Working Paper: NBER ID: w21193
Authors: Jeanet Bentzen; Jacob Gerner Hariri; James A. Robinson
Abstract: We document that rules for leadership succession in ethnic societies that antedate the modern state predict contemporary political regimes; leadership selection by election in indigenous societies is associated with contemporary representative democracy. The basic association, however, is conditioned on the relative strength of the indigenous groups within a country; stronger groups seem to have been able to shape national regime trajectories, weaker groups do not. This finding extends and qualifies a substantive qualitative literature, which has found in local democratic institutions of medieval Europe a positive impulse towards the development of representative democracy. It shows that contemporary regimes are shaped not only by colonial history and European influence; indigenous history also matters. For practitioners, our findings suggest that external reformers' capacity for regime-building should not be exaggerated.
Keywords: Representative Democracy; Indigenous Institutions; Political Regimes
JEL Codes: D72
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| leadership succession by election in indigenous societies (D72) | contemporary representative democracy at the national level (D72) |
| stronger indigenous groups located closer to the capital (N96) | greater influence on national regime trajectories (F55) |
| complex settlement patterns of indigenous groups (N96) | stronger association with national democracy (F52) |
| higher economic activity (nighttime luminosity) (R11) | stronger association between indigenous and national institutions (F55) |
| indigenous assemblies (P13) | facilitation of democratic norms and practices (O17) |
| political strength of indigenous institutions (proximity to capital) (O17) | influence on regime outcomes (O17) |