EITM: Political Institutions and Democratic Stability

University Of Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

The project intends to examine the impact that different constitutional structures have on the stability of democracies conditional on the underlying economic and social characteristics of the country in which those institutions operate. The project bridges the two main approaches (sociological and institutionalist) currently in place in empirical democratic theory. According to the sociological approach, the successful introduction of a democratic regime hinges on certain underlying societal conditions such as a given level of economic development (and a correlated set of cultural practices, educational values and/or economic structures) . By contrast, neoinstitutionalists, mainly influenced by the recent formal literature that stresses the equilibrium-inducing role of institutions, claim that a 'well-written' constitution contributes in a substantial manner to securing democratic stability. Upon reflection, both schools are incomplete for the opposite reasons. The sociological strand of the literature sidesteps the potential impact that different sorts of constitutional arrangements may have on the process of democratic consolidation. In turn, the neoinstitutionalist literature, which has been built precisely with the goal of determining the impact of institutional arrangements, does without taking into account the preexisting economic and social conditions in which institutions operate -- that is, it looks at institutions as if they were operating in a social vacuum. The proposal, which builds upon previous work done by the principal investigator, aims at developing and testing a fully specified model that integrates both the economic and institutional factors that determine the stability of democracies. This implies: 1. The derivation of a formal model that, after characterizing political agents with varying economic traits (i.e. level and types of wealth) and organizational strengths, examines how their strategies (over the choice of political regime) are influenced by different constitutional set-ups. 2. The creation of a complete data set classifying countries by types of constitutions (electoral rules, structure of executive, legislative, etc.) for the period from 1800 to 2000. 3. The validation of the formal model employing the new data set. In terms of its intellectual merit, the proposal will further our understanding of the effects of different institutions on the viability and stability of democracies. It will also provide a more fine-grained data base of the variation in constitutional structures in the contemporary period. In terms of its broader impact, the project will reinforce the new comparativist approach based on precise theoretical work and rigorous empirical test. The project should have an impact on other disciplines (such as constitutional law and legal economics) and among policy analysts engaged in constitutional engineering.