Questions about the relationship between poverty and democracy have long been important to political science. Can democracy survive in impoverished countries, and if not, why? Why does poverty persist in wealthy democracies? What constellation of political actors and institutions places issues of poverty on the policy agenda so that the state will take action to reduce poverty? Is participation by the poor different from participation by those who are better off? These two books contribute to this broad topic in very different ways. Anirudh Krishna's edited volume tests and rejects the old theory that the poor are antidemocratic, providing evidence from Africa, India, and Latin America showing that poor people are no less democratic than those who are better off—sometimes their attitudes are more in keeping with the norms of democracy—and that poor people are active participants in politics. David Brady explores why the amount of poverty varies across advanced industrialized democracies, pitting theories from economics and sociology against each other, and proposing institutionalized power relations theory as an improved explanation. Reading these volumes together stimulates the reader to think critically about what poverty means and how it should be measured, and prompts ideas for future research about how poverty interacts with political institutions.

Both volumes provide extended discussions about how to define and measure poverty, discussing pros and cons of measures in different contexts. These discussions will be helpful as a teaching tool and a source for scholars conducting research where poverty is a key variable.

In Krishna's volume, chapter authors use data from varied surveys to empirically test a long-held assumption in the democracy literature that poor people are undemocratic, so poverty explains why democracy is generally unstable in countries with low per capita income. This idea has been a staple in comparative politics and is particularly associated with the work of Seymour Martin Lipset, but data about mass public attitudes in developing countries were not available to test the idea. Many poor countries installed democratic governments in the third wave of democracy, and we now have high-quality survey data from many countries that enable testing this theory. Krishna provides evidence from surveys he conducted in sixty-one villages in northern India, Michael Bratton analyzes data from the AfroBarometer, and John Booth and Mitchell Seligson utilize data from eight countries in the LAPOP surveys. They all find that poor people in poor countries support democracy and that they participate in varying ways. Adam Przeworski considers why democracy is unstable in poor countries if it is not the poor who endanger democracy, and he suggests that the danger lies with the elites who can be threatened by policy demands made by poor people. Poor people support democracy because it provides them with avenues to make their interests heard, but that is what can threaten elites. Elite groups who are threatened by redistribution are the danger to democracy.

This book makes an important contribution to the literature, empirically refuting what had become almost an axiom of political science theory. Perhaps in the past, poor people were not supporters of democracy, but now they are. They are often dissatisfied citizens, but they are democrats. This book shows that a new frontier for research on democracies in poor countries should explore the conditions that enable poor citizens to feel empowered: for example, combinations of institutions, institutional design, opportunities to participate at the local level, and connection of (some) poor people to political parties or local elites.

Brady's work is prompted by variance in poverty rates across advanced, industrialized democracies, with the United States as a notable outlier. He reviews theories often used to explain differing poverty rates—power resources theory, liberal economics, structural theory—which provides a useful briefing of how poverty in developed countries is presented in sociology and economics. He proposes “institutionalized power relations theory” that moves beyond power resources theory as an improved explanation. His theory has four components: welfare state generosity, leftist collective political actors, latent coalitions for egalitarianism, and institutionalized politics. He argues that individual political behavior is not what matters for poverty, but collective political behavior (leftist politics), which includes the rules of the electoral arena (especially proportional representation). Latent coalitions are important because it is “often accidental groups of diverse citizens who come together to support generous welfare states” (p. 10). He emphasizes “institutionalized politics” to “highlight that politics matters most for poverty when it occurs in the formal political system” rather than as grass roots or militant resistance (p. 11). Each theory is subjected to empirical test using data from eighteen countries from the Luxembourg Income Study from the 1970s to 2000.

