Neither the optimal taxation framework developed by Olson nor Boix’s median voter logic is the right lens to look at the economic effects of political regimes. The first model supposes that autocratic leaders are not accountable to any social group in society and are thus able to tax their populations at higher rates than democracies. In the second politicians have no leeway to propose different policies since the only preferences that matter are those of the median voter.
A third, and richer model, would (1) define the economic interests of political actors and pay special attention to their social basis of political support, and (2) analyze how these interests are aggregated into the political system to affect outcomes through different types of political institutions. While both Olson and Boix would agree on both of these simple premises, our third alternative is capable of producing different predictions than the previous models.
In particular, dictators would now be part of the economy, and as such, accountable to some social group, who either benefits or (more likely) loose from taxation, thus pushing in this latter case the tax rate downwards. Secondly, the model would focus on the interests of groups beyond those of the median voter, expecting each political group to influence tax policies by lobbying, making campaign contributions, and other political activities. In sum, depending on the political power of each interest group, and the voting rule, the equilibrium tax rate would be decided. These ideas provide the basis for a more general and richer model to understand the political economy of redistributive policies, and thus, the economic effects of institutions.
Boix shows that stable democracies emerge where inequality is low and where capital is mobile (or at least difficult to tax). The choice of political regime depends on the payoff to the poor, middle class and the wealthy, depending on a set of parameters such as capital mobility, state of nature (whether wealthy are strong or not), whether the middle class is an ally, etc. Out of the four possible outcomes (authoritarianism, democracy, revolutionary war and left-wing dictatorship), I will focus on the latter. Extending Boix’s model to present day Latin America, it is possible to use his framework and offer an explanation regarding the region’s transition to left-wing democratic parties (which, on occasion, have been know to behave as left-wing dictatorships, depending on the country). While authoritarian regimes (mainly military, but single-party as well) were common in the region in the post-war years, post-1978, Latin America experienced a third wave of democratization. However, many of these newly established democracies failed in the provision of a public goods, property rights and non-coercive taxes (which Olson suggested is characteristic of democracy). Consequently, high income inequality prevailed in many countries. Additionally, with the region’s overwhelming choice of compulsory voting mechanism, the median voter belongs to lower income deciles. The combination of high inequality and compulsory voting, empowers lower income deciles in their ballot decisions, such that the median voter chooses left-wing candidates promising higher income transfers and improvement in social welfare. An additional aspect to consider would then be how this may create clientelistic incentives. Furthermore, perhaps Boix's framework also offers the possibility of understanding democratic backlashes, as observed in Venezuela and Bolivia.
PS – On a random note, while looking at Appendix 2.1, I have to disagree with Boix’s classification of Brazil as a democratic regime starting in 1979. While 1979 was the year when democratic liberalization began to take strong hold (with the government granting amnesty to former political prisoners, the removal of AI-5, and also with the reform of political parties), legislative elections still were not “free multiparty elections,” as communist parties were still outlawed. Additionally, General Figueiredo (who took office as President in Jan. 1979) had not been elected by a legislature chosen through free multiparty elections.
Keefer and Vlaicu’s commitment model is a novel and creative contribution to the literature on differences in economic outcomes across democracies and is an excellent first stab at a unified explanation of a number of phenomenon. Unfortunately, the nature of the commitment variable poses a complex problem for falsifying and testing the theory for two reasons. First, commitment is a notoriously difficult variable to measure. Second, weakly specified empirical strategies such as the historical one used in the paper do not clearly imply a falsification strategy for the theory and cannot distinguish between observationally equivalent outcomes in the absence of a clear measure of commitment. Both of these points can be illustrated by extending the British example given in the paper. Keefer and Vlaicu argue that Britain does not fall into a development trap largely because it can make credible commitments and this is demonstrated by the willingness of politicians to pursue reform. Although willingness to promote reform at the margin prior to the 1832 Reform Act is a stronger reason to believe English politicians were credible, as was the clean up of patronage sources, this may reflect other strategic imperatives or a desire to foreclose alternate electoral strategies to potentially powerful opponents. Such strategic choices are observationally equivalent to a commitment theory, but do not rely on commitment itself.
These problems illustrate that commitment may be, at best, a shallow variable (in Kitschelt’s parlance)- one that stands in for something more fundamental. The formerly Communist countries offer a potentially powerful set of cases with which to explore this relationship because their institutional frameworks were highly similar at the start of transitions. Variation in patron-client relationships should therefore not be a cause of the previous regimes’ institutional set up (except perhaps in Poland, where the regime had a stronger military component than elsewhere). I suspect that such an analysis will reveal the central role of strong opposition movements to the previous regime and of previous experience with patronage and clientalistic politics that establishes clientalism as a “norm”. Most importantly, however, such a study should avoid being astrategic and explore why winners, as well as those that lose in initial elections, continue to avoid patronage relationships even after the foundational elections to cement, or improve, their positions.
Among this week’s readings, I am especially impressed by McGillivray’s work that attempts to explain democratic governments’ preferential policies on some particular industries. She argues that it is the joint effects of an industry’s geography and electoral system that determine their political opportunities to gain industrial assistance. I found her analytical framework of the “two-stage process” appropriate to unfold the interactions of her several explanatory factors: in the first stage, industry’s geographic distribution combined with the electoral rule induce legislators’ preference over which industries they want to assist; in the second stage, the electoral rule and the strength of parties determine how legislators’ preferences are aggregated into actual policy. Such a framework with focus on agents’ both preferences and capabilities of behaviors should be useful in political economic analysis of policies. My only concern about this analytical framework is that the preference-capability division is not conducive to dynamic analysis, though it simplifies multiple factors’ complex effects on policies in comparative static study. From a dynamic perspective, agents’ present preferences can be institutionalized into rules and laws which in turn affect their capabilities and future preferences. In other words, the institutional constrains that affect agents’ actual behaviors in the second stage are taken as given and fixed in MaGillivray’s framework. This disposal risks in preventing the cyclical causality between agents’ preference and capabilities from being fully uncovered in analysis.
I was particularly interested and somewhat troubled by Boix' text on Democracy and Redistribution. Firstly, at a conceptual level, Boix’s creation of a unified model capable of explaining the emergence and transition of regimes on the basis of static variables and stylized power structures (capital-owners vs. non-capital holders or wealthy vs. poor) struck me as somewhat optimistic and simplistic. Boix is certainly ambitious in his endeavor, claiming to offer explanations for the existence of democracy across the centuries – from classical Athens, Middle and early Modern Ages to the early nineteenth century and the present (Boix 2003, 20). But such a model would appear unrealistic if it leaves no role for randomness or political agency – recognizing the simple fact that actors will behave differently, and that events will differentially impact regimes in different places and under different circumstances due to a wide variety of exogenous and uncontrolled-for influences.
Admittedly, Boix does recognize the complementary exogenous and endogenous debates initiated by various academics (Boix 2003, 29), but ultimately discards the importance of ‘long-run variables’. He appears to suggest that these influences are encapsulated in the model – through their influence on equity and capital mobility, and their impact on information flows that contribute to his third variable ‘distribution of political resources’. My problems with this approach are twofold. It attempts to portray a highly dynamic process of regime change in terms of a static model - an approach that is intuitively unsound. One also quickly gets the sense that this third, somewhat loosely defined variable of ‘distribution of political resources’ serves as a ‘catch all’ designed to rationalize all non-conforming data.
I'll also focus on Boix. I find his model to be enormously helpful, and to provide a clearer, more direct relationship between the processes we have seen coming together with economic development, and democracy. There is a more intuitive flow in the causal logic of how inequality and capital mobility work toward and/or against democratization or breakdown, and how these elements can play against one another in some cases to land states in an uncertain range in terms of what transitions to expect -- in these cases, it seems, he defers to political power held by various factions.
I also find it very helpful in helping us understand why the 'natural resource curse' works so effectively toward tyranny in some places--those with high inequality, while natural resources have no damaging effects in in others--and again, this seems like an intuitive step, and Boix has helpfully formalized it and analyzed it across such a broad range of time and cases.
I must admit, though, to being unclear on Boix's causal logic in terms of the poor and wealthy classes' calculations as to whether to mobilize (and launch what may be a revolutionary fight) or whether to repress. He states at one point early on that "the cost of repression is said to be low whenever the wealthy efficiently suppress any revolt by the poor. By contrast, whenever the rich fail to suppress a revolution of the poor, the costs of repression can be thought of as high" (p. 26). This seems very circular to me -- by this logic, it is only information failure that can cause the rich to attempt to suppress and fail, since they will only attempt it if they believe the costs to be low. In contrast to the first statement, Boix describes some general conditions where the costs of repression are low and high -- "whenever the lower classes overcome their collective action problems and organize in political parties and trade unions or when they live in highly mountainous terrain... the costs of repression become high". Aren't these two statements of low/high costs of repression different?
On reading Boix one must certainly question his assertion about the effect of high inequality on the chances of democratization. Examples such as those of Latin American countries, where inequality has been persistent , yet over the last few decades democratic regimes have emerged seem to run counter to this general claim. Of course, throughout the last century, countries in the region have seen regime instability with democratic and quasi-democratic regimes giving place to authoritarian ones, and this would seem to support his thesis. Yet, without decreased inequality this instability has been replaced in many countries with democracy that seems to be in little danger of slipping back into authoritarianism. Perhaps elites have found the cost of repression to be too high. As Boix mentions, capital mobility may have tempered claims for redistribution from the poor, thus allaying the fears of elite. This does not seem to tell the whole story, however. Also, his argument rests on the assertion that the poor in fact demand redistribution. Is this the case? Studies have indeed found little evidence that democracies have a higher tax take than authoritarian governments (Cheibub, 1998); others have found little relationship between views about the unfairness about income distribution and desire for higher taxes and welfare spending (Latinobarometro). In the case of Latin America, the overall low tax rates seem inconsistent with his claims. On the other hand, the recent surge of leftist parties in the region might lend support to the claim that poorer sectors are demanding greater redistribution and welfare spending, although some of these have arguably come to power precisely after moderating their 'leftist' demands.
Boix’s argument focuses on the relationship between asset specificity and inequality as the primary driver of the demand by the lower classes for democracy. His analysis of the nexus between these two characteristics specifically notes that high levels of one or the other by itself is not deterministic. It is, rather, the combination of the two that produces the conditions for either democracy, authoritarianism or civil war. Mostly unexplored, however, is the heterogeneity of democracies in terms of representation. If we are to take seriously Olson’s argument that there are perks of stationary (versus roving) bandits, and that spontaneous democratic transitions (i.e., those not driven by exogenous factors) are the result of a relatively dispassionate lack of other authoritarian options, why should we accept Boix’s assumption that the lower classes have a positive preference for democracy?
In fact, if democracy is preferred by the poor for its redistributive properties, how do we incorporate variations in representation and redistribution that result from such mundane details of constitutional design as electoral rules. For example, Persson and Tabellini point out that PR systems encourage politicians to target state benefits more broadly, while plurality voting produces more targeted redistribution. McGillivray also finds difference in redistributive patterns resulting from different electoral systems. Strong-party majoritarian systems are more inclined to target narrower interests that are strong-party PR systems. Furthermore, both Persson and Tabellini as well as Keefer, et al. underscore that “bad” democracies contain institutional elements that may either encourage inefficient, and less broadly targeted forms of redistribution. How could Boix’s model take into consideration such variations in democracies, given that it’s plausible that persistent incompetence or inequality in democratic systems could lead to unrest by the supposedly pro-democracy lower classes?
I find the argument proposed by Boix regarding the impact of economic inequality and factor mobility/specificity on democratic transitions quite convincing. His argument acknowledges the strategic nature of interaction between the elites and the masses in society. For example, his argument is able to incorporate the concerns of the rich, who want to maintain the status quo and avoid extensive policies of economic redistribution, with those of the poor, who want to initiate redistribution peacefully or violently. His theory seems to best describe democratic transitions and civil conflict in Central American countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala.
The political and economic implications of steadily increasing neoliberal economic globalization will serve as an interesting test of the various components of his argument. For example, economic globalization has become an increasingly popular topic of discussion among scholars studying civil conflict because of its capacity to initiate a redistribution of resources within a society and increase inequality/grievances. An interesting aspect of the current globalization debate is that many policies of trade and price liberalization are not always enacted willingly by the government. In some instances, these policies are a result of conditionality agreements enforced by international financial institutions such as the I.M.F. and the World Bank. Under these conditions, where negative redistribution and increased inequality, has exogenous origins will the same dynamic between the rich and the poor be the same? Will the poor threaten revolution or civil conflict to address inequality for which their government may be not be fully responsible? Also, what about instances in which these same types of organizations call for forced democratization (even under conditions in which his theory would seem inapplicable)?
Theoretically, globalization should continue to increase the mobility of capital, which should make dictators or autocrats more amenable to negotiations with disadvantaged sectors of the population. However, as mentioned above inequality may be on the rise as well. This begs the question as to which causal mechanism (factor specificity/mobility or inequality) is more important? What makes one more important than the other in certain environments?
Also, Boix’s theory does not discuss varying forms of democratization. For example, some of the other readings, such as those by Persson and Tabellini (2004) address how different constitutional structures and electoral rules impact economic policy and the distribution of resources. Based on the fact that the rich, the middle class, and the poor are all strategic actors, will they take these issues into consideration when engaging in institutional engineering? For example, will an autocrat favor a presidential system (with reduced veto players) as opposed to a parliamentary system? Will there be a preference for proportional representation or single-member district electoral rules?
An investigation into how the role of international financial institutions impacts the decision-making calculus of power-holding elites as well as a discussion of the impact of his theory on democratic form would be a valuable extension of Boix’s work.
One thing I like about the McGillivray piece is her writing strategy. She uses an example that was the least likely to receive protection but was actually heavily protected (British cutlery) to refute the existing theories. But with respect to the theory, I wish she has talked more about the institutional causes of a weak or strong party system, which might somewhat result from the electoral rules—one of her independent variables. For example, a majoritarian system with “multi-member district” plus “single nontransferable vote” (Japan before 1994 and Taiwan before 2008) had led party members to compete with each other and cultivate their own constituencies and thus a weak party system. The protection is therefore fragmentary and focuses on organized groups. This condition has been altered following the change of electoral rules. So, is it all right methodologically if party strength and electoral rules are not mutually exclusive? McGillivray’s invention of stock market data is problematic at first glance (since we did not read this part). First, unless we have a very good idea about the percentage of the domestic market these companies (traded on the stock market) hold, we can’t be sure if they are representative. Second is the noisiness she herself points out. For instance, the GM’s stock price is very likely to respond to Japan’s protectionist policy with regard to Toyota. It’s too noisy and I’m not sure how she could justify that.
Fiona McGillivray presents a compelling argument in Privileging Industry on why some industries are more successful than others in gaining protection. However, I question the extent to which she is self-selecting her analysis to fit her theory. Why, in her book, written in 2004, does she rely on data primarily from the 1970s and 1980s? Her explanation – that in the 1970s, the tariff was still the primary means of assistance – is unsatisfying. She does not stylize her work as a historical narrative so I find it somewhat puzzling why she relies on such old data to “test” her theory. If tariffs are no longer the primary means of assistance and if her analysis does not control for alternative measures, how does her analysis then advance the debate? Her analysis would have been stronger if she did more of a cross-national analysis consisting of data spanning a wider span of years and controlling for alternative measures. Moreover, I found some of her findings surprising. In her analysis, she places so much emphasis on marginality of the district as being pivotal to whether the industry receives trade protection in strong majoritarian systems; I was thus surprised to find that it was district comparative disadvantage and the number of districts in the state that had a greater degree of statistical significance than marginal districts in Canada. Indeed, in Table 3.2. (industry level model), industrial concentration in a marginal district is only statistically significant at .10. I also thinks she underestimates the extent to which marginality can play in politics in so-called “weak” majoritarian systems like the United States. In her analysis, she assumes policy positions on other policies are fixed (47). However, vote trading may go on much more than she assumes, particularly across issues. For instance, Republican senators have an interest in seeing Republican senators reelected. Thus, they may be willing to give more trade benefits to a “marginal” Republican state like New Hampshire or Maine to keep them in the Republican column come election time even if the industry is not necessarily geographically dispersed.
The readings this week are encapsulated by the phrase 'democracy in action'; it seems to me however, that the readings are in fact a series of studies in the failure of democracies to deliver efficient or desirable outcomes for citizens. Broadly speaking, there is a ubiquity of principal-agent problems, informational deficits, and pareto suboptimal outcomes from democratic institutions. Given this, I argue that a major project for political scientists should be the design and characterisation of systems that, though they may not eliminate rents, improper incentives and principal-agent problems, ex ante, will incorporate the facility for actors to minimize these problems where they become most egregious. Given the chronic imperfection of political systems, political scientists should devote as much time to the study of the means by which institutions are reformed from within as they do to the study of institutions themselves.
Persson and Tabellini write that constitution design constitutes a tradeoff between accountability and representation. If we use majoritarian voting, we can dislodge poorly performing governments with ease and alacrity and election time, but with a loss of representation of diversity of opinion.Similarly, proportional representation can result in a breadth of opinion being represented in parliament, but the concordant greater fluidity of party systems makes for poor accountability. Similar tradeoffs are highlighted by Persson and Tabellini between larger and smaller districts, between presidential and parliamentary systems. In effect, the upshot of the Persson and Tabellini is that not only can political science not yeild a blueprint for a 'perfect' democracy, but it is neither capable of outlining a 'best' form of democracy either. It can only profer varying types of 'better'.
Similarly imperfect conclusions are highlighted elsewhere in the readings. Fiona McGillivray outlines the responsiveness of parliamentarians to the concerns of their constituents, but argues that varying institutional set-ups, coupled with electoral competition and the location of industry, lead to inefficiency in trade policies. Rather than choosing a collectively most efficient policy, and effecting transfers between those who benefit or suffer from it, policymakers choose to rather transfer via smaller, more inefficient protectionist policies. Olson, arguing in favour of democracy over dictatorship, acknowledges the inevitable rents sought by officeholders and certain demographics, but argues that these rents are less than those accrued in other political systems.
I find these results troubling. While the importance of the public and private goods provided by states everywhere is obvious, and the necessity of centralised, delegated government is clear, are the above-described inefficiencies a necessary or inevitable consequence? Are principal-agent problems and information rents necessarily pervasive? Can we design institutions that endogenously control these problems and mitigate them? What would such institutions look like?
I was particularly interested by the question of redistribution associated with democracy. While McGillivray and Boix look at the different geometries of redistribution and economic development depending on the democratic practices, I was particularly interested by Olson’s piece. There is the assumption that the democratic regimes have higher legitimacy than autocratic regimes. While reading the Olson’s piece, I realized that this assumption may be challenged in the developing world.
What is the legitimacy of a British style democracy in an African country that inherited a territory with fragmented identities and little to no historical legitimacy? Some autocracies may have a legitimacy –religious for example- that would be more inclusive than a democracy struggling to shape a common future. In some ways, the Olkon’s example of Indonesia shows higher success when only half of the population is involved in the decision-process (women project). But there are also numerous examples in the informal settlements around the developing cities of “stationary bandit” (mafia type of organization) filling the gap of weak democratic institutions, providing a more stable situation to promote economic development.
The type of democracy discussed in numerous articles –participatory and deliberative- is usually based on a representation of the legitimacy of the regime that has been built on previous autocracies and territorial constructs –nation and identity building-. I am not sure that the notion of redistribution and economic development can be linked to the type of regime itself. I would see more as a “cultural” component: what the people are ready to accept depending on the idea they have of the common interest.
McGillivray provides a very coherent and thoroughly argued analysis of the complex linkages between industrial, investment, and trade policies. Her core argument focuses on how industry geography, electoral rules, and political party strength impact international trade policy. In particular she argues that in countries featuring majoritarian single-member districts and strong parties, like the UK, industries located in swing districts are likely to receive protectionist benefits, while in countries with a majoritarian system and weak parties, like the U.S., less locally concentrated industries and industries with strong representation in government receive favorable treatment in trade policy. In countries with proportional representation and strong parties, such as Germany, coalitions represent the interests of core supporters. McGillivray illustrates her argument in the context of well fitting examples such as the cutlery industry. The analysis would have been considerably strengthened however by a more detailed discussion of the case of proportional representation and weak parties in order to delineate the effects of the causal variables. Furthermore, some of the measurements in the analysis’ operationalization seem to fall short of the complexity of the issue at hand. For example, using tariffs as a measurement of protection potentially skews the results, given that while actual tariff levels have declined over the past decades, governments have employed several other strategies to protect domestic industries.
In "Democracy and Redistribution" Carles Boix constructs an elegant model to explain the survival of authoritarianism and transitions to stable democracy. Boix posits that social inequality and capital mobility are key determinants of transitions to democracy. By appealing to the median voter, democracies tend to involve greater income redistribution (i.e. taxation and expropriation) than authoritarian regimes. Thus, when inequality is high and/or when capital is not mobile, elites will resist the expansion of the democratic franchise for fear of greater distribution. While the costs of repressing democratic demands may be great, the projected costs for the elites of higher taxation under democracy may be even greater. Conversely, when inequality is low, or capital highly mobile, elites will be less concerned about taxation.
My comments will focus on two flaws in his argument: the cost of repression and regime transition under left-wing and communist dictatorships. First, the cost of repression plays a determinant role in Boix's model. If the costs of repression and extremely low, elites may be more able and willing to forestall democratization regardless or levels of economic inequality or capital mobility. Boix treats the cost of repression as exogenous. However, could the cost of repression also be tied to international factors? Foreign states may bolster authoritarian regimes (by providing weapons, funding, and political support) in order to prevent expropriation of foreign investments and the rise of ideologically hostile governments. We would expect support for authoritarian regimes to be greatest from countries with extensive and specific investments such as factories, mines, and oil fields. International ideological conflict as well as the degree of foreign asset specific investment should thus be taken into account in Boix's model since it can play a determinant role in regime transition.
Second, left-wing and communist dictatorships do not fit comfortably into Boix's framework. Boix states that under "left-wing or communist dictatorships, the poor rule after expropriating all of the wealthy's capital" (23). Yet, how can Boix's model explain the existence (and persistence) of communist authoritarian regimes where a greater degree of economic equality should be present? Indeed, in his conclusion Boix casts doubt on the prospects of democracy in China due to "massive internal differences, now exacerbated by growing income disparities" (239). This begs the question of how one defines these political systems. Is China a communist state? If so, why are we seeing growing economic inequality and what does this say about Boix's assumptions? Where do other states, such a Chavez's Venezuela fit into Boix's typology? In short, Boix leaves many unanswered questions regarding the behavior of left-wing and communist dictatorships.
The idea that economic development and political regime types are related has a considerable historical pedigree in social science, yet the precise causal mechanism(s) that underpins the high correlation between economic development and democracy remains, at best, an open debate and, at worst, a “black box”. Boix makes an impressive attempt to advance our understanding.
I found his theory intuitively appealing and constructive, because it offers plausible micro-foundations for the observed correlation between development and democracy. The game-theoretical model that he develops in the book is clear and quite persuasive. Other comments have done a good job of enumerating them, so I will not go into much detail describing them here. In essence, he argues that political regimes (and transitions) are the outcome of the preferences and resources of actors in a given society in a given historical period. Thus, he isolates income inequality (or distribution), asset specificity, and distribution of political resources – the costs of repression are particularly important here - as the key variables driving the emergence of democracies, or lack thereof. This is important because a crucial point that emerges from the literature on the subject is that economic development is correlated with many other trends and one or more of these may be the causal mechanism that accounts for the apparent relationship between development and democracy. Boix shows us what they might be.
I will briefly touch upon one of the concerns that I have with his theory, however. Firstly, it does not strike me as obvious that a preference for democracy is as instrumental as his theory propounds it to be. Is it beyond the realm of possibility that citizens may view it as an end in itself? Moreover, if it is principally instrumental, which may well be the case, it is not clear to me that a democratic regime will deliver the desired amount of redistribution and thereby diminish social inequality. Clearly, some redistribution can be expected to occur under a democratic regime and it may therefore be preferable to the authoritarian one that preceded it. Yet, has Boix under-theorized variation among types of democratic regimes? Typically, for democracy to generate equality, citizens must convert their political and civil rights into social gains. However, there is some distance that must be travelled from purely “formal” democracy, which putatively secures and upholds such rights, to “participatory” democracy and, in some cases, ultimately to “social” democracy, which aims to equalize social and economic outcomes. That may well depend, inter alia, as noted in other comments, on the institutional structure of a given democratic regime. The distribution of political resources also seems especially relevant in this regard.
I found McGillivray’s work to be particularly interesting. McGillivray tries to understand why there is variation in which industries are privileged by governments. She emphasizes that politicians must have both the desire to protect a particular industry and the ability to push through such privileges. She analyses the variance in preferential policies by looking at, first, the geographical distribution of the industry and the electoral rule (“the will”). She then looks at the electoral rule and the strength of parties (“the means”). I am curious, however, about how one could integrate McGillivray’s analysis with one that looks at variation in party strength. I wonder if analyzing such variation would add additional depth to McGillivray’s model, and how variation in party strength would interact with changes in electoral change.
Neither the optimal taxation framework developed by Olson nor Boix’s median voter logic is the right lens to look at the economic effects of political regimes. The first model supposes that autocratic leaders are not accountable to any social group in society and are thus able to tax their populations at higher rates than democracies. In the second politicians have no leeway to propose different policies since the only preferences that matter are those of the median voter.
