Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
Page 59
democracy defined by
Second Reform Act
Second Republic, France’s
Sese Seko, Mobutu
seventeenth century, Britain in
shocks/crises
democratic consolidation and
Singapore
acquisition of
equality in
inequality in
nondemocracy of
political development of
single-peaked preferences
citizen’s
ideal point (political bliss point) and
ideas related to
indirect utility function and
individual preferences and
MVT and
skill-biased technology
Smuts, Jan
social-choice problems
Social Democratic Party
socialism
Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Moore)
society. See also civil society; democratic society
agrarian
composition of
cross-section of
egalitarian
equality in
inegalitarian
inequality in
land-intensive
makeup of
oscillations of
plurastically based
postrevolutionary
preferences of
socioeconomic class. See class, socioeconomic
sociopolitical conflict
softliners
hardliners v.
identity of
South Africa. See also apartheid
democracy in
Dutch settlements in
European presence in
future for
inequality in
male suffrage in
nondemocracy of
trade unions of
white elite of
South Korea
Soviet socialism
Soweto’s riots
Spa Fields Riots of 1816
Stanley, Edward
state formation
static model
statics, comparative. See comparative statics
strategy
equilibrium
formal definition of
history-dependent
Markovian
Proposition 5.3’s
punishment
Viet Minh
strikes
threat of
structure-induced equilibrium
subgame perfect equilibria
substitution
capital/land
labor, production, and
suffrage, male
Argentina and
Britain and
Latin America and
Sáenz Peña’s establishment of
South Africa and
white
suffrage, universal
Colombia and
surplus
redistribution of
Sweden
democracy’s beginning in
government of
inequality’s rise in
World War 1 and
Swing Riots of 1830
Taiwan
targeted transfers
availability of
coup’s and
democracy and
introduction of
societal conflict and
two-class model and
taxation
burden of
capital
costs of
coups influence on
democracy and
elastic base for
elites and
GDP and
income and
inequality and
labor
median voters and
middle class and
nondemocracy and
poor and
progressivity of
promising lower
redistributive
tax rates
preferences in
reducing of
tax-smoothing
achieving
argument
revolution and
technology
collective action
embedded
Heckscher-Olin model and
importance of
skill-biased
theorem/theory
of democratization
envelope
game
implicit function
impossibility/possibility
modernization
Therborn, Goran
Third Reform Act of 1884
thought experiments
threat(s)
of coups
elite and
of revolution
of strikes
three-class model
Tiananmen Square
Tory party
trade. See also international trade
frictions of
integration
model
opening of
unions
trade-offs
concessions v. democratization
median voter’s
transitions
to democracy
to nondemocracy
of regimes
Tupac Amaru Rebellion
two-class models
equilibrium policy in
targeted transfers and
Tyler, Wat
Unión Cívica
Union Civica Radical (Radicals)
unions
United States
democratization of
Venezuelan intervention by
War of Independence
unrest, social
democratization and
utility function
value functions
citizen’s
recursive structure of
variability, inequality and
Venezuela
caudillismo of
democracy’s reinstatement in
U.S. intervention in
Verwoerd, Hendrik
Videla, Jorge
Viet Minh strategy
Vietnamese revolution
Viola, Roberto
volatility, fiscal. See fiscal volatility
voting. See also probabilistic voting
exclusions from
Germany’s system of
Latin America
majority
PAP’s influence on
political parties chosen via
preferences
restrictions on
swing voters and probabilistic
War of Independence
wealth
democracy and
democratic consolidation and
democratization and
middle class and
Weimar Republic
welfare
elites and
Germany and
white(s)
ANC’s guarantees for
elites
suffrage of
William of Occam
winners/losers
policies of
Witte, Sergei
workhorse models
World Bank
World Politics
World War I
Germany after
globalization in pre-
Sweden and
World War 11
Yrigoyen, Hipólito
deposition of
election of
Zaire
ZANU. See Zimbabwe African National Union
Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU)
Zimbabwe, revolutionary war of
1
In the text, despite the title of our book, we prefer to use the term nondemocracy to alternatives, such as dictatorship or authoritarian regime, because it has fewer specific connotations than any of the other terms.
2
In political science, such an approach is often called “rational choice.”
&n
bsp; 3
That is, individuals should be convinced to take part in revolutionary activity despite the individual costs and the collective benefits to them as a group.
