Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T04:11:33.510Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Inequality, Collective Action, and Democratization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 September 2009

Philip Keefer
Philip Keefer
Affiliation:
World Bank
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Epic redistributive struggles between the rich and poor lie at the heart of prominent theories of economic development and the emergence of democracy (e.g., Boix 2003; Acemoglu and Robinson 2006). The poor pursue democracy to secure credible redistribution away from wealthy elites; elites, fearing redistribution, but also the costs of revolution, decide whether to repress these efforts or to surrender to them. These theories, and the historical examples of working classes exacting redistributive or political concessions from elites, have been interpreted as suggesting that inequality and redistributive struggles should be central features of development and democratization. Where inequality is high, democracy should be unlikely to emerge, or to emerge and be unstable. Because elites in unequal societies are unwilling to adopt institutions that encourage growth and investment (such as institutions that protect non-elites from predation by elites), incomes should be lower as well.

Type
Symposium
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , October 2009 , pp. 661 - 666
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acemoglu, Daron, and Robinson, James A.. 2006. Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Beck, Thorsten, Clarke, George, Groff, Alberto, Keefer, Philip, and Walsh, Patrick. 2001. “New Tools in Comparative Political Economy: The Database of Political Institutions.” World Bank Economic Review 15 (1): 165–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boix, Carles. 2003. Democracy and Redistribution. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collier, Ruth B. 1999. Paths Towards Democracy: The Working Class and Elites in Western Europe and South America. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gehlbach, Scott, and Keefer, Philip. 2008. “Investment Without Democracy: Ruling-Party Institutionalization and Credible Commitment in Autocracies.” Working paper, University of Wisconsin Department of Political Science.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaufman, Robert R. 2009. “The Political Effects of Inequality in Latin America: Some Inconvenient Facts.” Comparative Politics 41 (3): 359–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keefer, Philip. 2007a. “Beyond Elections: Politics, Development and the Poor Performance of Poor Democracies.” In Oxford Encyclopedia of Comparative Politics, ed. Boix, Carles and Stokes, Susan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Keefer, Philip. 2007b. “Clientelism, Credibility and the Policy Choices of Young Democracies.” American Journal of Political Science 51 (4): 804–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keefer, Philip. 2009. “The Ethnicity Distraction: Political Credibility, Clientelism and Partisan Preferences in Africa.” Mimeo, The World Bank.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keefer, Philip, and Vlaicu, Razvan. 2008. “Democracy, Credibility and Clientelism.” Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 24 (2): 371–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lizzeri, Alessandro, and Persico, Nicola. 2004. “Why Did the Elites Extend the Suffrage? Democracy and the Scope of Government, with an Application to Britain's ‘Age of Reform.’” Quarterly Journal of Economics 119 (2): 707–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Llavador, Humberto, and Oxoby, Robert J.. 2005. “Partisan Competition, Growth and the Franchise.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 120 (3): 1155–89.Google Scholar
Robinson, James A. 2006. “Economic Development and Democracy.” Annual Review of Political Science 9: 503–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar