Título: ECONOMIC ORIGINS OF DICTATORSHIP AND DEMOCRACY
Autor: ACEMOGLU, DARON & ROBINSON, JAMES A.
Año: 2006
Género: ECONOMÍA Y FINANZAS
Formato: PDF
Nobel Prize in Economics 2024.
This book develops a framework for analyzing the creation and consolidation of democracy. Different social groups prefer different political institutions because of the way they allocate political power and resources. Thus, democracy is preferred by the majority of citizens but opposed by elites. Dictatorship, nevertheless, is not stable when citizens can threaten social disorder and revolution. In response, when the costs of repression are sufficiently high and promises of concessions are not credible, elites may be forced to create democracy. By democratizing, elites credibily transfer political power to the citizens, ensuring social stability. Democracy consolidates when elites do not have a strong incentive to overthrow it. These processes depend on (1) the strength of civil society, (2) the structure of political institutions, (3) the nature of political and economic crises, (4) the level of economic inequality, (5) the structure of the economy, and (6) the form and extent of globalization.