Who benefits and who loses during redistribution under dictatorship? This paper argues that expropriating powerful preexisting economic elites can serve to demonstrate a dictator or junta's loyalty to their launching organization while destroying elite rivals out of government that could potentially threaten the dictator's survival. It also provides resources to buy the support of key non-elite groups that could otherwise organize destabilizing resistance. An analysis of the universe of 15,000 land expropriations under military rule in Peru from 1968-1980 demonstrates the plausibility of this argument as a case of redistributive military rule that destroyed traditional elites and empowered the military. Land was then redistributed to “middle-class” rural laborers that had the greatest capacity to organize anti-regime resistance if excluded from the reform. This finding directly challenges a core assumption of social conflict theory: that nondemocratic leaders will act as faithful agents of economic elites. A discussion of other modernizing militaries and data on large-scale expropriation of land, natural resources, and banks across Latin America from 1935-2008 suggests the theory generalizes beyond Peru.

How do political institutions affect wealth redistribution initiatives and their efficacy? While influential current theory holds that redistribution should be both higher and more targeted at the poor under democracy, many newly democratic states have failed to implement redistributive policies that would benefit the majority of newly enfranchised voters. Using original data, primarily though not exclusively on land reform and bank and natural resource expropriations in Latin America, I find that redistribution has actually been greatest during periods of autocratic rule. I demonstrate empirically that where institutional constraints to rule are higher, as in democracy, large-scale redistribution is more difficult to implement. But why do some autocratic rulers choose to redistribute while others do not? I argue that when there is a split between a dictator's support coalition and elites out of government that can pose a threat to his rule, the dictator may choose to expropriate rival elites. Simultaneously redistributing much of the assets of those elites to the poor can gain the support of lower classes and reduce potentially destabilizing pressure from below. One important consequence is that dictators who have expropriated tend to survive longer in office than those that do not. Although redistribution is often more likely under autocracy, there are nonetheless cases of redistribution under democracy. When elites are politically weak during the democratic transition process, as during revolution, there is a long-run relationship between democracy and redistribution. So although democracy may sometimes be a credible commitment to redistribution, it is more often captured by elites and does not induce redistribution.

When and why do countries redistribute land to the landless? What political purposes does land reform serve, and what place does it have in today's world? A long-standing literature dating back to Aristotle and echoed in important recent works holds that redistribution should be both higher and more targeted at the poor under democracy. Yet comprehensive historical data to test this claim has been lacking. This book shows that land redistribution - the most consequential form of redistribution in the developing world - occurs more often under dictatorship than democracy. It offers a novel theory of land reform and develops a typology of land reform policies. Albertus leverages original data spanning the world and dating back to 1900 to extensively test the theory using statistical analysis and case studies of key countries such as Egypt, Peru, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe. These findings call for rethinking much of the common wisdom about redistribution and regimes.

This book argues that - in terms of institutional design, the allocation of power and privilege, and the lived experiences of citizens - democracy often does not restart the political game after displacing authoritarianism. Democratic institutions are frequently designed by the outgoing authoritarian regime to shield incumbent elites from the rule of law and give them an unfair advantage over politics and the economy after democratization. Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy systematically documents and analyzes the constitutional tools that outgoing authoritarian elites use to accomplish these ends, such as electoral system design, legislative appointments, federalism, legal immunities, constitutional tribunal design, and supermajority thresholds for change. The study provides wide-ranging evidence for these claims using data that spans the globe and dates from 1800 to the present. Albertus and Menaldo also conduct detailed case studies of Chile and Sweden. In doing so, they explain why some democracies successfully overhaul their elite-biased constitutions for more egalitarian social contracts.

Research on the economic origins of democracy and dictatorship has shifted away from the impact of growth and turned toward the question of how different patterns of growth - equal or unequal - shape regime change. This book offers a new theory of the historical relationship between economic modernization and the emergence of democracy on a global scale, focusing on the effects of land and income inequality. Contrary to most mainstream arguments, Ben W. Ansell and David J. Samuels suggest that democracy is more likely to emerge when rising, yet politically disenfranchised, groups demand more influence because they have more to lose, rather than when threats of redistribution to elite interests are low.

Based on a detailed study of 35 cases in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and post-communist Eurasia, this book explores the fate of competitive authoritarian regimes between 1990 and 2008. It finds that where social, economic, and technocratic ties to the West were extensive, as in Eastern Europe and the Americas, the external cost of abuse led incumbents to cede power rather than crack down, which led to democratization. Where ties to the West were limited, external democratizing pressure was weaker and countries rarely democratized. In these cases, regime outcomes hinged on the character of state and ruling party organizations. Where incumbents possessed developed and cohesive coercive party structures, they could thwart opposition challenges, and competitive authoritarian regimes survived; where incumbents lacked such organizational tools, regimes were unstable but rarely democratized.

A new understanding of the causes and consequences of incomplete property rights in countries across the world.