Bread And Autocracy

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Bread and Autocracy

Author : Janetta Azarieva
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0197684386
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (976 download)

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Book Synopsis Bread and Autocracy by : Janetta Azarieva

Download or read book Bread and Autocracy written by Janetta Azarieva and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-08-18 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Food has been crucial to the functioning and survival of governments and regimes since the emergence of early states. Yet, only in a few countries is the connection between food and politics as pronounced as in Russia. Since the 1917 Revolution, virtually every significant development in Russian and Soviet history has been either directly driven by or closely associated with the question of food and access to it. In fact, food shortages played a critical role in the collapse of both the Russian Empire and the USSR. Under Putin's watch, Russia moved from heavily relying on grain imports to feed the population to being one of the world's leading food exporters. In Bread and Autocracy, Janetta Azarieva, Yitzhak M. Brudny, and Eugene Finkel focus on this crucial yet widely overlooked transformation, as well as its causes and consequences for Russia's domestic and foreign politics. The authors argue that Russia's food independence agenda is an outcome of a deliberate, decades-long policy to better prepare the country for a confrontation with the West. Moreover, they show that for the Kremlin, nutritional self-sufficiency and domestic food production is a crucial pillar of state security and regime survival. Azarieva, Brudny, and Finkel also make the case that Russia's focus on food independence also sets the country apart from almost all modern autocracies. While many authoritarian regimes have adopted industrial import-substitution policies, in Putin's Russia it is the substitution of food imports with domestically produced crops that is crucial for regime survival. As food reemerges as a key global issue and nations increasingly turn inwards, Bread and Autocracy provides a timely and comprehensive look into Russia's experience in building a nutritionally autarkic dictatorship.

The New Autocracy

Author : Daniel Treisman
Publisher : Brookings Institution Press
ISBN 13 : 0815732449
Total Pages : 265 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (157 download)

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Book Synopsis The New Autocracy by : Daniel Treisman

Download or read book The New Autocracy written by Daniel Treisman and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Corruption, fake news, and the "informational autocracy" sustaining Putin in power After fading into the background for many years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia suddenly has emerged as a new threat—at least in the minds of many Westerners. But Western assumptions about Russia, and in particular about political decision-making in Russia, tend to be out of date or just plain wrong. Under the leadership of Vladimir Putin since 2000, Russia is neither a somewhat reduced version of the Soviet Union nor a classic police state. Corruption is prevalent at all levels of government and business, but Russia's leaders pursue broader and more complex goals than one would expect in a typical kleptocracy, such as those in many developing countries. Nor does Russia fit the standard political science model of a "competitive authoritarian" regime; its parliament, political parties, and other political bodies are neither fakes to fool the West nor forums for bargaining among the elites. The result of a two-year collaboration between top Russian experts and Western political scholars, Autocracy explores the complex roles of Russia's presidency, security services, parliament, media and other actors. The authors argue that Putin has created an “informational autocracy,” which relies more on media manipulation than on the comprehensive repression of traditional dictatorships. The fake news, hackers, and trolls that featured in Russia’s foreign policy during the 2016 U.S. presidential election are also favored tools of Putin’s domestic regime—along with internet restrictions, state television, and copious in-house surveys. While these tactics have been successful in the short run, the regime that depends on them already shows signs of age: over-centralization, a narrowing of information flows, and a reliance on informal fixers to bypass the bureaucracy. The regime's challenge will be to continue to block social modernization without undermining the leadership’s own capabilities.

Surviving Autocracy

Author : Masha Gessen
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0593332245
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (933 download)

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Book Synopsis Surviving Autocracy by : Masha Gessen

