Top Highlights

• fundamental question in political science and political economy is which factors determine the institutions of collective decision making (i.e., the “political institutions”). In tackling this question, a natural initial distinction is between democratic and nondemocratic institutions. Why is it that some countries are democracies, where there are ...
• Our approach is “economic-based” in the sense that we stress individual economic incentives as determining political attitudes, and we assume people behave strategically in the sense of game theory. We emphasize the fundamental importance of conflict. Different groups, sometimes social classes, have opposing interests over political outcomes, and t...
• Political institutions play a central role in solving problems of commitment by affecting the future distribution of de jure political
• power.
• Why does a nondemocratic elite ever democratize? Since democracy will bring a shift of power in favor of the citizens, why would the elite ever create such a set of institutions? We argue that this only occurs because the disenfranchised citizens can threaten the elite and force it to make concessions. These threats can take the form of strikes, de...