ReplyDeleteA third, and richer model, would (1) define the economic interests of political actors and pay special attention to their social basis of political support, and (2) analyze how these interests are aggregated into the political system to affect outcomes through different types of political institutions. While both Olson and Boix would agree on both of these simple premises, our third alternative is capable of producing different predictions than the previous models.
In particular, dictators would now be part of the economy, and as such, accountable to some social group, who either benefits or (more likely) loose from taxation, thus pushing in this latter case the tax rate downwards. Secondly, the model would focus on the interests of groups beyond those of the median voter, expecting each political group to influence tax policies by lobbying, making campaign contributions, and other political activities. In sum, depending on the political power of each interest group, and the voting rule, the equilibrium tax rate would be decided. These ideas provide the basis for a more general and richer model to understand the political economy of redistributive policies, and thus, the economic effects of institutions.
*I’ve posted my paper on courseworks.
Boix shows that stable democracies emerge where inequality is low and where capital is mobile (or at least difficult to tax). The choice of political regime depends on the payoff to the poor, middle class and the wealthy, depending on a set of parameters such as capital mobility, state of nature (whether wealthy are strong or not), whether the middle class is an ally, etc. Out of the four possible outcomes (authoritarianism, democracy, revolutionary war and left-wing dictatorship), I will focus on the latter. Extending Boix’s model to present day Latin America, it is possible to use his framework and offer an explanation regarding the region’s transition to left-wing democratic parties (which, on occasion, have been know to behave as left-wing dictatorships, depending on the country). While authoritarian regimes (mainly military, but single-party as well) were common in the region in the post-war years, post-1978, Latin America experienced a third wave of democratization. However, many of these newly established democracies failed in the provision of a public goods, property rights and non-coercive taxes (which Olson suggested is characteristic of democracy). Consequently, high income inequality prevailed in many countries. Additionally, with the region’s overwhelming choice of compulsory voting mechanism, the median voter belongs to lower income deciles. The combination of high inequality and compulsory voting, empowers lower income deciles in their ballot decisions, such that the median voter chooses left-wing candidates promising higher income transfers and improvement in social welfare. An additional aspect to consider would then be how this may create clientelistic incentives. Furthermore, perhaps Boix's framework also offers the possibility of understanding democratic backlashes, as observed in Venezuela and Bolivia.
ReplyDeletePS – On a random note, while looking at Appendix 2.1, I have to disagree with Boix’s classification of Brazil as a democratic regime starting in 1979. While 1979 was the year when democratic liberalization began to take strong hold (with the government granting amnesty to former political prisoners, the removal of AI-5, and also with the reform of political parties), legislative elections still were not “free multiparty elections,” as communist parties were still outlawed. Additionally, General Figueiredo (who took office as President in Jan. 1979) had not been elected by a legislature chosen through free multiparty elections.
Keefer and Vlaicu’s commitment model is a novel and creative contribution to the literature on differences in economic outcomes across democracies and is an excellent first stab at a unified explanation of a number of phenomenon. Unfortunately, the nature of the commitment variable poses a complex problem for falsifying and testing the theory for two reasons. First, commitment is a notoriously difficult variable to measure. Second, weakly specified empirical strategies such as the historical one used in the paper do not clearly imply a falsification strategy for the theory and cannot distinguish between observationally equivalent outcomes in the absence of a clear measure of commitment. Both of these points can be illustrated by extending the British example given in the paper. Keefer and Vlaicu argue that Britain does not fall into a development trap largely because it can make credible commitments and this is demonstrated by the willingness of politicians to pursue reform. Although willingness to promote reform at the margin prior to the 1832 Reform Act is a stronger reason to believe English politicians were credible, as was the clean up of patronage sources, this may reflect other strategic imperatives or a desire to foreclose alternate electoral strategies to potentially powerful opponents. Such strategic choices are observationally equivalent to a commitment theory, but do not rely on commitment itself.
ReplyDeleteThese problems illustrate that commitment may be, at best, a shallow variable (in Kitschelt’s parlance)- one that stands in for something more fundamental. The formerly Communist countries offer a potentially powerful set of cases with which to explore this relationship because their institutional frameworks were highly similar at the start of transitions. Variation in patron-client relationships should therefore not be a cause of the previous regimes’ institutional set up (except perhaps in Poland, where the regime had a stronger military component than elsewhere). I suspect that such an analysis will reveal the central role of strong opposition movements to the previous regime and of previous experience with patronage and clientalistic politics that establishes clientalism as a “norm”. Most importantly, however, such a study should avoid being astrategic and explore why winners, as well as those that lose in initial elections, continue to avoid patronage relationships even after the foundational elections to cement, or improve, their positions.
Among this week’s readings, I am especially impressed by McGillivray’s work that attempts to explain democratic governments’ preferential policies on some particular industries. She argues that it is the joint effects of an industry’s geography and electoral system that determine their political opportunities to gain industrial assistance. I found her analytical framework of the “two-stage process” appropriate to unfold the interactions of her several explanatory factors: in the first stage, industry’s geographic distribution combined with the electoral rule induce legislators’ preference over which industries they want to assist; in the second stage, the electoral rule and the strength of parties determine how legislators’ preferences are aggregated into actual policy. Such a framework with focus on agents’ both preferences and capabilities of behaviors should be useful in political economic analysis of policies. My only concern about this analytical framework is that the preference-capability division is not conducive to dynamic analysis, though it simplifies multiple factors’ complex effects on policies in comparative static study. From a dynamic perspective, agents’ present preferences can be institutionalized into rules and laws which in turn affect their capabilities and future preferences. In other words, the institutional constrains that affect agents’ actual behaviors in the second stage are taken as given and fixed in MaGillivray’s framework. This disposal risks in preventing the cyclical causality between agents’ preference and capabilities from being fully uncovered in analysis.
ReplyDeleteI was particularly interested and somewhat troubled by Boix' text on Democracy and Redistribution. Firstly, at a conceptual level, Boix’s creation of a unified model capable of explaining the emergence and transition of regimes on the basis of static variables and stylized power structures (capital-owners vs. non-capital holders or wealthy vs. poor) struck me as somewhat optimistic and simplistic. Boix is certainly ambitious in his endeavor, claiming to offer explanations for the existence of democracy across the centuries – from classical Athens, Middle and early Modern Ages to the early nineteenth century and the present (Boix 2003, 20). But such a model would appear unrealistic if it leaves no role for randomness or political agency – recognizing the simple fact that actors will behave differently, and that events will differentially impact regimes in different places and under different circumstances due to a wide variety of exogenous and uncontrolled-for influences.
