The Political Economy of Democracy and Tyranny
Oldenbourg’s Politics, Philosophy and Economics
One theme that has emerged from the recent literature on political economy concerns the transition to democracy:
Why would dominant elites give up oligarchic power?
This book addresses the fundamental question of democratic stability and the collapse of tyranny by considering a formal model of democracy and tyranny. The formal model is used to study elections in developed polities such as the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Canada, and Israel, as well as complex developing polities such as Turkey. The key idea is that activist groups may offer resources to political candidates if they in turn adjust their polities in favor of the interest group. In polities that use a "first past the post" electoral system, such as the US, the bargaining between interest groups and candidates creates a tendency for activist groups to coalesce; in polities such as Israel and the Netherlands, where the electoral system is very
proportional, there may be little tendency for activist coalescence.
This title is part of the series Oldenbourg’s Politics, Philosophy and
Economics, edited by Manfred J. Holler and Hannu Nurmi.