This paper provides a general framework for analyzing political (in)stability in comparative political systems. It distinguishes different subgroups of a society, some of which have a potential for pursuing a redistribution of wealth in its broadest sense via constitutional or non-constitutional...

We develop a simple model of an insurrection market based on a kleptocratic politico-economic institutional setting, within which a certain government elite holds both all central government position and all productive assets. The kleptocratic setting provokes the appearance of insurrection...

The theory presented in this paper explains democratic transitions on the basis of rentmaximizing political leaders that aim at improving the credibility of post-constitutional policy making by way of introducing a decentralized democratic politico-institutional structure. They face an incentive...

This paper deals with the peculiar discussion around centralization and decentralization in the European Union. It is argued that large parts of this discussion rest on a flawed analogy of the liberal concept of normative individualism on the one hand and the concept of political...

Die Globalisierung wird von der Politik als ein Problem dargestellt und von der Öffentlichkeit skeptisch betrachtet. Welche Erkenntnisse hat die Wirtschaftswissenschaft zum Phänomen „Globalisierung“? Sind die Probleme „Arbeitslosigkeit“ und „Krise der sozialen Sicherungssysteme“...

In this paper the political economy of revolutions is revisited, as it has been developed and applied in a number of publications by Acemoglu and Robinson. We criticize the fact that these authors abstract from collective-action problems and focus on inequality of income or wealth instead. In...

This paper revisits the relation between democracy, liberalization, and prosperity in transition countries, using a panel of 25 countries over 19 years. Earlier investigations found political and economic liberalization to be positively correlated whereas the relation between political...