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Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
What forces lead to democracy's creation? Why does it sometimes consolidate only to collapse at other times? Written by two of the foremost authorities on this subject in the world, this volume develops a framework for analyzing the creation and consolidation of democracy. It revolutionizes scholarship on the factors underlying government and popular movements toward democracy or dictatorship. Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson argue that different social groups prefer different political institutions because of the way they allocate political power and resources. Their book, the subject of a four-day seminar at Harvard's Center for Basic Research in the Social Sciences, was also the basis for the Walras-Bowley lecture at the joint meetings of the European Economic Association and Econometric Society in 2003 and is the winner of the John Bates Clark Medal. Daron Acemoglu is Charles P. Kindleberger Professor of Applied Economics at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received the 2005 John Bates Clark Medal awarded by the American Economic Association as the best economist working in the United States under age 40. He is the author of the forthcoming text Introduction to Modern Economic Growth. James A. Robinson is Professor of Government at Harvard University. He is a Harvard Faculty Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and a member of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research’s Program on Institutions, Organizations, and Growth. He is coeditor with Jared Diamond of the forthcoming book Natural Experiments in History.
434 pages, Paperback
First published September 29, 2001
About the author
Daron Acemoğlu
101 books2,133 followersDaron Acemoglu is the Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2005 he won the prestigious John Bates Clark medal, awarded to the best economist under 40.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
July 26, 2022
کتاب حاوی بینش زیادی در مورد دموکراتیک شدن هست. برای خواندن عمومی لزوما راحت نیست ولی میشه یک کتاب درسی باشه برای درس اقتصاد سیاسی دوره کارشناسی.
September 23, 2020
This was a very hard read for me even when I have decided to ignore mathematical formulations. I do not believe there are elites and the poor getting together to make rational decisions using Greek letters. However what the book provides is a general framework on how classes of people act and middle class creates complications and can in some circumstances solidify democracy and in certain cases make alliances with the elite. To me the book gave a more formal framework on the poor people in US making an alliance with the elites in order to stop their income decay due to globalization. The poor people would tolerate taxcuts for the rich as long as the decrease in real incomes in the poor segment could be stopgapped through a change in international relations. This is probably because the transfers from increased income to middle and the elite class did not happen. Of course there are important issues of ideology but these important concepts are harder for economists to take seriously. I believe this is why they end up missing the real world. The authors seem to wear only the liberal economics glasses of the American school where everything is to be explained with income distribution.
March 25, 2022
I surely didn’t follow all that algebra – I’d love to get it fully once, but now it’s far beyond my capabilities. However, the ideas are always explained in plain words, too, and are actually relatively simple and easy to follow. Acemoğlu & Robinson construct several games – revolution, repression, redistribution within nondemocracy, democratization, consolidation, coup – within society divided along income lines, with the simplest of economic preferences: poor want the rich to redistribute, rich do not want to redistribute, middle-class (introduced later in the book) wants to redistribute somehow. Importantly, democratization happens in response to credible revolutionary threat – and it's this revolutionary threat that sets the games into motion (although A&R admit that the gap here is that they don’t analyze revolutionary collective action in particular and how that credible revolutionary threat is established – they take it as a given that there can be such threat).
In chapter 9, they endogenize the distribution of income by introducing sources of income: land, capital and labor, respectively. This is where they link their work most closely to Moore’s classic which they paraphrase in the title, and actually almost everything from Moore holds in A&R’s model: landed aristocracies are villains, bourgeois/middle class is crucial for consolidation, etc. In this way they do indeed provide economic microfoundations for Moore.
Throughout the book, A&R develop – and formalize through their game-theoretical model – many theses that make sense intuitively, too. To list some examples: too great an inequality makes democracy (which involves redistribution) costly, therefore repression is preferable, meaning that too inequal societies are harder to democratize. Consolidation of democracy is more easily to happen through concessions to elites – that is, poor get some democracy, but not the democracy they want. Landed elite has much more to lose in redistribution, therefore agricultural societies are harder to democratize than industrial. Middle class may act as buffer between rich and poor, cunningly transferring its allegiances, therefore being crucial to consolidation of democracy. Abundance of skilled labor makes repression more costly (put bluntly: skilled workers murdered in purges are hardest to replace compared to machines or land), therefore educated society makes democratization likelier. Globalization – and already financial integration (the idea that financial integration already should be conducive to democracy is a very interesting argument) – both lowers the costs of democratization (allowing rich to soften the impact of redistribution by capital flight) and increases the costs of repression (destruction of property puts the rich in worse position vis-à-vis global competition), and therefore promotes democratization.
As A&R admit, these all are just models to be empirically tested; suggestions about globalization promoting democracy are especially tentative and looking at China today – integrated, and yet as repressive as ever – one feels that there must be some other mechanisms at work, too (surely A&R have already addressed this somewhere, I just need to check it).
Overall, however, they provide some interesting justification for the thesis that development of capitalism goes hand in hand with development of democracy (tough pill to swallow for a leftist, but hey, I’m trying not to be dogmatic), and yet this only happens up to the point – that is, rich elites can ultimately make democracy work in their favor.
This all said, I wonder about the usefulness of this abstract mathematical-modelling approach. What I will write further is quite imprecise and maybe just bullshit, but whatever, let me try: in thinking about A&R as compared to Moore, I’m thinking about the implicit notion of temporality operative in their thought. Math has peculiar temporality which is absolutely regular and repetitive; application of mathematical models onto social science will produce models which will be tested empirically, and if they fail – and they always ultimately fail – they will be refined further; ultimately, however, this refining consists of regrouping the most primal, abstracted inputs. Rich on one side, poor on the other, and you work from there – and the work is therefore always the same. Nothing really new can appear – only details are altered. The models are eternal, introduced sub specie aeternatis.
Moore’s historico-philosophical account grapples, on the other hand, constantly with all the messy details; it’s vertigo-inducing in how it tries to identify patterns in vastly different fates of landlords, peasants, capitalists and workers across countries, cultures and centuries. Despite best efforts it often fails in rigor and you’ll ask “but why?!” quite often, but in the end the difference is that Moore’s not just producing model, or maybe not producing a model at all, but he tries to identify precisely where we stand now, too, and where do we go from here. The temporality he operates in is lived (German would say it’s “Erlebnis”) – and as such this lived time jumps in violent leaps. Revolution is not a feature of a model, but actual eruption of violence that is felt. Moore’s point of view is situated within the same historical flow he analyzes; it’s ultimately reflective. It’s not repetitive - what you do once may not be repeated again. First movers come away with richness and guilt, while the losers may never recover. That’s why he returns time and again to the issue of actual violence that took place; why he emphasizes the violence required even to establish the democracy. So it’s true that agrarian societies are less prone to democratization – but Moore emphasizes, therefore, how democratization was built on enormous violence towards the peasant class, especially in Britain. This violence is completely lost in abstract mathematical modelling, which in a sense is an endgame of liberal mindset that Moore seems to dislike in his book, too.