Download or read book Surviving Autocracy written by Masha Gessen and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “When Gessen speaks about autocracy, you listen.” —The New York Times “A reckoning with what has been lost in the past few years and a map forward with our beliefs intact.” —Interview As seen on MSNBC’s Morning Joe and heard on NPR’s All Things Considered: the bestselling, National Book Award–winning journalist offers an essential guide to understanding, resisting, and recovering from the ravages of our tumultuous times. This incisive book provides an essential guide to understanding and recovering from the calamitous corrosion of American democracy over the past few years. Thanks to the special perspective that is the legacy of a Soviet childhood and two decades covering the resurgence of totalitarianism in Russia, Masha Gessen has a sixth sense for the manifestations of autocracy—and the unique cross-cultural fluency to delineate their emergence to Americans. Gessen not only anatomizes the corrosion of the institutions and cultural norms we hoped would save us but also tells us the story of how a short few years changed us from a people who saw ourselves as a nation of immigrants to a populace haggling over a border wall, heirs to a degraded sense of truth, meaning, and possibility. Surviving Autocracy is an inventory of ravages and a call to account but also a beacon to recovery—and to the hope of what comes next.

Vodka Politics

Author : Mark Lawrence Schrad
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199389470
Total Pages : 514 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (993 download)

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Book Synopsis Vodka Politics by : Mark Lawrence Schrad

Download or read book Vodka Politics written by Mark Lawrence Schrad and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-05 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Russia is famous for its vodka, and its culture of extreme intoxication. But just as vodka is central to the lives of many Russians, it is also central to understanding Russian history and politics. In Vodka Politics, Mark Lawrence Schrad argues that debilitating societal alcoholism is not hard-wired into Russians' genetic code, but rather their autocratic political system, which has long wielded vodka as a tool of statecraft. Through a series of historical investigations stretching from Ivan the Terrible through Vladimir Putin, Vodka Politics presents the secret history of the Russian state itself-a history that is drenched in liquor. Scrutinizing (rather than dismissing) the role of alcohol in Russian politics yields a more nuanced understanding of Russian history itself: from palace intrigues under the tsars to the drunken antics of Soviet and post-Soviet leadership, vodka is there in abundance. Beyond vivid anecdotes, Schrad scours original documents and archival evidence to answer provocative historical questions. How have Russia's rulers used alcohol to solidify their autocratic rule? What role did alcohol play in tsarist coups? Was Nicholas II's ill-fated prohibition a catalyst for the Bolshevik Revolution? Could the Soviet Union have become a world power without liquor? How did vodka politics contribute to the collapse of both communism and public health in the 1990s? How can the Kremlin overcome vodka's hurdles to produce greater social well-being, prosperity, and democracy into the future? Viewing Russian history through the bottom of the vodka bottle helps us to understand why the "liquor question" remains important to Russian high politics even today-almost a century after the issue had been put to bed in most every other modern state. Indeed, recognizing and confronting vodka's devastating political legacies may be the greatest political challenge for this generation of Russia's leadership, as well as the next.

Islam and the Arab Revolutions

Author : Usaama Al-Azami
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0197651119
Total Pages : 527 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (976 download)

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Book Synopsis Islam and the Arab Revolutions by : Usaama Al-Azami

Download or read book Islam and the Arab Revolutions written by Usaama Al-Azami and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-01 with total page 527 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Arab revolutions of 2011 were a transformative moment in the modern history of the Middle East, as people rose up against long-standing autocrats throughout the region to call for 'bread, freedom and dignity'. With the passage of time, results have been decidedly mixed, with tentative success stories like Tunisia contrasting with the emergence of even more repressive dictatorships in places like Egypt, with the backing of several Gulf states. Focusing primarily on Egypt, this book considers a relatively understudied dimension of these revolutions: the role of prominent religious scholars. While pro-revolutionary ulama have justified activism against authoritarian regimes, counter-revolutionary scholars have provided religious backing for repression, and in some cases the mass murder of unarmed protestors. Usaama al-Azami traces the public engagements and religious pronouncements of several prominent ulama in the region, including Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Ali Gomaa and Abdullah bin Bayyah, to explore their role in either championing the Arab revolutions or supporting their repression. He concludes that while a minority of noted scholars have enthusiastically endorsed the counter-revolutions, their approach is attributable less to premodern theology and more to their distinctly modern commitment to the authoritarian state.

Bread and Authority in Russia, 1914-1921

Author : Lars T. Lih
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780520065840
Total Pages : 334 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (658 download)

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Book Synopsis Bread and Authority in Russia, 1914-1921 by : Lars T. Lih

Download or read book Bread and Authority in Russia, 1914-1921 written by Lars T. Lih and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1914 and 1921, Russia experienced a national crisis that destroyed the tsarist state and led to the establishment of the new Bolshevik order. During this period of war, revolution, and civil war, there was a food-supply crisis. Although Russia was one of the world's major grain exporters, the country was no longer capable of feeding its own people. The hunger of the urban workers increased the pace of revolutionary events in 1917 and 1918, and the food-supply policy during the civil war became the most detested symbol of the hardships imposed by the Bolsheviks. Focusing on this crisis, Lars Lih examines the fundamental process of political and social breakdown and reconstitution. He argues that this seven-year period is the key to understanding the Russian revolution and its aftermath. In 1921 the Bolsheviks rejected the food-supply policy established during the civil war; sixty-five years later, Mikhail Gorbachev made this change of policy a symbol of perestroika. Since then, more attention has been given both in the West and in the Soviet Union to the early years of the revolution as one source of the tragedies of Stalinist oppression. Lih's argument is based on a great variety of source material--archives, memoirs, novels, political rhetoric, pamphlets, and propoganda posters. His new study will be read with profit by all who are interested in the drama of the Russian revolution, the roots of both Stalinism and anti-Stalin reform, and more generally in a new way of understanding the effects of social and political breakdown.

From Autocracy to Democracy to Technocracy

Author : Victor N. Shaw
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1527560953
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (275 download)

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Book Synopsis From Autocracy to Democracy to Technocracy by : Victor N. Shaw

Download or read book From Autocracy to Democracy to Technocracy written by Victor N. Shaw and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-15 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores human polity with respect to its nature, context, and evolution. Specifically, it examines how individual wills translate into political ideologies, investigates what social forces converge to shape governmental operations, and probes whether human polity progresses in focus from individual wills to group interests to social integrations. The book entertains five hypotheses. The first is commonsensical: where there are people there is politics. The second is analogous: humans govern themselves socially in a way that is comparable to how a body regulates itself physically. The third is rational: humans set rules, organize activities, and establish institutions upon facts, following reasons, for the purpose of effectiveness and efficiency. The fourth is random: human affairs take place haphazardly under specific circumstances while they overall exhibit general patterns and trends. The final hypothesis is inevitable: human governance evolves from autocracy to democracy to technocracy. The book presents systematic information about human polity, its form, content, operation, impact, and evolution. It sheds light on multivariate interactions among human wills, rights, and obligations, political thoughts, actions, and mechanisms, and social structures, processes, and order maintenances. Pragmatically, it offers invaluable insights into individuals as agents, groupings as agencies, and polity as structuration across the human sphere.

Food and Power

Author : Henry Thomson
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108754007
Total Pages : 253 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (87 download)

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Book Synopsis Food and Power by : Henry Thomson

Download or read book Food and Power written by Henry Thomson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-06-06 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The relationship between development and democratization remains one of the most compelling topics of research in political science, yet many aspects of authoritarian regime behavior remain unexplained. This book explores how different types of governments take action to shape the course of economic development, focusing on agriculture, a sector that is of crucial importance in the developing world. It explains variation in agricultural and food policy across regime type, who the winners and losers of these policies are, and whether they influence the stability of authoritarian governments. The book pushes us to think differently about the process linking economic development to political change, and to consider growth as an inherently politicized process rather than an exogenous driver of moves towards democracy.

Ruling Russia

Author : William Zimmerman
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691169322
Total Pages : 355 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis Ruling Russia by : William Zimmerman

Download or read book Ruling Russia written by William Zimmerman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-03-22 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book to trace the evolution of Russian politics from the Bolsheviks to Putin When the Soviet Union collapsed, many hoped that Russia's centuries-long history of autocratic rule might finally end. Yet today’s Russia appears to be retreating from democracy, not progressing toward it. Ruling Russia is the only book of its kind to trace the history of modern Russian politics from the Bolshevik Revolution to the presidency of Vladimir Putin. It examines the complex evolution of communist and post-Soviet leadership in light of the latest research in political science, explaining why the democratization of Russia has all but failed. William Zimmerman argues that in the 1930s the USSR was totalitarian but gradually evolved into a normal authoritarian system, while the post-Soviet Russian Federation evolved from a competitive authoritarian to a normal authoritarian system in the first decade of the twenty-first century. He traces how the selectorate—those empowered to choose the decision makers—has changed across different regimes since the end of tsarist rule. The selectorate was limited in the period after the revolution, and contracted still further during Joseph Stalin’s dictatorship, only to expand somewhat after his death. Zimmerman also assesses Russia’s political prospects in future elections. He predicts that while a return to totalitarianism in the coming decade is unlikely, so too is democracy. Rich in historical detail, Ruling Russia is the first book to cover the entire period of the regime changes from the Bolsheviks to Putin, and is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand why Russia still struggles to implement lasting democratic reforms.

How Democracies Die

Author : Steven Levitsky
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 1524762946
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (247 download)

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Book Synopsis How Democracies Die by : Steven Levitsky

Download or read book How Democracies Die written by Steven Levitsky and published by Crown. This book was released on 2019-01-08 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Comprehensive, enlightening, and terrifyingly timely.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) WINNER OF THE GOLDSMITH BOOK PRIZE • SHORTLISTED FOR THE LIONEL GELBER PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • Time • Foreign Affairs • WBUR • Paste Donald Trump’s presidency has raised a question that many of us never thought we’d be asking: Is our democracy in danger? Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have spent more than twenty years studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America, and they believe the answer is yes. Democracy no longer ends with a bang—in a revolution or military coup—but with a whimper: the slow, steady weakening of critical institutions, such as the judiciary and the press, and the gradual erosion of long-standing political norms. The good news is that there are several exit ramps on the road to authoritarianism. The bad news is that, by electing Trump, we have already passed the first one. Drawing on decades of research and a wide range of historical and global examples, from 1930s Europe to contemporary Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela, to the American South during Jim Crow, Levitsky and Ziblatt show how democracies die—and how ours can be saved. Praise for How Democracies Die “What we desperately need is a sober, dispassionate look at the current state of affairs. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, two of the most respected scholars in the field of democracy studies, offer just that.”—The Washington Post “Where Levitsky and Ziblatt make their mark is in weaving together political science and historical analysis of both domestic and international democratic crises; in doing so, they expand the conversation beyond Trump and before him, to other countries and to the deep structure of American democracy and politics.”—Ezra Klein, Vox “If you only read one book for the rest of the year, read How Democracies Die. . . .This is not a book for just Democrats or Republicans. It is a book for all Americans. It is nonpartisan. It is fact based. It is deeply rooted in history. . . . The best commentary on our politics, no contest.”—Michael Morrell, former Acting Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (via Twitter) “A smart and deeply informed book about the ways in which democracy is being undermined in dozens of countries around the world, and in ways that are perfectly legal.”—Fareed Zakaria, CNN

Putin's Kleptocracy

Author : Karen Dawisha
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1476795207
Total Pages : 464 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (767 download)

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Book Synopsis Putin's Kleptocracy by : Karen Dawisha

Download or read book Putin's Kleptocracy written by Karen Dawisha and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-09-22 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The raging question in the world today is who is the real Vladimir Putin and what are his intentions. Karen Dawisha’s brilliant Putin’s Kleptocracy provides an answer, describing how Putin got to power, the cabal he brought with him, the billions they have looted, and his plan to restore the Greater Russia. Russian scholar Dawisha describes and exposes the origins of Putin’s kleptocratic regime. She presents extensive new evidence about the Putin circle’s use of public positions for personal gain even before Putin became president in 2000. She documents the establishment of Bank Rossiya, now sanctioned by the US; the rise of the Ozero cooperative, founded by Putin and others who are now subject to visa bans and asset freezes; the links between Putin, Petromed, and “Putin’s Palace” near Sochi; and the role of security officials from Putin’s KGB days in Leningrad and Dresden, many of whom have maintained their contacts with Russian organized crime. Putin’s Kleptocracy is the result of years of research into the KGB and the various Russian crime syndicates. Dawisha’s sources include Stasi archives; Russian insiders; investigative journalists in the US, Britain, Germany, Finland, France, and Italy; and Western officials who served in Moscow. Russian journalists wrote part of this story when the Russian media was still free. “Many of them died for this story, and their work has largely been scrubbed from the Internet, and even from Russian libraries,” Dawisha says. “But some of that work remains.”

