Keywords: Electoral polls in emerging/incomplete democracies

Fighting inequality has traditionally been a priority for the left, especially in countries with high levels of inequality. Consequently, people who identify as leftist should perceive more inequality and have stronger preferences for reducing inequality. Those in the right should not necessarily perceive different levels of inequality but should have lower interest in reducing it. Thus, there might be ideological differences in the perceptions of inequality and preferences for inequality We use the case of Chile, one of the most developed and unequal countries in Latin America to assess the effect of ideology on the perception of inequality and the interest to reduce it. As previous studies have reported contradictory results, we use the Center for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies (COES) 2014 national representative poll to show how different forms of asking the questions on inequality perceptions and preferences lead different results. With linear regression models, we show that though inequality does not seem to be an ideological cleavage, in some of the questions, people in the left perceive lower levels of inequality and have less tolerance to inequality while those in the right perceive and tolerate higher levels of inequality. We use lineal regression models to explain the effect of ideology on perception of inequality and preferences for inequality using different inequality indicators. We show that those who identify with the right do not have systematically different perceptions of inequality than those identified with the left, but depending on the questions used, those who identify with the left show stronger preferences for reducing inequality than those identified with the right.