Political Institutions and the Distributional Consequences of Suffrage Extension

In this paper we show how the impact of suffrage extension on public goods provision and redistribution depends on the context of political institutions. While it has been argued that suffrage extension leads to larger shares of state budgets being spent on public goods and redistribution, we demonstrate that this effect is conditional upon the type of electoral system and the existence of veto points. Majoritarian systems significantly decrease the positive effect that suffrage extension has on public goods provision. The opposite is true, however, for redistributive measures like social spending and taxation. Historically, introducing proportional representation was a possibility for ruling elites to protect their parliamentary majorities against the electoral threat posed by the rising left. As a result the relocation of the median voter through suffrage extension had a weaker effect on redistribution in systems of proportional representation as compared to countries with majoritarian electoral institutions. The same is true for systems where veto points allowed the old elites to block legislation and, thus, impeded changes towards more redistribution. We provide empirical support for this argument analyzing data on government spending and inheritance taxation in 11 Western European countries between 1860 and 1938