scholarly journals Pandemics and Political Development

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-48
Author(s):  
Daniel W. Gingerich ◽  
Jan P. Vogler
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Black Death ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
Loss Of Life ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Mass Politics ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Elite Influence ◽  
Landed Elite

ABSTRACT Do pandemics have lasting consequences for political behavior? The authors address this question by examining the consequences of the deadliest pandemic of the last millennium: the Black Death (1347–1351). They claim that pandemics can influence politics in the long run if the loss of life is high enough to increase the price of labor relative to other factors of production. When this occurs, labor-repressive regimes, such as serfdom, become untenable, which ultimately leads to the development of proto-democratic institutions and associated political cultures that shape modalities of political engagement for generations. The authors test their theory by tracing the consequences of the Black Death in German-speaking Central Europe. They find that areas hit hardest by that pandemic were more likely to adopt inclusive political institutions and equitable land ownership patterns, to exhibit electoral behavior indicating independence from landed elite influence during the transition to mass politics, and to have significantly lower vote shares for Hitler’s National Socialist Party in the Weimar Republic’s fateful 1930 and July 1932 elections.

Naturalizing affection, securing property: Family, slavery, and the courts in Antebellum South Carolina, 1830–1860

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Gwendoline M. Alphonso
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Development ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Family Relations ◽  
White Male ◽  
Antebellum South ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
White Family ◽  
Antebellum Period

Abstract The scholarship on race and political development demonstrates that race has long been embedded in public policy and political institutions. Less noticed in this literature is how family, as a deliberate political institution, is used to further racial goals and policy purposes. This article seeks to fill this gap by tracing the foundations of the political welding of family and race to the slave South in the antebellum period from 1830 to 1860. Utilizing rich testimonial evidence in court cases, I demonstrate how antebellum courts in South Carolina constructed a standard of “domestic affection” from the everyday lives of southerners, which established affection as a natural norm practiced by white male slaveowners in their roles as fathers, husbands, and masters. By constructing and regulating domestic affection to uphold slavery amid the waves of multiple modernizing forces (democratization, advancing market economy, and household egalitarianism), Southern courts in the antebellum period presaged their postbellum role of reconstructing white supremacy in the wake of slavery's demise. In both cases the courts played a formative role in naturalizing family relations in racially specific ways, constructing affection and sexuality, respectively, to anchor the white family as the bulwark of white social and political hegemony.

Colombian Parties and Political Development

1976 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Peeler
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Political System ◽  
Traditional Authority ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Authority Relationships ◽  
Latin American Countries

Colombia remains one of a very small group of countries in Latin America which retain competitive, liberal-democratic political institutions at this writing. Indeed, Colombia's civil government, recognizing a modicum of individual liberties and conducting periodic elections, has been shattered on relatively few occasions since the mid-nineteenth century, a record equalled or surpassed by few other Latin American countries. The Colombian political system is still dominated by the two traditional political parties (Liberal and Conservative) which arose in Colombia and elsewhere in the region in the nineteenth century. In almost every other country they have long since passed into oblivion or insignificance. This continued dominance by the traditional parties is commonly attributed to their successful mobilization of mass support, especially among the peasantry. The Colombian parties (unlike their counterparts elsewhere) early moved beyond being mere elite factions by using traditional authority relationships, clientelistic exchanges and ideological appeals to develop durable bases of mass support.

scholarly journals Features of the Political Development of Africa in the Postcolonial Period

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-38
Author(s):  
Wolde Mikhael Kassaye Nigusie ◽  
Natalia Viktorovna Ivkina
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
National Leaders ◽  
Common Opinion ◽  
The One ◽  
Effective Development ◽  
The Impact

The article is devoted to the features of the formation and development of Africa in the postcolonial period. The authors study such fundamental issues as the formation of modern States in Africa, the formation of the ruling elite and its influence on the political and socio-economic system, the role of the army and ethnic conflicts in the process of state formation. The relevance of the research is due to the fact that Russian and foreign historical science has not yet formed a common opinion on how to assess the consequences of the colonial period for Africa. Pluralism of opinions, on the one hand, generates the discussion for research, on the other, introduces a destructive imbalance in the representation of the region. As a novelty of the study, it’s necessary to note the neo-patrimonial approach to studying the features of the postcolonial period in Africa. It identifies separate thematic blocks that help assess the impact of colonization on the development of countries on the continent. The article also considers the correlation between the traditional and westernized elements within African political culture. The borrowing of political institutions and statehood theories is also considered not only as a consequence of the colonial past, but also as the political choice of the first national leaders of Africa, in the framework of their aspiration to choose an effective development way and to find a balance between the tradition and modernization. The main purpose of the study is to assess the results of decolonization in the context of ethnic, military and political aspects of the formation of African States. The polemic nature of the principles of understanding the postcolonial period of African development has led to the need to use a functional approach as a methodological basis. This is due to the need to study the principles of functioning of the political system of the region, rather than individual states. The neo-patrimonialist approach also gave rise to the use of a comparative method to compare the main theoretical postulates with the real situation in Africa. A vast array of sources and literature in Russian and English is needed to reflect the multi-vector possibilities of research on African issues.

scholarly journals MICROBES AND MARKETS: WAS THE BLACK DEATH AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION?

2016 ◽  
Vol 82 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Clark
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Technological Advance ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Black Death ◽  
Efficiency Gain ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Trace Back ◽  
Northwest Europe ◽  
Relative Factor

Abstract:Recent papers have suggested that the Industrial Revolution in Europe ultimately derives from the labor scarce economy of northwest Europe, which some trace back to the Black Death [Voigtländer and Voth (2013a) and Allen (2011)]. This paper examines the effects of the Black Death in England. Specifically, did it merely change relative factor prices, or did it lead to lasting gains in the efficiency of the economy after 1348? Extensive wage and price data from England 1210–1800 suggest that the population losses of the Black Death were associated with a surprising increase in economic efficiency, despite the decline in the scale of the economy. But this efficiency gain disappeared when population rose again in the 16th century. There is no sign of a connection between a labor scarce economy, and a switch to faster long run economic growth through technological advance.

scholarly journals The Long-Run Effects of Oil Wealth on Development: Evidence from Petroleum Geology

2019 ◽  
Vol 129 (623) ◽  
pp. 2745-2778 ◽  
Author(s):  
Traviss Cassidy
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Oil Production ◽  
Sedimentary Basins ◽  
Capacity Development ◽  
Fiscal Capacity ◽  
Internal Armed Conflict ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Oil Wealth

Abstract We estimate the long-run effects of oil wealth on development by exploiting spatial variation in sedimentary basins—areas where petroleum can potentially form. Instrumental variables estimates indicate that oil production impedes democracy and fiscal capacity development, increases corruption, and raises GDP per capita without significantly harming the non-resource sectors of the economy. We find no evidence that oil production increases internal armed conflict, coup attempts, or political purges. In several specifications failure to account for endogeneity leads to substantial underestimation of the adverse effects of oil, suggesting that countries with higher-quality political institutions and greater fiscal capacity disproportionately select into oil production.

scholarly journals How do political institutions affect fiscal capacity? Explaining taxation in developing economies

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 351-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERTO RICCIUTI ◽  
ANTONIO SAVOIA ◽  
KUNAL SEN
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Developing Economies ◽  
Institutional Development ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
Fiscal Institutions ◽  
Fiscal Capacity ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Sector Performance ◽  
Tax Systems ◽  
Robust Evidence

AbstractA central aspect of institutional development in developing economies is building tax systems capable of raising revenues from broad tax bases, i.e. fiscal capacity. While it is recognised that fiscal capacity is pivotal for state building and economic development, it is less clear what its origins are and what explains its cross-country differences. We focus on political institutions, seen as stronger systems of checks and balances on the executive. Exploiting a recent database on public sector performance in developing economies and an IV strategy, we estimate their long-run impact, distinguishing between the accountability and transparency of fiscal institutions (impartiality) and their effectiveness in extracting revenues. We find that stronger constraints on the executive foster the impartiality of tax systems. However, there is no robust evidence that they also improve its effectiveness. Our findings also suggest that the overall impact on both total tax revenues and income tax is economically relevant.

scholarly journals Political instability, institutional change and economic growth in Brazil since 1870

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 883-910
Author(s):  
Nauro Campos ◽  
Menelaos Karanasos ◽  
Panagiotis Koutroumpis ◽  
Zihui Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Institutional Change ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Instability ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Long Run

AbstractAre institutions a deep cause of economic growth? This paper tries to answer this question in a novel manner by focusing on within-country variation, over long periods of time, using a new hand-collected data set on institutions and the power-ARCH econometric framework. Focusing on the case of Brazil since 1870, our results suggest (a) that both changes in formal political institutions and informal political instability affect economic growth negatively, (b) there are important differences in terms of their short- versus long-run behaviour, and (c) not all but just a few selected institutions affect economic growth in the long-run.

Bureaucracy, Political Parties, and Political Development

1973 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 600-607
Author(s):  
Gerald A. Heeger
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Policy Making Process

The growing role of governmental bureaucracy has been one of the most noted and discussed characteristics of developing political systems. The phenomenon of bureaucratic intervention in politics, already discernible in the 1950's in many of these states, has, so it seems, become the rule rather than the exception in the years that have followed. Despite the prevalence of the politicized bureaucracy, however, and the amount of discussion engendered by the phenomenon, die sources of bureaucratic growth and dominance in the developing states remain obscure. Most analysts emphasize the superior organization of the bureaucracy and argue that this organization, reinforced by die transfer of techniques from abroad and uncontested because of weak indigenous political institutions, provides much of the explanation for the aggrandizement of the bureaucracy in die policy-making process.

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