty measurement among contemporary social scien-tists.

Chapter three highlights the consistently high levels ofpoverty situations for the Anglo-Saxon countries and par-ticularly in the United States irrespective of the specificpoverty indicator assumed (poverty headcount) or the spe-cific demographic clusters, such as gender.

Chapter four highlights different theories of poverty,develops new models, and examines applicable hypothe-ses to discuss the findings. The role of the arrangement andthe institutional breadth of the welfare state are examinedin this chapter by using different indicators. These resultsdemonstrate the welfare state has a robust and powerfulnegative influence on poverty. This influence is remarkablystable across welfare state regimes and also over time.

Chapter five combines politics of the welfare state withtheoretical discussions and proposes that union density,Leftist politics, and proportional illustration highlights sys-tematic impacts the magnitudes of poverty.

The significance of liberal economic explanations isexamined in Chapter six with economic growth, unemploy-ment, and productivity as the deciding indicators. Brady’sfindings show that there is a relatively weak negativeassociation between economic growth and overall head-count poverty; the association between productivity andpoverty is in the opposite of the direction expected by lib-eral economics; and a moderate positive association existsbetween unemployment and poverty.

In chapter seven Brady addresses the possible impactsof structural factors such as manufacturing and farm-employment, female participation in labor force, elderlypopulation and single motherhood to discuss the struc-tural theory for contending that macro-level labor marketand demographic conditions might put people at risk ofpoverty, and cross-sectional and temporal differences inthese structural factors account for variation in poverty.In addition to this, in Brady’s view, the groups, cities, andcountries which suffer from structural factors are likely tohave more poverty.

The concluding chapter attempts to deliberate theresults by highlighting the contribution of the book andreorienting the theoretical explanation of the variations inpoverty. Brady emphasizes the necessity to shift the focal

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point of poverty research and analysis from individuals tothe broader political system, which demands posing ques-tions that relate to institutions, such as the state, and notindividuals.

Briefly, Rich Democracies, Poor People is a scholarlyattempt to reorient how contemporary American societythinks about poverty. To do this, Brady attempts the cross-national perspective to challenge the long enduring issueof “American exceptionalism”. This book is a great addi-tion in the field of comparative political sociology as wellas poverty research. Brady chooses the most challengingaspect of pursing the comparative research, which caneventually contribute to further poverty discourse not onlyin North American or European contexts, but also in other

parts of the world. Although some technical analyses areinescapable to demonstrate the ground scenario, given itsattention on a subject that is often theoretical and empir-ical, Brady’s creative illustrations of the results in graphs

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have added to the book’s general credibility. The use ofpanel data techniques is justified, given the time seriesnature of the data. The choice of random effects regres-sions that are applied to all of the model estimations, somemight argue, may have been a bit arbitrary. But at the end,we must admit that Rich Democracies, Poor People: How Pol-itics Explain Poverty is a wonderful scholarly contributionto poverty discourse, where Brady seeks to maintain hisgeneration of students’ deep concern for the truly disad-vantaged.

Saleh AhmedDepartment of Sociology, Social Work andAnthropology, Utah State University, 0730

Old Main Hill, Logan, UT 84322-0730, USA

E-mail address:saleh.ahmed@aggiemail.usu.edu

Available online 5 June 2012