4
Although many details of Beard’s arguments are now contested, the general thrust of his argument is accepted by many scholars. For instance, Wood (1969, p. 626) notes in his seminal book that the constitution “was intrinsically an aristocratic document designed to check the democratic tendencies of the period.” See McGuire (1988) for partially supporting statistical evidence.
5
As discussed in Chapter 4, there are theoretical and empirical arguments for why the relationship between inequality and redistribution may be more complex (e.g., greater inequality may enable the elites to lobby more effectively against redistribution in democracy). Nevertheless, it is generally the case that with greater inter-group inequality, democracy imposes a greater burden on the elites than nondemocracy does.
6
These are all, of course, statements where “other things are held equal.” Inter-group inequality is not the only thing that determines whether a society democratizes or a democracy consolidates.
7
See Freedom House (2004) and http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/freeworld/2003/methodologyhtm.
8
See Marshall and Jaggers (2004) and http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/polity/.
9
See Mulligan, Sala-i-Martin, and Gil (2003) for the argument that democracies do not redistribute more. See Rodrik (1999) for the original analysis of the link between democracy and labor share. For more details on the relationship between democracy and inequality, see Li, Squire, and Zou (1998). See also Persson and Tabellini (2003) and Persson (2003) on different policies pursued by democracies and different forms of democracies.
10
For example, it appears that, empirically, electoral systems with proportional representation lead to greater income redistribution than majoritarian institutions (see Austen-Smith 2000; Milesi-Feretti, Perotti, and Rostagno 2002; Persson and Tabellini 2003).
11
In fact, the weaker concept of strict quasiconcavity is all that is necessary for Vi to be single-peaked. However, in all examples used in this book, Vi is strictly concave so we do not introduce the notion of quasiconcavity. It is also possible to state the definition of single-peaked preferences with weak inequalities; e.g., if q” ≤ q’ ≤ qi or if q” ≥ q’ ≥ qi, then Vi(q”) ≤ Vi(q’). In this case, the corresponding concept would be quasiconcavity (or concavity). Such a formulation allows for indifference over policy choices (i.e., the utility function could be flat over a range of policies). We find it more intuitive to rule out this case, which is not relevant for the models we study in this book.
12
Throughout this book, we consider only pure strategies.
13
More formally, in the case of equality, the citizens would be indifferent between revolution and no revolution, and their choice should also be determined as part of the equilibrium. In the models studied throughout this book, there is no loss in generality in assuming that in case of equality, they do not revolt.
14
There is another Nash equilibrium where, even though (5.5) is satisfied, there is a “coordination failure,” so that no agent takes part in revolution because they all believe that nobody else will take part. In the remainder, we presume that the group is somehow able to solve the coordination problem- for example, due to the actions of its leaders - and avoids this less attractive equilibrium.
15
Many scholars have emphasized the fact that a key feature of political economy is that there is no third party that can enforce the promises made by the state and that this leads to problems of commitment and endemic inefficiencies. This idea is discussed by North (1990) and Olson (1993), is central to the work of North and Weingast (1989) and Weingast (e.g., 1997, 1998), and is implicit in many other studies. See also Grossman and Noh (1994), Dixit (1996), Dixit and Londregan (1995), and Besley and Coate (1998) for discussions of how inability to commit generates inefficiencies in political outcomes.
16
More explicitly, consider a pair of taxes, τL and τH > τL, that satisfy (5.37). Now imagine we construct a weighted average of these two taxes,Inspection of (5.38) together with the (strict) convexity of C(·) immediately establishes that Vp(N, µH, [,]) > Vp(N, µH, [τL, τH]), so the tax vector [,] also avoids revolution. Moreover, again by the convexity of C(·), Vr(N, µL, [,]) > Vr(N, µL, [τL, τH]), so the tax vector [,] also gives higher utility to the elites. This establishes that tax-smoothing is preferable (if it is incentive-compatible).
17
http://www.worldbank.org/research/growth/dddeisqu.htm.
18
For other examples, see Schmitter (1971, p. 484) and Cox (1976, pp. 207-8).
19
We could write these values as Vp(C, ϕ, τN = τr) and Vr(C, ϕ, τN = τr) to emphasize that after a coup the elites get to set the tax rate and choose their ideal point. However, because it is immediate that τN = τr in any subgame perfect equilibrium, we suppress this notation. Similar considerations apply to the values Vp(D, rD = τ,D= τP) and Vr(D, τD =,D = τp), where with probability 1 - p the citizens choose the tax rate again and setD. We also suppress the argumentD = τp from these value functions.
