Daron Acemoglu () (MIT Department of Economics) James Robinson () (Department of Political Science, Universite of California, Berkeley, and Hoover Institute, Stanford University)
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We develop a theory of political transitions inspired in part by the experiences of Western Europe and Latin America. Nondemocratic societies are controlled by a rich elite. The initially disenfranchised poor can contest power by threatening social unrest or revolution, and this may force the elite to democratize. Democracy may not consolidate because it is more redistributive than a nondemocratic regime, and this gives the elite an incentive to mount a coup. Because inequality makes democracy more costly to the elite, highly unequal cocieties are less likely to consolidate democracy and may end up oscillating between regimes or in a nondemocratic repressive regime. An unequal society is likely to experience fiscal volatility, but the relationship between inequality and redistribution is nonmonotonic; societies with intermediate levels of unequality consolidate democracy and redistribute more than both very equal and very unequal countries. We also show that asset redistribution, such as educational and land reform, may be used to consolidate both democratic and nondemocratic regimes
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Paper provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics in its series Working papers with number
99-26.
Length: 32 pages Date of creation: Nov 1999 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:mit:worpap:99-26
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Michael Gavin & Roberto Perotti, 1997.
"Fiscal Policy in Latin America,"
NBER Chapters,
in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997, Volume 12, pages 11-72
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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