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly, Boix does recognize the complementary exogenous and endogenous debates initiated by various academics (Boix 2003, 29), but ultimately discards the importance of ‘long-run variables’. He appears to suggest that these influences are encapsulated in the model – through their influence on equity and capital mobility, and their impact on information flows that contribute to his third variable ‘distribution of political resources’. My problems with this approach are twofold. It attempts to portray a highly dynamic process of regime change in terms of a static model - an approach that is intuitively unsound. One also quickly gets the sense that this third, somewhat loosely defined variable of ‘distribution of political resources’ serves as a ‘catch all’ designed to rationalize all non-conforming data.
I'll also focus on Boix. I find his model to be enormously helpful, and to provide a clearer, more direct relationship between the processes we have seen coming together with economic development, and democracy. There is a more intuitive flow in the causal logic of how inequality and capital mobility work toward and/or against democratization or breakdown, and how these elements can play against one another in some cases to land states in an uncertain range in terms of what transitions to expect -- in these cases, it seems, he defers to political power held by various factions.
ReplyDeleteI also find it very helpful in helping us understand why the 'natural resource curse' works so effectively toward tyranny in some places--those with high inequality, while natural resources have no damaging effects in in others--and again, this seems like an intuitive step, and Boix has helpfully formalized it and analyzed it across such a broad range of time and cases.
I must admit, though, to being unclear on Boix's causal logic in terms of the poor and wealthy classes' calculations as to whether to mobilize (and launch what may be a revolutionary fight) or whether to repress. He states at one point early on that "the cost of repression is said to be low whenever the wealthy efficiently suppress any revolt by the poor. By contrast, whenever the rich fail to suppress a revolution of the poor, the costs of repression can be thought of as high" (p. 26). This seems very circular to me -- by this logic, it is only information failure that can cause the rich to attempt to suppress and fail, since they will only attempt it if they believe the costs to be low. In contrast to the first statement, Boix describes some general conditions where the costs of repression are low and high -- "whenever the lower classes overcome their collective action problems and organize in political parties and trade unions or when they live in highly mountainous terrain... the costs of repression become high". Aren't these two statements of low/high costs of repression different?
* I've also posted a paper on Courseworks.
On reading Boix one must certainly question his assertion about the effect of high inequality on the chances of democratization. Examples such as those of Latin American countries, where inequality has been persistent , yet over the last few decades democratic regimes have emerged seem to run counter to this general claim. Of course, throughout the last century, countries in the region have seen regime instability with democratic and quasi-democratic regimes giving place to authoritarian ones, and this would seem to support his thesis. Yet, without decreased inequality this instability has been replaced in many countries with democracy that seems to be in little danger of slipping back into authoritarianism. Perhaps elites have found the cost of repression to be too high. As Boix mentions, capital mobility may have tempered claims for redistribution from the poor, thus allaying the fears of elite. This does not seem to tell the whole story, however. Also, his argument rests on the assertion that the poor in fact demand redistribution. Is this the case? Studies have indeed found little evidence that democracies have a higher tax take than authoritarian governments (Cheibub, 1998); others have found little relationship between views about the unfairness about income distribution and desire for higher taxes and welfare spending (Latinobarometro). In the case of Latin America, the overall low tax rates seem inconsistent with his claims.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the recent surge of leftist parties in the region might lend support to the claim that poorer sectors are demanding greater redistribution and welfare spending, although some of these have arguably come to power precisely after moderating their 'leftist' demands.
I have posted an essay on courseworks. Amy
ReplyDeleteBoix’s argument focuses on the relationship between asset specificity and inequality as the primary driver of the demand by the lower classes for democracy. His analysis of the nexus between these two characteristics specifically notes that high levels of one or the other by itself is not deterministic. It is, rather, the combination of the two that produces the conditions for either democracy, authoritarianism or civil war. Mostly unexplored, however, is the heterogeneity of democracies in terms of representation. If we are to take seriously Olson’s argument that there are perks of stationary (versus roving) bandits, and that spontaneous democratic transitions (i.e., those not driven by exogenous factors) are the result of a relatively dispassionate lack of other authoritarian options, why should we accept Boix’s assumption that the lower classes have a positive preference for democracy?
ReplyDeleteIn fact, if democracy is preferred by the poor for its redistributive properties, how do we incorporate variations in representation and redistribution that result from such mundane details of constitutional design as electoral rules. For example, Persson and Tabellini point out that PR systems encourage politicians to target state benefits more broadly, while plurality voting produces more targeted redistribution. McGillivray also finds difference in redistributive patterns resulting from different electoral systems. Strong-party majoritarian systems are more inclined to target narrower interests that are strong-party PR systems. Furthermore, both Persson and Tabellini as well as Keefer, et al. underscore that “bad” democracies contain institutional elements that may either encourage inefficient, and less broadly targeted forms of redistribution. How could Boix’s model take into consideration such variations in democracies, given that it’s plausible that persistent incompetence or inequality in democratic systems could lead to unrest by the supposedly pro-democracy lower classes?
I find the argument proposed by Boix regarding the impact of economic inequality and factor mobility/specificity on democratic transitions quite convincing. His argument acknowledges the strategic nature of interaction between the elites and the masses in society. For example, his argument is able to incorporate the concerns of the rich, who want to maintain the status quo and avoid extensive policies of economic redistribution, with those of the poor, who want to initiate redistribution peacefully or violently. His theory seems to best describe democratic transitions and civil conflict in Central American countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala.
ReplyDeleteThe political and economic implications of steadily increasing neoliberal economic globalization will serve as an interesting test of the various components of his argument. For example, economic globalization has become an increasingly popular topic of discussion among scholars studying civil conflict because of its capacity to initiate a redistribution of resources within a society and increase inequality/grievances. An interesting aspect of the current globalization debate is that many policies of trade and price liberalization are not always enacted willingly by the government. In some instances, these policies are a result of conditionality agreements enforced by international financial institutions such as the I.M.F. and the World Bank. Under these conditions, where negative redistribution and increased inequality, has exogenous origins will the same dynamic between the rich and the poor be the same? Will the poor threaten revolution or civil conflict to address inequality for which their government may be not be fully responsible? Also, what about instances in which these same types of organizations call for forced democratization (even under conditions in which his theory would seem inapplicable)?
