Political scientists Stephan Haggard and Robert Kaufman will present their research on “Distributive Conflict and the Transition to Democratic Rule” this Monday, Sept. 29, from 15:00-17:00 in the Graham Wallace room.

Stephan Haggard (UCSD) and Robert Kaufman (Rutgers):
“Distributive Conflict and the Transition to Democratic Rule”

Carles Boix and Daron Acemoglu and Jim Robinson have advanced what we call a “distributive conflict” model of democratic transitions.  In earlier work, we argued that the causal mechanisms stipulated in the model did not appear to explain third wave transitions: inequality was not causally significant nor did transitions appear to occur uniformly as a result of distributive conflict.  However, some transitions did and in this chapter we explore their effects.  Regression analysis shows that distributive transitions produce higher scores on the Polity IV and Freedom House indexes.  Differences in the quality of political competition are also evident in narrative comparisons between four paired sets of cases:  Uruguay and Chile, Ukraine and Belarus, Zambia and Ghana, and El Salvador and Honduras.  The differences in the effects of distributive and non-distributive transitions are small, but they persist over a decade or more.

Paper related to their research project: ‘Inequality and Regime Change: Democratic Transitions and the Stability of Democratic Rule’, American Political Science Review, Aug 2012

About the speakers

Stephan Haggard is the Lawrence and Sallye Krause Professor of Korea-Pacific Studies; Director, Korea-Pacific Program (KPP); and Distinguished Professor of Political Science at IR/PS at the University of California, San Diego.

Robert Kaufman is Professor of Political Sciences at Rutgers University.

This event is free and open to all with no ticket or pre-registration required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis.