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The Geography of Democratic Discontent

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2022

Cameron Ballard-Rosa Open the ORCID record for Cameron Ballard-Rosa [Opens in a new window] ,
Allison Carnegie Open the ORCID record for Allison Carnegie [Opens in a new window]  and
Bryan Schonfeld Open the ORCID record for Bryan Schonfeld [Opens in a new window]
Cameron Ballard-Rosa*
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA
Allison Carnegie
Affiliation:
Columbia University, New York, USA
Bryan Schonfeld
Affiliation:
Princeton University, Princeton, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: cambr@email.unc.edu
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Abstract

Understanding the determinants of support for democracy remains at the heart of many puzzles in international and comparative political economy. A central but still unresolved topic in this literature is the conditions under which such support dissipates. To answer this question, this article focuses on distributional politics: since democratic leaders possess limited budgets but need to win elections, they often skew resources toward one politically influential sector, leading to more negative attitudes toward democracy among electorally ignored populations. In particular, we argue that governments often face a key political trade-off: whether to direct resources to the agricultural sector or to encourage urban development. After developing this argument in a formal model, we detail historical accounts that substantiate the mechanisms identified in the model. Finally, we provide cross-national quantitative evidence that discontent with democracy increases among geographic populations when governments disproportionately distribute resources toward other sectors.

Keywords

democracycoupagricultural policygeographic bias
Type
Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , April 2023 , pp. 366 - 386
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Supplementary material: Link

Ballard-Rosa et al. Dataset

Dataset https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/UVDDBD
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Ballard-Rosa et al. supplementary material

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