So, both Moore and A&R actually arrive, from quite different ends, to very similar solutions, but whereby in Moore I felt like I learned actually something about ourselves – and myself –, and quite painfully, in A&R I felt like I was equipped with sufficiently justified sets of theses and notions in order to be smug interlocutor in non-committal conversations, where all my responses would begin with “well, actually…”. In short: Moore teaches me something, while A&R train me. Moore makes me think – he makes me want to look at all those loose ends hanging there shamelessly; with A&R I feel like I should just memorize all this, because it parades its “practical usefulness” and falsifiability so persistently (and therefore when I think, I only think about the category of “usefulness” as such). I can thus imagine a policymaker who would arrive at very similar policies inspired both by Moore and A&R (though A&R are surely much more conducive to this thing called policymaking), but Moore would, as a bonus, make them suffer with guilt and self-doubt. And that’s how it should be.
In chapter 9, they endogenize the distribution of income by introducing sources of income: land, capital and labor, respectively. This is where they link their work most closely to Moore’s classic which they paraphrase in the title, and actually almost everything from Moore holds in A&R’s model: landed aristocracies are villains, bourgeois/middle class is crucial for consolidation, etc. In this way they do indeed provide economic microfoundations for Moore.
Throughout the book, A&R develop – and formalize through their game-theoretical model – many theses that make sense intuitively, too. To list some examples: too great an inequality makes democracy (which involves redistribution) costly, therefore repression is preferable, meaning that too inequal societies are harder to democratize. Consolidation of democracy is more easily to happen through concessions to elites – that is, poor get some democracy, but not the democracy they want. Landed elite has much more to lose in redistribution, therefore agricultural societies are harder to democratize than industrial. Middle class may act as buffer between rich and poor, cunningly transferring its allegiances, therefore being crucial to consolidation of democracy. Abundance of skilled labor makes repression more costly (put bluntly: skilled workers murdered in purges are hardest to replace compared to machines or land), therefore educated society makes democratization likelier. Globalization – and already financial integration (the idea that financial integration already should be conducive to democracy is a very interesting argument) – both lowers the costs of democratization (allowing rich to soften the impact of redistribution by capital flight) and increases the costs of repression (destruction of property puts the rich in worse position vis-à-vis global competition), and therefore promotes democratization.
As A&R admit, these all are just models to be empirically tested; suggestions about globalization promoting democracy are especially tentative and looking at China today – integrated, and yet as repressive as ever – one feels that there must be some other mechanisms at work, too (surely A&R have already addressed this somewhere, I just need to check it).
Overall, however, they provide some interesting justification for the thesis that development of capitalism goes hand in hand with development of democracy (tough pill to swallow for a leftist, but hey, I’m trying not to be dogmatic), and yet this only happens up to the point – that is, rich elites can ultimately make democracy work in their favor.
This all said, I wonder about the usefulness of this abstract mathematical-modelling approach. What I will write further is quite imprecise and maybe just bullshit, but whatever, let me try: in thinking about A&R as compared to Moore, I’m thinking about the implicit notion of temporality operative in their thought. Math has peculiar temporality which is absolutely regular and repetitive; application of mathematical models onto social science will produce models which will be tested empirically, and if they fail – and they always ultimately fail – they will be refined further; ultimately, however, this refining consists of regrouping the most primal, abstracted inputs. Rich on one side, poor on the other, and you work from there – and the work is therefore always the same. Nothing really new can appear – only details are altered. The models are eternal, introduced sub specie aeternatis.
Moore’s historico-philosophical account grapples, on the other hand, constantly with all the messy details; it’s vertigo-inducing in how it tries to identify patterns in vastly different fates of landlords, peasants, capitalists and workers across countries, cultures and centuries. Despite best efforts it often fails in rigor and you’ll ask “but why?!” quite often, but in the end the difference is that Moore’s not just producing model, or maybe not producing a model at all, but he tries to identify precisely where we stand now, too, and where do we go from here. The temporality he operates in is lived (German would say it’s “Erlebnis”) – and as such this lived time jumps in violent leaps. Revolution is not a feature of a model, but actual eruption of violence that is felt. Moore’s point of view is situated within the same historical flow he analyzes; it’s ultimately reflective. It’s not repetitive - what you do once may not be repeated again. First movers come away with richness and guilt, while the losers may never recover. That’s why he returns time and again to the issue of actual violence that took place; why he emphasizes the violence required even to establish the democracy. So it’s true that agrarian societies are less prone to democratization – but Moore emphasizes, therefore, how democratization was built on enormous violence towards the peasant class, especially in Britain. This violence is completely lost in abstract mathematical modelling, which in a sense is an endgame of liberal mindset that Moore seems to dislike in his book, too.
So, both Moore and A&R actually arrive, from quite different ends, to very similar solutions, but whereby in Moore I felt like I learned actually something about ourselves – and myself –, and quite painfully, in A&R I felt like I was equipped with sufficiently justified sets of theses and notions in order to be smug interlocutor in non-committal conversations, where all my responses would begin with “well, actually…”. In short: Moore teaches me something, while A&R train me. Moore makes me think – he makes me want to look at all those loose ends hanging there shamelessly; with A&R I feel like I should just memorize all this, because it parades its “practical usefulness” and falsifiability so persistently (and therefore when I think, I only think about the category of “usefulness” as such). I can thus imagine a policymaker who would arrive at very similar policies inspired both by Moore and A&R (though A&R are surely much more conducive to this thing called policymaking), but Moore would, as a bonus, make them suffer with guilt and self-doubt. And that’s how it should be.
May 31, 2018
خود کتاب و متن انگلیسی آن بسیار روان و ارزشمند است، ولی مترجم نتوانسته است گیرایی و روان بودن متن اصلی را به خوبی در ترجمه منعکس کند و به خصوص در انتقال مفاهیم در بخشهای ریاضی ضعیف عمل کرده است.
April 19, 2020
The book aims to provide a crystal clear analysis of why some countries establish democracies and maintain them with consolidation through political institutions while others fall into nondemocracies or shift between democratic and nondemocratic regimes, without any consolidation. In order to get this crystal clear analysis, the research relies on game theory, which in fact is the strength and the weakness of the book at the same time. In order to build a game theory model, first of the conceptual framework relies on three major binaries between democracy-nondemocracy, elite-masses and rich and poor. Dynamic analysis and game theory may also enable the use of a spectrum of democracy and nondemocracy to overcome the technical limitations of a binary, although I am not sure why the authors completely disregard the variety of democratic experiences in history. So yes, game theory modelling is a novel intervention to the existing literature, but it needs a lot of limitations to work, Occam's razor mentioned at several instances in the book, also the use of "all other things being equal" (come on, for God's sake, still? ceteris paribus?) leads to heavy reductionism of the historical divergences of democratic processes.
The references to the existing literature including Moore (obviously), Linz, Lipset, Olson etc. were all there; however, there is something ambiguous about the references made to historical cases that transform into democracies or become dictatorships. A lengthy reference to MAuritius, you end up thinking why? The first chapter begins with four cases but not in a comparative manner, more like a basic typology for the remainder of the book. The historical cases range within an eight-century time span, but then there is no inner logic to the historicity of the discussion, they're sort of scattered like a garnish.
The thing about political economy is this: When it's pursued from a purely political science angle or a purely economic angle, you never get a full picture of the issue under focus. I understand the criticism underlined by Acemoglu and Robinson that the existing analysis lacks clarity, but then they suffer from disregarding diversity of political practice at the expense of clarity. I don't know which one is worse.
The references to the existing literature including Moore (obviously), Linz, Lipset, Olson etc. were all there; however, there is something ambiguous about the references made to historical cases that transform into democracies or become dictatorships. A lengthy reference to MAuritius, you end up thinking why? The first chapter begins with four cases but not in a comparative manner, more like a basic typology for the remainder of the book. The historical cases range within an eight-century time span, but then there is no inner logic to the historicity of the discussion, they're sort of scattered like a garnish.
The thing about political economy is this: When it's pursued from a purely political science angle or a purely economic angle, you never get a full picture of the issue under focus. I understand the criticism underlined by Acemoglu and Robinson that the existing analysis lacks clarity, but then they suffer from disregarding diversity of political practice at the expense of clarity. I don't know which one is worse.
September 21, 2015
This was my first ever political science/political economy book that I have read. I became interested in it due to its title reminding me of Moore's Social Origins book. The mathematical model that the book sets up is logically consistent. However, the assumptions and premises that compose the foundations for the dynamics between the rich/poor/middle class and the landlord/industrialist could be revisited. Is it the implication of the mathematical model that the middle class plays a significant role in mitigating between the rich and poor in various ways or is it due to the ex-ante assumption that endowed the middle class with a power to do that? Just because a mathematical model is logically consistent the implications of it should not be viewed as convincing. The assumptions from which the model derived its results may be somewhat over-simplified or skewed to fit the existing theories rather than critically thinking of their validity.
February 20, 2017
يركز الكتاب على 4 طرق أساسية سارت بها البلدان في سياساتها بخصوص الديمقراطية:
المسار الأول: هي تحول البلدان بشكل تدريجي من نظام سياسي غير ديمقراطي إلى ديمقراطي ثابت ومتين كبريطانيا.
المسار الثاني: سير الدول من نظام غير ديمقراطي إلى ديمقراطي ثم انهيار الاخير، لنعود إلى نظام غير ديمقراطي، كالأرجنتين.
المسار الثالث: بلدان غير ديمقراطية وتستمر على حالها بسبب رضى سكانها بشكل أساسي عن المؤسسات السياسية الحاكمة مثل سنغافورة.
المسار الرابع: دول غير ديمقراطية وتستمر على هذا الشكل، مع وجود نسب مرتفعة من الحرمان وعدم العدالة وتمارس النخبة السياسية القمع والاضطهاد على المجتمع للبقاء على هذا الحال، مثل جنوب أفريقيا في ظل نظام الفصل العنصري.
ويتم شرح وتفصيل الأسباب لهذه المسارات بوقائع تاريخية ونظريات سياسية اقتصادية.
المسار الأول: هي تحول البلدان بشكل تدريجي من نظام سياسي غير ديمقراطي إلى ديمقراطي ثابت ومتين كبريطانيا.
المسار الثاني: سير الدول من نظام غير ديمقراطي إلى ديمقراطي ثم انهيار الاخير، لنعود إلى نظام غير ديمقراطي، كالأرجنتين.
المسار الثالث: بلدان غير ديمقراطية وتستمر على حالها بسبب رضى سكانها بشكل أساسي عن المؤسسات السياسية الحاكمة مثل سنغافورة.
المسار الرابع: دول غير ديمقراطية وتستمر على هذا الشكل، مع وجود نسب مرتفعة من الحرمان وعدم العدالة وتمارس النخبة السياسية القمع والاضطهاد على المجتمع للبقاء على هذا الحال، مثل جنوب أفريقيا في ظل نظام الفصل العنصري.
ويتم شرح وتفصيل الأسباب لهذه المسارات بوقائع تاريخية ونظريات سياسية اقتصادية.
November 10, 2015
I was drawn to this book by its super interesting title. But I am not an economist, nor familiar with econometric models and game theories. I don't have a PhD in Economics. The entire book feels like a doctoral thesis, and for what it's worth, the book is valuable for the contribution to social science theory. However, my expectation purely out of its title was more to read a book like its last chapter. A book that would explain to me with examples what are the economic origins of dictatorship and democracy. At the end I retained some of the main ideas of the theory presented in the book, but it is a highly scholar book for my taste.
July 26, 2011
un buen libro que desarrolla un marco analítico para el estudio de la democracia, sus movimientos internos y sus fases de cambio y consolidación, el libro es un buen intento de desarrollar una teoría mucho más sostenida en la economía de los conflictos políticos en este contexto.
sin embargo en mi opinión el libro es algo pesado y no es muy ameno si no se tiene una gran pasión por estudios de ciencia política o economía política de esta clase.
sin embargo en mi opinión el libro es algo pesado y no es muy ameno si no se tiene una gran pasión por estudios de ciencia política o economía política de esta clase.
December 15, 2013
A mathematical treatment of which conditions lead to establishment of democracy as opposed to dictatorship as viewed from the perspective of relationships between different constituency groups. A rigorous mathematical treatment but also usuable by non-mathematicians by ignoring the math and just reading the conclusions of each chapter. A lead-in to the authors' later book "Why Nations Fail."
December 5, 2016
Formal. Requires at least some mathematics - especially game theory. But very good book on what is driving democratization.
An easier one by Acemoglu is "Why Nations Fail [and succeed" which discusses the problem of institutional development and development in general i.e. what drives and what inhibits poor countries getting better places to live.
August 7, 2020
Decepcionante. Pretencioso intentar reducir un tema complejo como la consolidación de la democracia a una serie de fórmulas matemáticas. Conclusiones demasiado optimistas. Decepciona también que no analice la situación de riesgo de evolución de las democracias a sistemas autoritarios (Hungría, Polonia, Turquía)
Read
November 12, 2019Sucks
April 18, 2021
Named after Barrington Moore's (1966) Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, this work was written before the Arab spring, as well as before the democratic backsliding in both North America and Europe since about 2015. Also the book suffers from a heavy reliance on conventional wisdoms and oversimplifications. Democracy or democratisation is presented as an ongoing conflict between the citizens and the elites (as per the preface). All this without taking into account that citizens can take decision power also for some time, such as being elected mayor of a town or occupying a parttime board seat in a special interest group.
Nor does the text or the model detail the role of supranational entities such as the WTO, UN, or other oversight organisations with particular rigour. It is discussed at length in chapter 10, but again with simplifications.
The first edition (2005) is full of typos and sentences that do not flow very well. For example on the balance of power:
The term 'undoubtedly true' is used throughout the text, but the sentence itself reflects the authors' sentiment, and not an actual observation.
A few sentences later:
The unfortunate truth is that there are far too many counterexamples in the world. To the authors' credit, chapter 6 adds some nuance to this statement.
Or this:
For this sentence to be true there has to be conflict between the elites and the citizens first, which is a tacit assumption and otherwise not substantiated.
Or this:
This is not what happens in practice. Instead, the elites invest more - mostly abroad - and consumption rarely goes up. This point is rather fundamental to economic analysis.
Or this:
This does not happen in Italy or Scandinavia.
The book suffers from many omissions. Actual measures of democracy, such as the strength of the tax collection system, the independence of the central bank, the freedom of the press, the existence of semi-governmental organisations, an independent judicial system and research bodies, to name just a few, are not mentioned or taken into account in the model, beyond the notion that "political institutions regulate the allocation of de jure political power." Neither is the possibility of foreign influence in staging coups mentioned.
Tax evasion is a form of non-democracy, but the book only mentions capital flight without further empirical substantiation as to how it affects democratisation.
Neither do the authors discuss the possibility of loss of democracy when the citizenry willingly give up their rights, which is how the Weimar republic ended, or in more recent examples the laws enacted under public pressure in the US and UK in their War on Terror. This last point contradicts the statement that "the greatest threat against democracy comes from the elites".
One of the reasons that repressions are costly is that foreign direct investment dries up as the country becomes uninvestible, but this fact is not spelled out. In other words, the role of global financial markets and capital markets is not identified in any meaningful detail. The narrative in chapter 10 makes an effort, but again without substantiation.
The game-theoretical approach that is used for the prediction that "democratisation can only occur because the disenfranchised citizens can threaten the elite and force it to make concessions" is debatable. The oversimplifications, even if they are rationalised away with Occam's razor, do not lend the model very well to scrutiny with in-the-field data. Also, not all variables are equally well measurable, for example as a result of difficulties in gathering data for a payoff function. Also establishing whether an equilibrium has been achieved in practice is hard to do.
Hence the book might have done away with the model in my view and a more thorough discussion on the many factors leading to or constituting democracy might have made the book more valuable as a reference text.
The coverage of the existing literature is rather comprehensive.
Nor does the text or the model detail the role of supranational entities such as the WTO, UN, or other oversight organisations with particular rigour. It is discussed at length in chapter 10, but again with simplifications.
The first edition (2005) is full of typos and sentences that do not flow very well. For example on the balance of power:
It is also undoubtedly true that the ideological changes that occurred during the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the U.S. War of Independence had the effect of changing people’s ideas about the proper nature of government and the legitimacy of the old political order.
The term 'undoubtedly true' is used throughout the text, but the sentence itself reflects the authors' sentiment, and not an actual observation.
A few sentences later:
Only with a sufficiently high level of inequality does democratization become a necessity.
The unfortunate truth is that there are far too many counterexamples in the world. To the authors' credit, chapter 6 adds some nuance to this statement.
Or this:
Perhaps the more important role of the middle class is that of a buffer in the conflict between the elites and the citizens.
For this sentence to be true there has to be conflict between the elites and the citizens first, which is a tacit assumption and otherwise not substantiated.
Or this:
If capital is taxed heavily, it can withdraw into the informal sector or the elites may decide to consume more and save less.
This is not what happens in practice. Instead, the elites invest more - mostly abroad - and consumption rarely goes up. This point is rather fundamental to economic analysis.
Or this:
After financial integration, democracy does not find it optimal to impose as high taxes because such taxes would induce capital holders to take their assets abroad.
This does not happen in Italy or Scandinavia.
The book suffers from many omissions. Actual measures of democracy, such as the strength of the tax collection system, the independence of the central bank, the freedom of the press, the existence of semi-governmental organisations, an independent judicial system and research bodies, to name just a few, are not mentioned or taken into account in the model, beyond the notion that "political institutions regulate the allocation of de jure political power." Neither is the possibility of foreign influence in staging coups mentioned.
Tax evasion is a form of non-democracy, but the book only mentions capital flight without further empirical substantiation as to how it affects democratisation.
Neither do the authors discuss the possibility of loss of democracy when the citizenry willingly give up their rights, which is how the Weimar republic ended, or in more recent examples the laws enacted under public pressure in the US and UK in their War on Terror. This last point contradicts the statement that "the greatest threat against democracy comes from the elites".
One of the reasons that repressions are costly is that foreign direct investment dries up as the country becomes uninvestible, but this fact is not spelled out. In other words, the role of global financial markets and capital markets is not identified in any meaningful detail. The narrative in chapter 10 makes an effort, but again without substantiation.
The game-theoretical approach that is used for the prediction that "democratisation can only occur because the disenfranchised citizens can threaten the elite and force it to make concessions" is debatable. The oversimplifications, even if they are rationalised away with Occam's razor, do not lend the model very well to scrutiny with in-the-field data. Also, not all variables are equally well measurable, for example as a result of difficulties in gathering data for a payoff function. Also establishing whether an equilibrium has been achieved in practice is hard to do.
Hence the book might have done away with the model in my view and a more thorough discussion on the many factors leading to or constituting democracy might have made the book more valuable as a reference text.
The coverage of the existing literature is rather comprehensive.
August 16, 2026
I don't rate a book 1-star just because I disagree with it. And as I detail below, I don't give this book 1 star either.