Whether the poor are studied as a heterogeneous group, or with children, women, the elderly, and working age adults examined separately, these comparable tests show a lack of empirical support for liberal economics' explanation for poverty (measured as a poor head count and as poverty intensity). His analysis shows support for structural theory and institutionalized power relations theory. Brady writes that the generosity of the welfare state is the “principal and proximate influence on a nation's amount of poverty” (p. 71). He argues that advanced industrial democratic societies “make collective choices about how to divide their resources” and differences across countries “are principally driven by politics” (p. 6). But for a political science audience, this is not an analysis of how politics explains poverty as the title implies it will be. The book does not empirically analyze how, when, or why decisions are made that create more generous welfare states and that lead to lower rates of poverty. Only use of PR elections is included in the analysis. David Soskice and Torben Iversen's work, for example, would make an interesting next chapter in the book to explore how differences in institutions and party systems can enable predictions about when the welfare state will be generous, and bring in the politics of poverty, redistribution, and welfare policy.

These books point out challenges for studying poverty as a political, social, or economic phenomenon across the globe. One challenge for comparative study is that people who are coded as moderately “well off” in Krishna's volume would be viewed as poor in advanced industrialized democracies. Brady advocates against an absolute measure for studying poverty in advanced industrialized democracies, because he argues poverty means social and political exclusion or “capability deprivation.” That seems to be where the politics of poverty really is focused in Brady's theory—being poor in an advanced industrial democracy does not usually mean an inability to supply basic needs, but rather a lack of the resources needed to participate in politics. Consequently, he uses a relative measure of poverty: households with less than 50 percent of the median income in country i at time t. According to institutionalized power relations theory, people at that low end of the income range are excluded from participating. But if that is a hypothesis, it stands in stark contrast to what Krishna, Bratton, and Booth and Seligson show in developing countries.

Many research projects can pick up where these books stop, but one question that appears very important from reading the two books together is this: When can poor people be effective participants in politics, where “effective” means that they can vote and also influence policy? Krishna writes, “It stands to reason that [poor citizens] should [participate]; democracy provides an avenue that poor people can utilize for overcoming generations of domination or neglect” (p. 10). Juxtaposing these two books prompts these questions: Is this avenue only provided in poor countries? Are the poor possibly more socially and politically excluded under some institutional arrangements in advanced industrial democracies because their numbers are relatively small, so their support is not needed to win elections? Yet the studies in Krishna's volume show that, despite their active participation and support for democracy, poor people are often dissatisfied with their government. Bratton concludes that in Africa, poorer people may be frustrated because they “have yet to find ways to make the institutions of democracy work in their favor” (p. 30). Could that frustration be a manifestation of institutional power relations theory in poor countries?

Krishna finds that for Indian villagers, access affects how people engage with democracy. Poor people have faith in democracy, but they vary in their access, which impacts their sense of political efficacy. Who has access may also point to institutional power relations theory. “Improving access through strengthening institutions might be key, therefore, to making democracy stronger and more accessible to all” (Krishna, pp. 92–93). Studying what types of institutions improve access for poor people and when such institutions are politically feasible is a next step for research about when poor people support democracy, and for bringing politics into the study of poverty. Booth and Seligson find that wealth does not explain support for democracy or determine participation. Education increases all types of participation (supporting Lipset's expectations), but by the late twentieth century, many poor people in Latin American countries have basic education, and the actual impact of education on participation is small.

Interestingly, Przeworski may be pointing to institutionalized power relations theory when he ponders the conundrum of low participation levels and voter turnout by poor people in the United States, noting that they are better off in terms of income than many people coded as fairly well off in LDCs. “All I can conclude is that somehow in the United States the poor are successfully barred from electoral politics, in spite of universal suffrage, egalitarian ideology, and all the ostensible devotion to democracy” (Przeworski, p. 143). Krishna and Booth conclude, “Democracy is the best hope for improving the lives poor people have …; if democracy is fragile in some countries, it is because this hope has not been fulfilled” (p. 151). Brady's study demonstrates the variation across advanced industrial democracies in the ability (or will) of democracy to improve the lives of poor people. The next step is for research to delve further into the politics that explain when democracy improves the lives of poor people.