IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unu/wpaper/wp-2010-085.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Elites and Institutional Persistence

Author

Listed:
  • James Robinson

Abstract

Particular sets of institutions, once they become established in a society, have a strong tendency to persist. In this paper I argue that understanding how elites form and reproduce is key to understanding the persistence of institutions over time. I illustrate this idea with a simple political economy theory of institutions and through examples from Liberia, the US, South Africa and Germany I show how elites influence institutions. To change institutions requires having an understanding of how reforms influence the preferences, capabilities and strategies of elites.

Suggested Citation

  • James Robinson, 2010. "Elites and Institutional Persistence," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2010-085, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2010-085
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/wp2010-85.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daron Acemoglu & Davide Cantoni & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2011. "The Consequences of Radical Reform: The French Revolution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3286-3307, December.
    2. Michels, Robert, 1915. "Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, number michels1915.
    3. Besley, Timothy & Persson, Torsten & Sturm, Daniel, 2010. "Political competition, policy and growth: theory and evidence from the United States," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121718, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Acemoglu,Daron & Robinson,James A., 2009. "Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521671422.
    5. Heinicke Craig, 1994. "African-American Migration and Mechanized Cotton Harvesting, 1950-1960," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 501-520, October.
    6. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December.
    7. Wright, Gavin, 1999. "The Civil Rights Revolution as Economic History," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 59(2), pages 267-289, June.
    8. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2002. "Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1231-1294.
    9. Philippe Aghion, 2005. "Growth and Institutions," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 32(1), pages 3-18, March.
    10. Kisch, Herbert, 1989. "From Domestic Manufacture to Industrial Revolution: The Case of the Rhineland Textile Districts," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195051117.
    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. Massimiliano Agovino & Massimiliano Cerciello & Aniello Ferraro & Antonio Garofalo, 2022. "A Regional Perspective on Social Exclusion in European Regions: Context, Trends and Policy Implications," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 8(2), pages 409-433, July.
    2. Malik, Adeel & Awadallah, Bassem, 2013. "The Economics of the Arab Spring," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 296-313.
    3. Ravnborg, Helle Munk & Gómez, Ligia Ivette, 2015. "Poverty Reduction Through Dispossession: The Milk Boom and the Return of the Elite in Santo Tomás, Nicaragua," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 118-128.
    4. Ravnborg, Helle Munk & Gómez, Ligia Ivette, 2015. "The Importance of Inequality for Natural Resource Governance: Evidence from Two Nicaraguan Territories," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 72-84.
    5. Luis Monroy‐Gómez‐Franco & Paloma Villagómez‐Ornelas, 2024. "Stratification economics in the land of persistent inequalities," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 83(1), pages 157-175, January.
    6. Gwendoline Promsopha & Antoine Vion, 2017. "Thailand's 'limited order trap' : a critical application of North, Wallis and Weingast," Post-Print hal-01612052, HAL.
    7. Ntuli, Herbert & Mukong, Alfred Kechia & Kimengsi, Jude Ndzifon, 2022. "Institutions and environmental resource extraction within local communities in Mozambique," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).

    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. Robinson, James A., 2010. "Elites and Institutional Persistence," WIDER Working Paper Series 085, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2008. "Persistence of Power, Elites, and Institutions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 267-293, March.
    3. Baland, Jean-Marie & Moene, Karl Ove & Robinson, James A., 2010. "Governance and Development," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4597-4656, Elsevier.
    4. Daron Acemoglu & Davide Cantoni & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2011. "The Consequences of Radical Reform: The French Revolution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3286-3307, December.
    5. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2008. "The Persistence and Change of Institutions in the Americas," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(2), pages 281-299, August.
    6. Braunfels, Elias, 2016. "Further Unbundling Institutions," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 13/2016, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    7. Elena Sochirca & Francisco José Veiga, 2021. "Key determinants of elite rivalry: theoretical insights and empirical evidence," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(2), pages 277-291, January.
    8. ROUGIER Eric, 2015. ""The parts and the whole”: Unbundling and re-bundling institutional systems and their effect on economic development," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2015-12, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    9. Alexander Donges & Jean-Marie Meier & Rui C. Silva, 2023. "The Impact of Institutions on Innovation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(4), pages 1951-1974, April.
    10. Aguirre, Alvaro, 2016. "The risk of civil conflicts as a determinant of political institutions," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 36-59.
    11. James A. Robinson, 2008. "How Institutions Change Over Time," Working Papers 446, Economic Research Forum, revised 09 Jan 2008.
    12. Wafa Ghardallou & Dorsaf Sridi, 2020. "Democracy and Economic Growth: a Literature Review," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 11(3), pages 982-1002, September.
    13. Cinnirella, Francesco & Hornung, Erik, 2016. "Landownership concentration and the expansion of education," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 135-152.
    14. Aguirre, Alvaro, 2019. "Rebellions, Technical Change, and the Early Development of Political Institutions in Latin America," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 65-89.
    15. Eicher, Theo S. & García-Peñalosa, Cecilia & Kuenzel, David J., 2018. "Constitutional rules as determinants of social infrastructure," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 182-209.
    16. Ian W. McLean, 2010. "Responding to Shocks: Australia's Institutions and Policies," School of Economics and Public Policy Working Papers 2010-30, University of Adelaide, School of Economics and Public Policy.
    17. Lecce, Giampaolo & Ogliari, Laura, 2019. "Institutional Transplant and Cultural Proximity: Evidence from Nineteenth-Century Prussia," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 79(4), pages 1060-1093, December.
    18. Gyöngyösi, Győző & Juhász, Réka & Mihályi, Dávid, 2008. "Daron Acemoglu a Rajk László Szakkollégium 2007. évi Neumann János-díjasa [Daron Acemoglu the winner of the 2007 János Neumann Prize of the László Rajk Specialist College]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(7), pages 660-664.
    19. Daron Acemoglu & Suresh Naidu & Pascual Restrepo & James A. Robinson, 2013. "Democracy, Redistribution and Inequality," NBER Working Papers 19746, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Litina, Anastasia, 2012. "Unfavorable land endowment, cooperation, and reversal of fortune," MPRA Paper 39702, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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:unu:wpaper:wp-2010-085. 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: Siméon Rapin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/widerfi.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.