Announcement
New Book from CGD Director Noam Lupu Examines Working-Class Representation in Democracies
A new book from Center for Global Democracy Director Noam Lupu and Duke University political scientist Nicholas Carnes examines a persistent imbalance in democratic representation: although working-class jobs make up the majority of the labor force in democracies around the world, people from working-class backgrounds are almost entirely absent from national legislatures.
In Keeping Workers Off the Ballot: How Democracy Undermines Working-Class Representation, published by Princeton University Press, Lupu and Carnes draw on evidence from democracies around the world to investigate why so few working-class people run for political office. Challenging common explanations for the representation gap, they show how the personal costs of becoming a candidate and the decisions of political gatekeepers systematically disadvantage potential candidates from working-class backgrounds.
The book builds on Lupu and Carnes鈥檚 research into the causes and consequences of unequal political representation and offers a comparative perspective on how democratic systems shape who has the opportunity to appear on the ballot.
Join the conversation in New York City
On October 15, Lupu and Carnes will discuss the book and its implications for American politics at The Working Class and Democracy in America in New York City. They will be joined by Oren Cass and Emily Cherniack for a conversation about working-class representation in U.S. politics and what recent shifts in class politics could mean for the 2026 midterm elections and beyond.
The conversation will be moderated by Bill Adair, Knight Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University and founder of PolitiFact.