IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/uunewp/2016_016.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Post-WWI Military Disarmament and Interwar Fascism: Evidence from Sweden

Author

Listed:
  • Berg, Heléne

    (Department of Economics, Stockholm University)

  • Dahlberg, Matz

    (IBF and Department of Economics, Uppsala University)

  • Vernby, Kåre

    (Department of Political Science, Stockholm University; Department of Government, Uppsala University)

Abstract

The emergence of anti-democratic movements is a central puzzle to social science. We study a novel and rich dataset covering Swedish municipalities during the interwar years and nd a strong link between the presence of a military garrison and the emergence of fascist parties. We interpret these results as suggesting that fascist mobilization in Sweden was driven by discontent with the process of disarmament brought about by democratization. By contrast, economic hard times, as captured by local poverty and the size of the tax base, seem to have little connection with such parties. We relate these results to in influential theories of democratization.

Suggested Citation

  • Berg, Heléne & Dahlberg, Matz & Vernby, Kåre, 2016. "Post-WWI Military Disarmament and Interwar Fascism: Evidence from Sweden," Working Paper Series 2016:16, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:uunewp:2016_016
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1060116/FULLTEXT01.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. King, Gary & Rosen, Ori & Tanner, Martin & Wagner, Alexander F., 2008. "Ordinary Economic Voting Behavior in the Extraordinary Election of Adolf Hitler," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 68(4), pages 951-996, December.
    2. Lipset, Seymour Martin, 1959. "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy1," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(1), pages 69-105, March.
    3. Nico Voigtländer & Hans-Joachim Voth, 2012. "Persecution Perpetuated: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Semitic Violence in Nazi Germany," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(3), pages 1339-1392.
    4. Acemoglu, Daron & Johnson, Simon & Robinson, James A. & Yared, Pierre, 2009. "Reevaluating the modernization hypothesis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1043-1058, November.
    5. Daron Acemoglu, 2006. "Modeling Inefficient Institutions," NBER Working Papers 11940, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. de Bromhead, Alan & Eichengreen, Barry & O'Rourke, Kevin H., 2013. "Political Extremism in the 1920s and 1930s: Do German Lessons Generalize?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 73(2), pages 371-406, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gianluca Russo, 2018. "World War I and the Rise of Fascism in Italy," Boston University - Department of Economics - The Institute for Economic Development Working Papers Series dp-341, Boston University - Department of Economics, revised May 2020.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sebastian Doerr & Stefan Gissler & José‐Luis Peydró & Hans‐Joachim Voth, 2022. "Financial Crises and Political Radicalization: How Failing Banks Paved Hitler's Path to Power," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 77(6), pages 3339-3372, December.
    2. Sebastian Doerr & Stefan Gissler & José-Luis Peydró & Hans-Joachim Voth, 2018. "From finance to fascism," Economics Working Papers 1651, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Nov 2020.
    3. Martin Halla & Alexander F. Wagner & Josef Zweimüller, 2017. "Immigration and Voting for the Far Right," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 15(6), pages 1341-1385.
    4. Francesco D’Acunto & Marcel Prokopczuk & Michael Weber, 2019. "Historical Antisemitism, Ethnic Specialization, and Financial Development," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(3), pages 1170-1206.
    5. Marcel Prokopczuk & Francesco D'Acunto & Michael Weber, 2015. "Distrust in Finance Lingers: Jewish Persecution and Households' Investments," 2015 Meeting Papers 26, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    6. Voth, Hans-Joachim & Doerr, Sebastian & Gissler, Stefan & Peydró, José-Luis, 2018. "Financial crises and political radicalization: How failing banks paved Hitler's path to power," CEPR Discussion Papers 12806, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Alan de Bromhead & Barry Eichengreen & Kevin H. O'Rourke, 2012. "Right-Wing Political Extremism in the Great Depression," NBER Working Papers 17871, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Koenig, Christoph, 2023. "Loose Cannons: War Veterans and the Erosion of Democracy in Weimar Germany," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(1), pages 167-202, March.
    9. Markus Brückner & Antonio Ciccone, 2011. "Rain and the Democratic Window of Opportunity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(3), pages 923-947, May.
    10. Pauline Grosjean & Claudia Senik, 2011. "Democracy, Market Liberalization, and Political Preferences," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(1), pages 365-381, February.
    11. Doris A. Oberdabernig & Stefan Humer & Jesus Crespo Cuaresma, 2018. "Democracy, Geography and Model Uncertainty," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 65(2), pages 154-185, May.
    12. Sergei Guriev & Elias Papaioannou, 2022. "The Political Economy of Populism," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(3), pages 753-832, September.
    13. Dalgaard, C. & Olsson, O., 2007. "Why Are Market Economies Politically Stable? A Theory of Capitalist Cohesion," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0765, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    14. Kabwe Omoyi Fanny, 2021. "Macroeconomic Effects of Political Regime Type in African Sub-Regions," Asian Journal of Economic Modelling, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 9(2), pages 153-165, June.
    15. Houda Haffoudhi & Racem Mehdi & Gam Abdelkader, 2015. "Understanding Democratic Transition Using Self-Organizing Maps: a Special Focus on Arab Spring Countries," Working Papers 958, Economic Research Forum, revised Oct 2015.
    16. Maja Adena & Ruben Enikolopov & Maria Petrova & Veronica Santarosa & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2015. "Radio and the Rise of The Nazis in Prewar Germany," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(4), pages 1885-1939.
    17. Heid, Benedikt & Langer, Julian & Larch, Mario, 2012. "Income and democracy: Evidence from system GMM estimates," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 116(2), pages 166-169.
    18. Hans Degryse & Thomas Lambert & Armin Schwienbacher, 2018. "The Political Economy of Financial Systems: Evidence from Suffrage Reforms in the Last Two Centuries," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(611), pages 1433-1475, June.
    19. Stefan Voigt, 2011. "Positive constitutional economics II—a survey of recent developments," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 146(1), pages 205-256, January.
    20. Møller, Jørgen & Schmotz, Alexander & Skaaning, Svend-Erik, 2015. "Economic crisis and democratic breakdown in the interwar years: a reassessment," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 40(2), pages 301-318.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Democracy; Interwar fascism; Disarmament;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N44 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: 1913-

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:uunewp:2016_016. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ulrika Öjdeby (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nekuuse.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.