Legitimacy, Democracy, and Comparative Economic Growth Reconsidered

Bibliographic Data

ID2237708
AuthorsErich Weede (University of Cologne, corresponding author)
Year1996
Volume12
Issue3
Pages217-225
Publication date1996-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEuropean Sociological Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0266-7215 • E-ISSN: 1468-2672
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/oxfordjournals.esr.a018189
OpenAlexW2332512562
LanguageEN
Citations received12
References cited6

Recently, Bornschier (1989) suggested that legitimacy might be a determinant of comparative economic success and that it should be operationalized by relative absence of mass political protest. From a rational choice perspective, there are theoretical reasons to accept Bornschier's claim as well as some reasons to doubt it. In spite of his careful investigation of the robustness of the empirical linkage between absence of mass political protest and economic growth rates, Bornschier did not consider the possibility that distributional coalitions and the damage they do to efficient resource allocation may affect the link between legitimacy and economic performance. In order to investigate this possibility, the impact of distributional coalitions is indexed by ‘age of democracy’. Reanalyzing the post-war economic performance of industrialized democracies demonstrates that neither are Bornschier's (1989) earlier findings as robust as he seems to believe, nor indeed are the effects of ‘age of democracy’ as robust as I claimed on the basis of previous studies (Weede, 1984, 1986, 1991)

Democracy · Development economics · Economic system · Economics · Legitimacy · Operationalization · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Robustness (evolution) · Economic Theory and Institutions · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Social Policy and Reform Studies

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub