Why Do Voters Dismantle Checks and Balances?

Daron Acemoglu, James Robinson and Ragnar Torvik

The Review of Economic Studies, 2013, vol. 80, issue 3, 845-875

Abstract: Voters often dismantle constitutional checks and balances on the executive. If such checks and balances limit presidential abuses of power and rents, why do voters support their removal? We argue that by reducing politician rents, checks and balances also make it cheaper to bribe or influence politicians through non-electoral means. In weakly institutionalized polities where such non-electoral influences, particularly by the better organized elite, are a major concern, voters may prefer a political system without checks and balances as a way of insulating politicians from these influences. When they do so, they are effectively accepting a certain amount of politician (presidential) rents in return for redistribution. We show that checks and balances are less likely to emerge when the elite is better organized and is more likely to be able to influence or bribe politicians, and when inequality and potential taxes are high (which makes redistribution more valuable to the majority). We also provide case study evidence from Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela consistent with the model. Copyright 2013, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (56)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/restud/rdt007 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Why Do Voters Dismantle Checks and Balances? (2013)
Working Paper: Why Do Voters Dismantle Checks and Balances? (2013)
Working Paper: Why Do Voters Dismantle Checks and Balances? (2011)
Working Paper: Why Do Voters Dismantle Checks and Balances? (2011)
Working Paper: Why Do Voters Dismantle Checks and Balances? (2011)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:restud:v:80:y:2013:i:3:p:845-875

Access Statistics for this article

The Review of Economic Studies is currently edited by Thomas Chaney, Xavier d’Haultfoeuille, Andrea Galeotti, Bård Harstad, Nir Jaimovich, Katrine Loken, Elias Papaioannou, Vincent Sterk and Noam Yuchtman

More articles in The Review of Economic Studies from Review of Economic Studies Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().