Coloured Revolutions and Authoritarian Reactions

Author : Evgeny Finkel
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317980239
Total Pages : 195 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (179 download)

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Book Synopsis Coloured Revolutions and Authoritarian Reactions by : Evgeny Finkel

Download or read book Coloured Revolutions and Authoritarian Reactions written by Evgeny Finkel and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-07-17 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 2000 and 2005, colour revolutions swept away authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes in Serbia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine. Yet, after these initial successes, attempts to replicate the strategies failed to produce regime change elsewhere in the region. The book argues that students of democratization and democracy promotion should study not only the successful colour revolutions, but also the colour revolution prevention strategies adopted by authoritarian elites. Based on a series of qualitative, country-focused studies the book explores the whole spectrum of anti-democratization policies, adopted by autocratic rulers and demonstrates that authoritarian regimes studied democracy promotion techniques, used in various colour revolutions, and focused their prevention strategies on combatting these techniques. The book proposes a new typology of authoritarian reactions to the challenge of democratization and argues that the specific mix of policies and rhetoric, adopted by each authoritarian regime, depended on the perceived intensity of threat to regime survival and the regime’s perceived strength vis-à-vis the democratic opposition. This book was published as a special issue of Democratization.

Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy

Author : Daron Acemoglu
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521855266
Total Pages : 444 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (552 download)

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Book Synopsis Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy by : Daron Acemoglu

Download or read book Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy written by Daron Acemoglu and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book develops a framework for analyzing the creation and consolidation of democracy. Different social groups prefer different political institutions because of the way they allocate political power and resources. Thus democracy is preferred by the majority of citizens, but opposed by elites. Dictatorship nevertheless is not stable when citizens can threaten social disorder and revolution. In response, when the costs of repression are sufficiently high and promises of concessions are not credible, elites may be forced to create democracy. By democratizing, elites credibly transfer political power to the citizens, ensuring social stability. Democracy consolidates when elites do not have strong incentive to overthrow it. These processes depend on (1) the strength of civil society, (2) the structure of political institutions, (3) the nature of political and economic crises, (4) the level of economic inequality, (5) the structure of the economy, and (6) the form and extent of globalization.

Christian Science Sentinel

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 1058 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (89 download)

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Book Synopsis Christian Science Sentinel by :

Download or read book Christian Science Sentinel written by and published by . This book was released on 1916 with total page 1058 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Iron Curtain

Author : Anne Applebaum
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0385536437
Total Pages : 803 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (855 download)

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Book Synopsis Iron Curtain by : Anne Applebaum

Download or read book Iron Curtain written by Anne Applebaum and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2012-10-30 with total page 803 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the long-awaited follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag, acclaimed journalist Anne Applebaum delivers a groundbreaking history of how Communism took over Eastern Europe after World War II and transformed in frightening fashion the individuals who came under its sway. At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union to its surprise and delight found itself in control of a huge swath of territory in Eastern Europe. Stalin and his secret police set out to convert a dozen radically different countries to Communism, a completely new political and moral system. In Iron Curtain, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum describes how the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe were created and what daily life was like once they were complete. She draws on newly opened East European archives, interviews, and personal accounts translated for the first time to portray in devastating detail the dilemmas faced by millions of individuals trying to adjust to a way of life that challenged their every belief and took away everything they had accumulated. Today the Soviet Bloc is a lost civilization, one whose cruelty, paranoia, bizarre morality, and strange aesthetics Applebaum captures in the electrifying pages of Iron Curtain.

Saving Subsistence

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 4 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (117 download)

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Download or read book Saving Subsistence written by and published by . This book was released on 1918 with total page 4 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy

Author : Michael Albertus
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 110819642X
Total Pages : 326 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (81 download)

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Book Synopsis Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy by : Michael Albertus

Download or read book Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy written by Michael Albertus and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-25 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.