Starting with the disagreements so they are front and center, I have no sympathies for Acemoglu & Robinson's approach. Put as simply as I can, they define transitions to democracy as a result of demands of the disenfranchised to obtain political power tomorrow and thus secure a larger share of the economic benefits of the system by changing the system and structure of power. This can be done from above by the elites choosing to transition to democracy or from below via revolution. If elites choose not to democratize society, they may choose to engage in repression to prevent a revolution. Likewise, after democratization, elites could also stage a coup to reverse the process and re-consolidate power. Democracy arises when concessions to the poor are not credible and repression is not attractive because it would be too costly. All parties act with complete knowledge of the facts and engage in a rational analysis of what the tax rate will be for each possible course of action and whether that tax rate best matches their policy choices. In the absence of any risks of revolution or coup, according to Acemoglu and Robinson, elites would set tax rates at 0 under autocracy while in democracy the tax rate would be at the rate that would maximize redistribution to the median voter.
And while Acemoglu and Robinson admit that they are oversimplifying (as, in fairness, I am in explaining their argument), they fail to provide any, let alone a convincing, basis for the assumptions inherent within their argument. For starters, it’s plainly not the case that parties operate with perfect information whether under dictatorship or democracy. Acemoglu and Robinson take as a given that elites will change tax rates to avoid a revolution if that would be more profitable than either revolution or repression. Yet even taking them in the scope of their argument, they fail to consider that what matters is not the tax rate but the impression of that rate. A change on the eve of revolt is useless if it is not perceived by the would-be revolutionaries as such. So we are operating in terrain that doesn’t map into any reality. It is, at best, idealized nonsense.
Moreover, their premises do not speak for themselves. For example, they make the broad claim that high taxes ipso facto mean a redistribution from the rich to the poor, but that isn’t necessarily so. Regressive taxes, such as most sales taxes on necessities, accomplish the opposite. While the rich may spend more overall, a much lower portion of their income and wealth would be spent on such a tax, leaving the poor shouldering a disproportionately high tax. Unless that tax is given back through price control mechanisms that make the products less costly, such a tax would not seem to be redistributive in the way that Acemoglu and Robinson assume it would inherently be.
Likewise, their argument often hinges on distinctions that are at best semantic, at least in the absence of explanation. It takes until the last couple chapters before Acemoglu and Robinson even concede that in democracy, while the poor get de jure power over institutions, elites often retain de facto power to use those very institutions by how they set them up when they democratize society. This concession runs counter to their explicit assumption “that, typically, the majority of citizens has more political power in a democratic rather than a nondemocratic society.” If that assumption is critical, then at the very least it is likewise critical to discuss how the failure to secure de facto power plays into the calculus in the first instance. They don’t, leaving the only conclusion that de facto power must be different than de jure power because the words are different. Therefore, the de jure power of the poor in democracy must have some noticeable difference in the tax rate and must approximate the rate the median voter would want (at least once that median voter runs the calculation to ensure that such a rate would not lead to a elite-driven coup), even though the elites still have de facto power.
Yet this doesn’t get to the nub of the problem. I can accept categorical disagreements if they are genuine. Had Acemoglu and Robinson utilized research, data, and literature faithfully to come up with a structure I disagreed with, then so be it. I’d probably give this book two to three stars while rejecting its argument. But the most favorable way I could describe Acemoglu and Robinson's presentation of prior scholarship would be as disingenuous. They flatly ignore pretty much anything that contradicts their conclusions, and they misrepresent pretty much everything else. For example, they rely on Barrington Moore's conceptualization of what they call the “middle class” as the basis for their chapter on how adding in a middle class affects their theory of an elite-vs-poor power struggle. Yet then they define middle class in a way that Moore would not have as if Moore himself had used middle class in the same way. While Acemoglu and Robinson’s definition is not inherently wrong and can be justified for them to try to prove their points, pretending that their definition is the only one and that prior scholars would have used it as well is unacceptable.
Sometimes, they explicitly attribute to writers things they just did not say. Most glaringly, they argue that “the claim that democracy can never be sustained in a primarily agrarian society, or at least one where the elites are large landowners, is common in the literature from Moore (1966), and Dahl (1971), to Rueschemeyer, Stephens, and Stephens (1992).” I’ve not read all three, but the best I could glean from searching is that while all three would agree with the sentiment, they didn’t make such a blanket assertion that democracy is impossible to sustain in such a society, just that it is much less likely than in a modern industrial society. Yet Acemoglu and Robinson’s argument for the next dozen pages hinges on this hard-and-fast rule that they seemingly made up out of whole cloth.
When they’re not inventing sources, they’re choosing when to ignore their existence. In multiple places they cite Przeworski et al’s 2000 book that analyzes economic growth and regime change between democracies and dictatorships from 1950 to 1990. But where its conclusions do not jibe their agenda, they pretend the book does not exist. For example, in Chapter 10, they discuss as established fact that democracies emerge in waves. Yet Przeworski et al demonstrated that the data do not support such a conclusion. At the very least, it is a contested point, and ignoring it out of existence is particularly bizarre since this chapter does not hinge one way or another on it.
And when they do come down to earth and try to connect their theories to real examples, they reconstruct the examples to fit their narrative. At times, they entirely make up historical “facts” that they provide no citation for. They discuss how the Bolsheviks were part of the majority during the first Duma in 1906 even though the Bolsheviks had boycotted the elections and had no deputies in that Duma. They provide an uncited assertion that the ANC intentionally avoided getting two-thirds of the vote in the 1994 South African election so they wouldn’t be feel incentivized to unilaterally change the constitution. The best I have been able to find is that a couple weeks after the election Mandela’s office leaked that they were happy they failed to get two-thirds for that reason, but I have found no evidence that ex ante they tried to minimize the size of their majority. And they use Guatemala on multiple occasions as an example of a state that failed to sustain democracy because of elite coups and elite repression, but they never acknowledge that much of this elite were American businessmen who were in and out of the US government during this period. Surely that's at least relevant, no?
All this signals this book's biggest problem: You simply cannot trust how Acemoglu and Robinson discuss any other authority because they bastardize the field so much to render any description completely devoid of trustworthiness.
The fact that this book has been so influential is a searing indictment on both economics and political science as fields of study. This book is not serious scholarship. And neither are Acemoglu and Robinson. They engage in incessant hand-waving based on wildly unjustifiable and inexplicable assumptions alongside significant and widespread oversimplifications that render their analysis divorced from any plane of reality. It utilizes real-world examples not as examples but as repurposed allegories, with any historical accuracy or nuance binned to leave just the two or three variables they want it stand for.
This book has spawned some scholarship that trashes its approach, but more is needed. One star is too nice. Zero out of 5, a rating I've never before given. Even that feels generous.
