The Social Origins of Democracy and Authoritarianism Reconsidered: Prussia and Sweden in Comparison

Erik Bengtsson and Felix Kersting

No 2jgq8, OSF Preprints from Center for Open Science

Abstract: In a large social science literature, unequal rural class structures ("landlordism") are associated with authoritarian political outcomes. This paper revisits the debate focusing on the electoral consequences of land inequality in Prussia, the locus classicus of the pernicious effects of landlordism, and Sweden, often perceived as Prussia’s opposite, with a farmer-dominated social structure and stable democratization. Investigating the late 19th and early 20th century, we show that agrarian inequality was higher in Sweden than in Prussia, already putting the theory of a landlordism-authoritarianism connection in question. In contrast to the existing hypothesis, our within country-analysis indicates no positive correlation between land inequality and electoral support for the Conservative and Nazi parties and a positive correlation with turnout. We discuss social mobilization and declining social control of the landed elites as mediating institutional factors.

Date: 2024-11-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-pol
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:osfxxx:2jgq8

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/2jgq8

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