The political agenda effect and state centralization
We provide a potential explanation, based on the “political agenda effect”, for the absence of, and unwillingness to create, centralized power in the hands of a national state. State centralization induces citizens of different backgrounds, interests, regions or ethnicities to coordinate their deman...
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| Бусад зохиолчид: | |
| Формат: | Өгүүллэг |
| Хэл сонгох: | English |
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Elsevier BV
2021
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| Онлайн хандалт: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/130319 |
| _version_ | 1826207089505075200 |
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| author | Acemoglu, K. Daron |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics Acemoglu, K. Daron |
| author_sort | Acemoglu, K. Daron |
| collection | MIT |
| description | We provide a potential explanation, based on the “political agenda effect”, for the absence of, and unwillingness to create, centralized power in the hands of a national state. State centralization induces citizens of different backgrounds, interests, regions or ethnicities to coordinate their demands in the direction of more general-interest public goods, and away from parochial transfers. This political agenda effect raises the effectiveness of citizen demands and induces them to increase their investments in conflict capacity. In the absence of state centralization, citizens do not necessarily band together because of another force, the escalation effect, which refers to the fact that elites from different regions will join forces in response to the citizens doing so. Such escalation might hurt the citizen groups that have already solved their collective action problem (though it will benefit others). Anticipating the interplay of the political agenda and escalation effects, under some parameter configurations, political elites strategically opt for a non-centralized state. We show how the model generates non-monotonic comparative statics in response to the increase in the value or effectiveness of public goods (so that centralized states and public good provision may be absent precisely when they are more beneficial for society). We also suggest how the formation of a social democratic party may sometimes induce state centralization (by removing the commitment value of a non-centralized state), and how elites may sometimes prefer partial state centralization. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T13:44:16Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/130319 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T13:44:16Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | Elsevier BV |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1303192022-09-28T15:48:44Z The political agenda effect and state centralization Acemoglu, K. Daron Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics We provide a potential explanation, based on the “political agenda effect”, for the absence of, and unwillingness to create, centralized power in the hands of a national state. State centralization induces citizens of different backgrounds, interests, regions or ethnicities to coordinate their demands in the direction of more general-interest public goods, and away from parochial transfers. This political agenda effect raises the effectiveness of citizen demands and induces them to increase their investments in conflict capacity. In the absence of state centralization, citizens do not necessarily band together because of another force, the escalation effect, which refers to the fact that elites from different regions will join forces in response to the citizens doing so. Such escalation might hurt the citizen groups that have already solved their collective action problem (though it will benefit others). Anticipating the interplay of the political agenda and escalation effects, under some parameter configurations, political elites strategically opt for a non-centralized state. We show how the model generates non-monotonic comparative statics in response to the increase in the value or effectiveness of public goods (so that centralized states and public good provision may be absent precisely when they are more beneficial for society). We also suggest how the formation of a social democratic party may sometimes induce state centralization (by removing the commitment value of a non-centralized state), and how elites may sometimes prefer partial state centralization. 2021-04-01T12:04:59Z 2021-04-01T12:04:59Z 2020-05 2020-03 2021-03-29T17:39:55Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0147-5967 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/130319 Acemoglu, Daron et al. “The political agenda effect and state centralization.” Journal of Comparative Economics, 48, 4 (May 2020): 749-778 © 2020 The Author(s) en 10.1016/J.JCE.2020.03.004 Journal of Comparative Economics Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ application/pdf Elsevier BV Elsevier |
| spellingShingle | Acemoglu, K. Daron The political agenda effect and state centralization |
| title | The political agenda effect and state centralization |
| title_full | The political agenda effect and state centralization |
| title_fullStr | The political agenda effect and state centralization |
| title_full_unstemmed | The political agenda effect and state centralization |
| title_short | The political agenda effect and state centralization |
| title_sort | political agenda effect and state centralization |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/130319 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT acemoglukdaron thepoliticalagendaeffectandstatecentralization AT acemoglukdaron politicalagendaeffectandstatecentralization |