Starting with the disagreements so they are front and center, I have no sympathies for Acemoglu & Robinson's approach. Put as simply as I can, they define transitions to democracy as a result of demands of the disenfranchised to obtain political power tomorrow and thus secure a larger share of the economic benefits of the system by changing the system and structure of power. This can be done from above by the elites choosing to transition to democracy or from below via revolution. If elites choose not to democratize society, they may choose to engage in repression to prevent a revolution. Likewise, after democratization, elites could also stage a coup to reverse the process and re-consolidate power. Democracy arises when concessions to the poor are not credible and repression is not attractive because it would be too costly. All parties act with complete knowledge of the facts and engage in a rational analysis of what the tax rate will be for each possible course of action and whether that tax rate best matches their policy choices. In the absence of any risks of revolution or coup, according to Acemoglu and Robinson, elites would set tax rates at 0 under autocracy while in democracy the tax rate would be at the rate that would maximize redistribution to the median voter.
And while Acemoglu and Robinson admit that they are oversimplifying (as, in fairness, I am in explaining their argument), they fail to provide any, let alone a convincing, basis for the assumptions inherent within their argument. For starters, it’s plainly not the case that parties operate with perfect information whether under dictatorship or democracy. Acemoglu and Robinson take as a given that elites will change tax rates to avoid a revolution if that would be more profitable than either revolution or repression. Yet even taking them in the scope of their argument, they fail to consider that what matters is not the tax rate but the impression of that rate. A change on the eve of revolt is useless if it is not perceived by the would-be revolutionaries as such. So we are operating in terrain that doesn’t map into any reality. It is, at best, idealized nonsense.
Moreover, their premises do not speak for themselves. For example, they make the broad claim that high taxes ipso facto mean a redistribution from the rich to the poor, but that isn’t necessarily so. Regressive taxes, such as most sales taxes on necessities, accomplish the opposite. While the rich may spend more overall, a much lower portion of their income and wealth would be spent on such a tax, leaving the poor shouldering a disproportionately high tax. Unless that tax is given back through price control mechanisms that make the products less costly, such a tax would not seem to be redistributive in the way that Acemoglu and Robinson assume it would inherently be.
Likewise, their argument often hinges on distinctions that are at best semantic, at least in the absence of explanation. It takes until the last couple chapters before Acemoglu and Robinson even concede that in democracy, while the poor get de jure power over institutions, elites often retain de facto power to use those very institutions by how they set them up when they democratize society. This concession runs counter to their explicit assumption “that, typically, the majority of citizens has more political power in a democratic rather than a nondemocratic society.” If that assumption is critical, then at the very least it is likewise critical to discuss how the failure to secure de facto power plays into the calculus in the first instance. They don’t, leaving the only conclusion that de facto power must be different than de jure power because the words are different. Therefore, the de jure power of the poor in democracy must have some noticeable difference in the tax rate and must approximate the rate the median voter would want (at least once that median voter runs the calculation to ensure that such a rate would not lead to a elite-driven coup), even though the elites still have de facto power.
Yet this doesn’t get to the nub of the problem. I can accept categorical disagreements if they are genuine. Had Acemoglu and Robinson utilized research, data, and literature faithfully to come up with a structure I disagreed with, then so be it. I’d probably give this book two to three stars while rejecting its argument. But the most favorable way I could describe Acemoglu and Robinson's presentation of prior scholarship would be as disingenuous. They flatly ignore pretty much anything that contradicts their conclusions, and they misrepresent pretty much everything else. For example, they rely on Barrington Moore's conceptualization of what they call the “middle class” as the basis for their chapter on how adding in a middle class affects their theory of an elite-vs-poor power struggle. Yet then they define middle class in a way that Moore would not have as if Moore himself had used middle class in the same way. While Acemoglu and Robinson’s definition is not inherently wrong and can be justified for them to try to prove their points, pretending that their definition is the only one and that prior scholars would have used it as well is unacceptable.
Sometimes, they explicitly attribute to writers things they just did not say. Most glaringly, they argue that “the claim that democracy can never be sustained in a primarily agrarian society, or at least one where the elites are large landowners, is common in the literature from Moore (1966), and Dahl (1971), to Rueschemeyer, Stephens, and Stephens (1992).” I’ve not read all three, but the best I could glean from searching is that while all three would agree with the sentiment, they didn’t make such a blanket assertion that democracy is impossible to sustain in such a society, just that it is much less likely than in a modern industrial society. Yet Acemoglu and Robinson’s argument for the next dozen pages hinges on this hard-and-fast rule that they seemingly made up out of whole cloth.
When they’re not inventing sources, they’re choosing when to ignore their existence. In multiple places they cite Przeworski et al’s 2000 book that analyzes economic growth and regime change between democracies and dictatorships from 1950 to 1990. But where its conclusions do not jibe their agenda, they pretend the book does not exist. For example, in Chapter 10, they discuss as established fact that democracies emerge in waves. Yet Przeworski et al demonstrated that the data do not support such a conclusion. At the very least, it is a contested point, and ignoring it out of existence is particularly bizarre since this chapter does not hinge one way or another on it.
And when they do come down to earth and try to connect their theories to real examples, they reconstruct the examples to fit their narrative. At times, they entirely make up historical “facts” that they provide no citation for. They discuss how the Bolsheviks were part of the majority during the first Duma in 1906 even though the Bolsheviks had boycotted the elections and had no deputies in that Duma. They provide an uncited assertion that the ANC intentionally avoided getting two-thirds of the vote in the 1994 South African election so they wouldn’t be feel incentivized to unilaterally change the constitution. The best I have been able to find is that a couple weeks after the election Mandela’s office leaked that they were happy they failed to get two-thirds for that reason, but I have found no evidence that ex ante they tried to minimize the size of their majority. And they use Guatemala on multiple occasions as an example of a state that failed to sustain democracy because of elite coups and elite repression, but they never acknowledge that much of this elite were American businessmen who were in and out of the US government during this period. Surely that's at least relevant, no?
All this signals this book's biggest problem: You simply cannot trust how Acemoglu and Robinson discuss any other authority because they bastardize the field so much to render any description completely devoid of trustworthiness.
The fact that this book has been so influential is a searing indictment on both economics and political science as fields of study. This book is not serious scholarship. And neither are Acemoglu and Robinson. They engage in incessant hand-waving based on wildly unjustifiable and inexplicable assumptions alongside significant and widespread oversimplifications that render their analysis divorced from any plane of reality. It utilizes real-world examples not as examples but as repurposed allegories, with any historical accuracy or nuance binned to leave just the two or three variables they want it stand for.