Theoretically, globalization should continue to increase the mobility of capital, which should make dictators or autocrats more amenable to negotiations with disadvantaged sectors of the population. However, as mentioned above inequality may be on the rise as well. This begs the question as to which causal mechanism (factor specificity/mobility or inequality) is more important? What makes one more important than the other in certain environments?
Also, Boix’s theory does not discuss varying forms of democratization. For example, some of the other readings, such as those by Persson and Tabellini (2004) address how different constitutional structures and electoral rules impact economic policy and the distribution of resources. Based on the fact that the rich, the middle class, and the poor are all strategic actors, will they take these issues into consideration when engaging in institutional engineering? For example, will an autocrat favor a presidential system (with reduced veto players) as opposed to a parliamentary system? Will there be a preference for proportional representation or single-member district electoral rules?
An investigation into how the role of international financial institutions impacts the decision-making calculus of power-holding elites as well as a discussion of the impact of his theory on democratic form would be a valuable extension of Boix’s work.
One thing I like about the McGillivray piece is her writing strategy. She uses an example that was the least likely to receive protection but was actually heavily protected (British cutlery) to refute the existing theories. But with respect to the theory, I wish she has talked more about the institutional causes of a weak or strong party system, which might somewhat result from the electoral rules—one of her independent variables. For example, a majoritarian system with “multi-member district” plus “single nontransferable vote” (Japan before 1994 and Taiwan before 2008) had led party members to compete with each other and cultivate their own constituencies and thus a weak party system. The protection is therefore fragmentary and focuses on organized groups. This condition has been altered following the change of electoral rules. So, is it all right methodologically if party strength and electoral rules are not mutually exclusive?
ReplyDeleteMcGillivray’s invention of stock market data is problematic at first glance (since we did not read this part). First, unless we have a very good idea about the percentage of the domestic market these companies (traded on the stock market) hold, we can’t be sure if they are representative. Second is the noisiness she herself points out. For instance, the GM’s stock price is very likely to respond to Japan’s protectionist policy with regard to Toyota. It’s too noisy and I’m not sure how she could justify that.
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ReplyDeleteFiona McGillivray presents a compelling argument in Privileging Industry on why some industries are more successful than others in gaining protection. However, I question the extent to which she is self-selecting her analysis to fit her theory. Why, in her book, written in 2004, does she rely on data primarily from the 1970s and 1980s? Her explanation – that in the 1970s, the tariff was still the primary means of assistance – is unsatisfying. She does not stylize her work as a historical narrative so I find it somewhat puzzling why she relies on such old data to “test” her theory. If tariffs are no longer the primary means of assistance and if her analysis does not control for alternative measures, how does her analysis then advance the debate? Her analysis would have been stronger if she did more of a cross-national analysis consisting of data spanning a wider span of years and controlling for alternative measures. Moreover, I found some of her findings surprising. In her analysis, she places so much emphasis on marginality of the district as being pivotal to whether the industry receives trade protection in strong majoritarian systems; I was thus surprised to find that it was district comparative disadvantage and the number of districts in the state that had a greater degree of statistical significance than marginal districts in Canada. Indeed, in Table 3.2. (industry level model), industrial concentration in a marginal district is only statistically significant at .10. I also thinks she underestimates the extent to which marginality can play in politics in so-called “weak” majoritarian systems like the United States. In her analysis, she assumes policy positions on other policies are fixed (47). However, vote trading may go on much more than she assumes, particularly across issues. For instance, Republican senators have an interest in seeing Republican senators reelected. Thus, they may be willing to give more trade benefits to a “marginal” Republican state like New Hampshire or Maine to keep them in the Republican column come election time even if the industry is not necessarily geographically dispersed.
ReplyDeleteThe readings this week are encapsulated by the phrase 'democracy in action'; it seems to me however, that the readings are in fact a series of studies in the failure of democracies to deliver efficient or desirable outcomes for citizens. Broadly speaking, there is a ubiquity of principal-agent problems, informational deficits, and pareto suboptimal outcomes from democratic institutions. Given this, I argue that a major project for political scientists should be the design and characterisation of systems that, though they may not eliminate rents, improper incentives and principal-agent problems, ex ante, will incorporate the facility for actors to minimize these problems where they become most egregious. Given the chronic imperfection of political systems, political scientists should devote as much time to the study of the means by which institutions are reformed from within as they do to the study of institutions themselves.
ReplyDeletePersson and Tabellini write that constitution design constitutes a tradeoff between accountability and representation. If we use majoritarian voting, we can dislodge poorly performing governments with ease and alacrity and election time, but with a loss of representation of diversity of opinion.Similarly, proportional representation can result in a breadth of opinion being represented in parliament, but the concordant greater fluidity of party systems makes for poor accountability. Similar tradeoffs are highlighted by Persson and Tabellini between larger and smaller districts, between presidential and parliamentary systems. In effect, the upshot of the Persson and Tabellini is that not only can political science not yeild a blueprint for a 'perfect' democracy, but it is neither capable of outlining a 'best' form of democracy either. It can only profer varying types of 'better'.
Similarly imperfect conclusions are highlighted elsewhere in the readings. Fiona McGillivray outlines the responsiveness of parliamentarians to the concerns of their constituents, but argues that varying institutional set-ups, coupled with electoral competition and the location of industry, lead to inefficiency in trade policies. Rather than choosing a collectively most efficient policy, and effecting transfers between those who benefit or suffer from it, policymakers choose to rather transfer via smaller, more inefficient protectionist policies. Olson, arguing in favour of democracy over dictatorship, acknowledges the inevitable rents sought by officeholders and certain demographics, but argues that these rents are less than those accrued in other political systems.
I find these results troubling. While the importance of the public and private goods provided by states everywhere is obvious, and the necessity of centralised, delegated government is clear, are the above-described inefficiencies a necessary or inevitable consequence? Are principal-agent problems and information rents necessarily pervasive? Can we design institutions that endogenously control these problems and mitigate them? What would such institutions look like?
I was particularly interested by the question of redistribution associated with democracy. While McGillivray and Boix look at the different geometries of redistribution and economic development depending on the democratic practices, I was particularly interested by Olson’s piece. There is the assumption that the democratic regimes have higher legitimacy than autocratic regimes. While reading the Olson’s piece, I realized that this assumption may be challenged in the developing world.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the legitimacy of a British style democracy in an African country that inherited a territory with fragmented identities and little to no historical legitimacy? Some autocracies may have a legitimacy –religious for example- that would be more inclusive than a democracy struggling to shape a common future. In some ways, the Olkon’s example of Indonesia shows higher success when only half of the population is involved in the decision-process (women project). But there are also numerous examples in the informal settlements around the developing cities of “stationary bandit” (mafia type of organization) filling the gap of weak democratic institutions, providing a more stable situation to promote economic development.
The type of democracy discussed in numerous articles –participatory and deliberative- is usually based on a representation of the legitimacy of the regime that has been built on previous autocracies and territorial constructs –nation and identity building-. I am not sure that the notion of redistribution and economic development can be linked to the type of regime itself. I would see more as a “cultural” component: what the people are ready to accept depending on the idea they have of the common interest.
McGillivray provides a very coherent and thoroughly argued analysis of the complex linkages between industrial, investment, and trade policies. Her core argument focuses on how industry geography, electoral rules, and political party strength impact international trade policy. In particular she argues that in countries featuring majoritarian single-member districts and strong parties, like the UK, industries located in swing districts are likely to receive protectionist benefits, while in countries with a majoritarian system and weak parties, like the U.S., less locally concentrated industries and industries with strong representation in government receive favorable treatment in trade policy. In countries with proportional representation and strong parties, such as Germany, coalitions represent the interests of core supporters. McGillivray illustrates her argument in the context of well fitting examples such as the cutlery industry. The analysis would have been considerably strengthened however by a more detailed discussion of the case of proportional representation and weak parties in order to delineate the effects of the causal variables. Furthermore, some of the measurements in the analysis’ operationalization seem to fall short of the complexity of the issue at hand. For example, using tariffs as a measurement of protection potentially skews the results, given that while actual tariff levels have declined over the past decades, governments have employed several other strategies to protect domestic industries.
ReplyDeleteIn "Democracy and Redistribution" Carles Boix constructs an elegant model to explain the survival of authoritarianism and transitions to stable democracy. Boix posits that social inequality and capital mobility are key determinants of transitions to democracy. By appealing to the median voter, democracies tend to involve greater income redistribution (i.e. taxation and expropriation) than authoritarian regimes. Thus, when inequality is high and/or when capital is not mobile, elites will resist the expansion of the democratic franchise for fear of greater distribution. While the costs of repressing democratic demands may be great, the projected costs for the elites of higher taxation under democracy may be even greater. Conversely, when inequality is low, or capital highly mobile, elites will be less concerned about taxation.
ReplyDeleteMy comments will focus on two flaws in his argument: the cost of repression and regime transition under left-wing and communist dictatorships. First, the cost of repression plays a determinant role in Boix's model. If the costs of repression and extremely low, elites may be more able and willing to forestall democratization regardless or levels of economic inequality or capital mobility. Boix treats the cost of repression as exogenous. However, could the cost of repression also be tied to international factors? Foreign states may bolster authoritarian regimes (by providing weapons, funding, and political support) in order to prevent expropriation of foreign investments and the rise of ideologically hostile governments. We would expect support for authoritarian regimes to be greatest from countries with extensive and specific investments such as factories, mines, and oil fields. International ideological conflict as well as the degree of foreign asset specific investment should thus be taken into account in Boix's model since it can play a determinant role in regime transition.
Second, left-wing and communist dictatorships do not fit comfortably into Boix's framework. Boix states that under "left-wing or communist dictatorships, the poor rule after expropriating all of the wealthy's capital" (23). Yet, how can Boix's model explain the existence (and persistence) of communist authoritarian regimes where a greater degree of economic equality should be present? Indeed, in his conclusion Boix casts doubt on the prospects of democracy in China due to "massive internal differences, now exacerbated by growing income disparities" (239). This begs the question of how one defines these political systems. Is China a communist state? If so, why are we seeing growing economic inequality and what does this say about Boix's assumptions? Where do other states, such a Chavez's Venezuela fit into Boix's typology? In short, Boix leaves many unanswered questions regarding the behavior of left-wing and communist dictatorships.
-Simon Collard-Wexler
The idea that economic development and political regime types are related has a considerable historical pedigree in social science, yet the precise causal mechanism(s) that underpins the high correlation between economic development and democracy remains, at best, an open debate and, at worst, a “black box”. Boix makes an impressive attempt to advance our understanding.
ReplyDeleteI found his theory intuitively appealing and constructive, because it offers plausible micro-foundations for the observed correlation between development and democracy. The game-theoretical model that he develops in the book is clear and quite persuasive. Other comments have done a good job of enumerating them, so I will not go into much detail describing them here. In essence, he argues that political regimes (and transitions) are the outcome of the preferences and resources of actors in a given society in a given historical period. Thus, he isolates income inequality (or distribution), asset specificity, and distribution of political resources – the costs of repression are particularly important here - as the key variables driving the emergence of democracies, or lack thereof. This is important because a crucial point that emerges from the literature on the subject is that economic development is correlated with many other trends and one or more of these may be the causal mechanism that accounts for the apparent relationship between development and democracy. Boix shows us what they might be.
I will briefly touch upon one of the concerns that I have with his theory, however. Firstly, it does not strike me as obvious that a preference for democracy is as instrumental as his theory propounds it to be. Is it beyond the realm of possibility that citizens may view it as an end in itself? Moreover, if it is principally instrumental, which may well be the case, it is not clear to me that a democratic regime will deliver the desired amount of redistribution and thereby diminish social inequality. Clearly, some redistribution can be expected to occur under a democratic regime and it may therefore be preferable to the authoritarian one that preceded it. Yet, has Boix under-theorized variation among types of democratic regimes? Typically, for democracy to generate equality, citizens must convert their political and civil rights into social gains. However, there is some distance that must be travelled from purely “formal” democracy, which putatively secures and upholds such rights, to “participatory” democracy and, in some cases, ultimately to “social” democracy, which aims to equalize social and economic outcomes. That may well depend, inter alia, as noted in other comments, on the institutional structure of a given democratic regime. The distribution of political resources also seems especially relevant in this regard.
I found McGillivray’s work to be particularly interesting. McGillivray tries to understand why there is variation in which industries are privileged by governments. She emphasizes that politicians must have both the desire to protect a particular industry and the ability to push through such privileges. She analyses the variance in preferential policies by looking at, first, the geographical distribution of the industry and the electoral rule (“the will”). She then looks at the electoral rule and the strength of parties (“the means”). I am curious, however, about how one could integrate McGillivray’s analysis with one that looks at variation in party strength. I wonder if analyzing such variation would add additional depth to McGillivray’s model, and how variation in party strength would interact with changes in electoral change.
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