20
In this chapter, we do not examine non-Markovian equilibria. See Powell (2004) for a study of subgame perfect equilibria in a simplified version of the model presented here.
21
Because partial democracy is less than full democracy, we could refer to it as a form of nondemocracy. Recall from Chapter 2, however, that the focus of our analysis is to understand the forces that push a society toward or away from democracy. Although most of our analysis has focused on contrasting full democracy with the rule of some elites, we can therefore study the move from political control by the rich to a partial democracy - which includes also the middle class — as an instance of democratization.
22
For example, the support of Perón in Argentina was mostly urban and his policies aimed at redistributing from the rural sector to Buenos Aires. Clearly, as in the British and other Western European cases, urban workers were not interested in land redistribution.
23
In Chapter 4, the parties’ objectives function was to come to power; thus, they simply wanted their vote share to be greater than ½ . The assumption here is that they wish to maximize their vote share. This assumption is adopted to simplify the discussion.
24
There may also exist asymmetric equilibria in which the two parties choose different platforms.
25
Grossman and Helpman (2001) also prove that for each lobby n, there exists a policyn ∈ arg maxq∈Q(which satisfiesn(n) = 0. This means that the equilibrium contribution function of each lobby is such that there exists a policy that makes no contributions to the politician and gives him or her the same utility If this condition were not true, the lobby could reduce all its contributions and still induce the same behavior. This feature of the equilibrium is not important for the results we highlight here; hence, it is relegated to this footnote.
Table of Contents
ECONOMIC ORIGINS OF DICTATORSHIP AND DEMOCRACY
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Preface
PART ONE. - QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Chapter 1 - Paths of Political Development
1. Britain
2. Argentina
3. Singapore
4. South Africa
5. The Agenda
Chapter 2 - Our Argument
1. Democracy versus Nondemocracy
2. Building Blocks of Our Approach
3. Toward Our Basic Story
4. Our Theory of Democratization
5. Democratic Consolidation
6. Determinants of Democracy
7. Political Identities and the Nature of Conflict
8. Democracy in a Picture
9. Overview of the Book
Chapter 3 - What Do We Know about Democracy?
1. Measuring Democracy
2. Patterns of Democracy
3. Democracy, Inequality, and Redistribution
4. Crises and Democracy
5. Social Unrest and Democratization
6. The Literature
7. Our Contribution
PART TWO. - MODELING POLITICS
Chapter 4 - Democratic Politics
1. Introduction
2. Aggregating Individual Preferences
3. Single-Peaked Preferences and the Median Voter Theorem
4. Our Workhorse Models
5. Democracy and Political Equality
6. Conclusion
Chapter 5 - Nondemocratic Politics
1. Introduction
2. Power and Constraints in Nondemocratic Politics
3. Modeling Preferences and Constraints in Nondemocracies
4. Commitment Problems
5. A Simple Game of Promises
6. A Dynamic Model
7. Incentive-Compatible Promises
8. Conclusion
PART THREE. - THE CREATION AND CONSOLIDATION OF DEMOCRACY
Chapter 6 - Democratization
1. Introduction
2. The Role of Political Institutions
3. Preferences over Political Institutions
4. Political Power and Institutions
5. A Static Model of Democratization
6. Democratization or Repression?
7. A Dynamic Model of Democratization
8. Subgame Perfect Equilibria
9. Alternative Political Identities
10. Targeted Transfers
11. Power of the Elites in Democracy
12. Ideological Preferences over Regimes
13. Democratization in a Picture
14. Equilibrium Revolutions
15. Conclusion
Chapter 7 - Coups and Consolidation
1. Introduction
2. Incentives for Coups
3. A Static Model of Coups
4. A Dynamic Model of the Creation and Consolidation of Democracy
5. Alternative Political Identities
6. Targeted Transfers
7. Power in Democracy and Coups
8. Consolidation in a Picture
9. Defensive Coups
10. Conclusion
PART FOUR. - PUTTING THE MODELS TO WORK
Chapter 8 - The Role of the Middle Class
1. Introduction
2. The Three-Class Model
3. Emergence of Partial Democracy
4. From Partial to Full Democracy
5. Repression: The Middle Class as a Buffer
6. Repression: Softliners versus Hardliners