This book has spawned some scholarship that trashes its approach, but more is needed. One star is too nice. Zero out of 5, a rating I've never before given. Even that feels generous.
February 4, 2021
معرفی کتاب:
اسلوب کتاب کمی با دو کتاب معروف ترجمهشده از نویسندگان در ایران (چرا کشورها شکست میخورند و دالان باریک) متفاوت است. در آن کتابها با متنی عمومی روبرو هستیم که سعی دارد داستانوار، ایدهی خود در موضوعی خاص را توضیح دهد؛ اما ریشههای اقتصادی دیکتاتوری و دموکراسی چنین نیست. کتاب در 3 فصل نخست ایدهی خود در مورد تغییر وضعیت نظام سیاسی بین دموکراسی و دیکتاتوری را توضیح داده و در فصول باقیمانده؛ ایدهی خود را بسط میدهد. سه فصل نخست عملا خلاصهای از ایدهی کل کتاب است. در سه فصل نخست ما متنی شبیه کتابهای چرا کشورها شکست میخورند و دالان باریک را میبینیم. با این حال در باقی فصول عملا با متنی مشابه کتاب درسی رشته اقتصاد مواجهیم. در باقی فصول ایدهی نویسندگان در مورد موضوعات پیرامونی دموکراسی و دیکتاتوری همچون سرکوب، انقلاب، دموکراسیسازی، طبقه متوسط و... به وسیلهی مدلهای ریاضی بسط داده شدهاند. مطالعهی چنین مدلهایی برای مخاطبین اقتصادخوانده هم شاید غیرجذاب باشد؛ با این حال بنظر من این کتاب همچنان برای مخاطبین غیرعلاقهمند به مدلسازی ریاضی میتواند مفید باشد. در فصول 3 به بعد میتوان از مدلهای ریاضی با نگاهی مروری عبور کرد و بر نتیجهگیریهای حاصل از مدلها متمرکز شد.
من متن لاتین کتاب را مطالعه نکردهام؛ با این حال بنظرم متن ترجمه شده، به اندازه کافی روان بود که خواننده در طی خوانش کتاب، با سکته و توقف مواجه نشود و بتواند به مثابهی یک کتاب تالیفی آن را بخواند.
خلاصه کتاب:
کتاب نمونهای از چگونگی تئوری پردازی اقتصاد متعارف در مورد پدیدههای دنیای پیرامون است. به بیان افراطی من، کتاب چیزی به جز کاربست برنامهزیری پویا (Dynamic Programming) در تحلیل دموکراسی و دیکتاتوری نیست. در این چارچوب طبقات جامعه مبتنی بر منافع امروز و چشماندازشان از منافع آینده، تصمیمگیری کرده و آنچه در تحولات سیاسی دیده میشود؛ ثمرهی این تصمیمگیریهاست. تصمیم طبقهی فرودست به انقلاب یا ادامه زندگی زیر سایه دیکتاتوری، قبول وعدههای اصلاحی دیکتاتور، تصمیم طبقهی فرادست به سرکوب، دموکراسیسازی و... همگی تصمیمگیریهای مبتنی بر منافع امروز و آیندهاند.
نقاط قابل تامل:
نویسندگان کتمان نمیکنند که به دموکراسی خوشبیناند. احتمالا این نظر از شرایط عمومی سالهای نگارش کتاب (سالهای ابتدایی دهه 2000) نیز متاثر است. با این حال تجربه امروز ما در دو دهه پس از نگارش کتاب، این خوشبینی را تعدیل میکند. به عنوان مثال در فصل نقش طبقهی متوسط، نویسندگان بیان میکنند که طبقهی متوسط با کاهش بار بازتوزیعی دموکراسی احتمال دموکراسیسازی را افزایش داده و استحکام دموکراسی را نیز زیاد میکند؛ با این حال امروز طبقهی متوسط از حالت واسطهی بین فرادستان و فرودستان خارج شده و یک سمت بازی دموکراسی است که حتی ممکن است دیگر گروهها مقابل آن بسیج شوند!
از دیگر مثالهای این خوشبینی، فصل دموکراسی و جهانیسازی است. در چارچوب مورد بحث نویسندگان، جهانیسازی و گسترش تجارت بینالملل میتواند با کاهش نابرابری در کشورهای توسعهنیافته (افزایش دستمزد کارگران به دلیل صادرات محصولات کاربر و کاهش عایدی سرمایهداران به دلیل ورود سرمایه) احتمال دموکراسیسازی را افزایش داده و استحکام دموکراسی را بالا ببرد. همین فرایند در کشورهای توسعهیافته بصورت معکوس رخ میدهد. در اقتصاد جهانیشده عایدی سرمایه کشورهای توسعهیافته افزایش داشته و دستمزد نیروی کار در این کشورها کاهش مییابد. این فرایند در عالم تئوری میتواند با افزایش بار بازتوزیعی دموکراسی، این کشورها را با چالش مواجه کند. با اینحال نویسندگان این امر را با ایدهی "دموکراسی در این کشورها مستحکم شده" کنار میگذارند. شاید امروز با توجه به افزایش اقبال به پوپولیسم در کشورهای توسعهیافته، نتوان به راحتی این مسئله را نادیده گرفت.
نویسندگان در فصل آخر کتاب، آینده دموکراسی را درخشان ارزیابی میکنند. ارزیابی که شاید با توجه به مشاهدههای این دو دهه، خوشبینانه باشد.
اسلوب کتاب کمی با دو کتاب معروف ترجمهشده از نویسندگان در ایران (چرا کشورها شکست میخورند و دالان باریک) متفاوت است. در آن کتابها با متنی عمومی روبرو هستیم که سعی دارد داستانوار، ایدهی خود در موضوعی خاص را توضیح دهد؛ اما ریشههای اقتصادی دیکتاتوری و دموکراسی چنین نیست. کتاب در 3 فصل نخست ایدهی خود در مورد تغییر وضعیت نظام سیاسی بین دموکراسی و دیکتاتوری را توضیح داده و در فصول باقیمانده؛ ایدهی خود را بسط میدهد. سه فصل نخست عملا خلاصهای از ایدهی کل کتاب است. در سه فصل نخست ما متنی شبیه کتابهای چرا کشورها شکست میخورند و دالان باریک را میبینیم. با این حال در باقی فصول عملا با متنی مشابه کتاب درسی رشته اقتصاد مواجهیم. در باقی فصول ایدهی نویسندگان در مورد موضوعات پیرامونی دموکراسی و دیکتاتوری همچون سرکوب، انقلاب، دموکراسیسازی، طبقه متوسط و... به وسیلهی مدلهای ریاضی بسط داده شدهاند. مطالعهی چنین مدلهایی برای مخاطبین اقتصادخوانده هم شاید غیرجذاب باشد؛ با این حال بنظر من این کتاب همچنان برای مخاطبین غیرعلاقهمند به مدلسازی ریاضی میتواند مفید باشد. در فصول 3 به بعد میتوان از مدلهای ریاضی با نگاهی مروری عبور کرد و بر نتیجهگیریهای حاصل از مدلها متمرکز شد.
من متن لاتین کتاب را مطالعه نکردهام؛ با این حال بنظرم متن ترجمه شده، به اندازه کافی روان بود که خواننده در طی خوانش کتاب، با سکته و توقف مواجه نشود و بتواند به مثابهی یک کتاب تالیفی آن را بخواند.
خلاصه کتاب:
کتاب نمونهای از چگونگی تئوری پردازی اقتصاد متعارف در مورد پدیدههای دنیای پیرامون است. به بیان افراطی من، کتاب چیزی به جز کاربست برنامهزیری پویا (Dynamic Programming) در تحلیل دموکراسی و دیکتاتوری نیست. در این چارچوب طبقات جامعه مبتنی بر منافع امروز و چشماندازشان از منافع آینده، تصمیمگیری کرده و آنچه در تحولات سیاسی دیده میشود؛ ثمرهی این تصمیمگیریهاست. تصمیم طبقهی فرودست به انقلاب یا ادامه زندگی زیر سایه دیکتاتوری، قبول وعدههای اصلاحی دیکتاتور، تصمیم طبقهی فرادست به سرکوب، دموکراسیسازی و... همگی تصمیمگیریهای مبتنی بر منافع امروز و آیندهاند.
نقاط قابل تامل:
نویسندگان کتمان نمیکنند که به دموکراسی خوشبیناند. احتمالا این نظر از شرایط عمومی سالهای نگارش کتاب (سالهای ابتدایی دهه 2000) نیز متاثر است. با این حال تجربه امروز ما در دو دهه پس از نگارش کتاب، این خوشبینی را تعدیل میکند. به عنوان مثال در فصل نقش طبقهی متوسط، نویسندگان بیان میکنند که طبقهی متوسط با کاهش بار بازتوزیعی دموکراسی احتمال دموکراسیسازی را افزایش داده و استحکام دموکراسی را نیز زیاد میکند؛ با این حال امروز طبقهی متوسط از حالت واسطهی بین فرادستان و فرودستان خارج شده و یک سمت بازی دموکراسی است که حتی ممکن است دیگر گروهها مقابل آن بسیج شوند!
از دیگر مثالهای این خوشبینی، فصل دموکراسی و جهانیسازی است. در چارچوب مورد بحث نویسندگان، جهانیسازی و گسترش تجارت بینالملل میتواند با کاهش نابرابری در کشورهای توسعهنیافته (افزایش دستمزد کارگران به دلیل صادرات محصولات کاربر و کاهش عایدی سرمایهداران به دلیل ورود سرمایه) احتمال دموکراسیسازی را افزایش داده و استحکام دموکراسی را بالا ببرد. همین فرایند در کشورهای توسعهیافته بصورت معکوس رخ میدهد. در اقتصاد جهانیشده عایدی سرمایه کشورهای توسعهیافته افزایش داشته و دستمزد نیروی کار در این کشورها کاهش مییابد. این فرایند در عالم تئوری میتواند با افزایش بار بازتوزیعی دموکراسی، این کشورها را با چالش مواجه کند. با اینحال نویسندگان این امر را با ایدهی "دموکراسی در این کشورها مستحکم شده" کنار میگذارند. شاید امروز با توجه به افزایش اقبال به پوپولیسم در کشورهای توسعهیافته، نتوان به راحتی این مسئله را نادیده گرفت.
نویسندگان در فصل آخر کتاب، آینده دموکراسی را درخشان ارزیابی میکنند. ارزیابی که شاید با توجه به مشاهدههای این دو دهه، خوشبینانه باشد.
January 21, 2021
Почему Великобритания на протяжении всей своей истории целенаправленно шла к консолидированной демократии, а Аргентина не может установить демократические институты, которые разрушают постоянные перевороты? В чем отличие Сингапура от развитых демократией? Ответы на эти вопросы дали одни из лучших экономистов современности, основоположники институциональной экономики - Дарон Аджемоглу и Джеймс Робинсон.
Очень важный плюс этой книги - авторы не просто на словах говорят о «консолидированной демократии как идеала государства», вы увидите множество графиков и схем, которые добавляют наглядности. А также, что меня поразило, с помощью математики и формул Аджемоглу и Робинсон доказали состоятельность своей теории. Формул в книге ОЧЕНЬ много, по-моему, даже в моем учебнике алгебры столько формул не было.
Очень важный плюс этой книги - авторы не просто на словах говорят о «консолидированной демократии как идеала государства», вы увидите множество графиков и схем, которые добавляют наглядности. А также, что меня поразило, с помощью математики и формул Аджемоглу и Робинсон доказали состоятельность своей теории. Формул в книге ОЧЕНЬ много, по-моему, даже в моем учебнике алгебры столько формул не было.
Want to Read
September 16, 2026I first discovered this book when it was referenced in Abhijit Banerjee & Esther Duflo's Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty (2011), on p.6, in Chapter 10, 'Policies, Politics'. The authors of this book are two of the most thoughtful exponents of the rather melancholy view, active in economics today, that until political institutions are fixed, countries cannot really develop, but institutions are hard to fix. They define institutions as follows: "Economic institutions shape economic incentives, the incentives to become educated, to save and invest, to innovate and adopt new technologies, and so on. Political institutions determine the ability of citizens to control politicians."
November 27, 2025
I had to read most of this book for a paper I’m writing for Comparative Political Systems. It’s well researched obviously and I’m mostly arguing that they’re right and the Polish case study after 1989 proves it, so I have to like it I guess. Their mechanisms of social behavior are smart and reading this has been one of the most interesting and valuable things I’ve done in CPS this year.
September 9, 2024
Like all Acemoglu books, chapter 2 is excellent and the rest is just reiterating the points made in that chapter.
March 15, 2023
The strength of the book is that it formally describes a number of simple workhorse models that generate plenty of predictions and open up new avenues for research. The weakness is that by generally assuming a productive elite rather than an extractive one, their models seem to apply more to democratization in places like South America than in, say, Great Britain
December 20, 2016
Someone, help! Make them stop!
Want to Read
August 19, 2011October 25, 2016
politics is power. democracy is redistribution. inequality matters.
April 12, 2010
A really interesting take on the structural stuff behind regime transitions.
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