Rousing the Rabble: Coercion, Coordination, and Regime Change

Despite compelling logical foundations, distributive conflict theories of democratization have received only mixed empirical support. This paper tests the core mechanism underlying the relationship between income inequality and democratization posited in influential political economy models. I argue that the effects of income inequality on the prospects of democracy are contingent on the social and political resources available to the principal actors. In particular, effective distributive challenges to authoritarian regimes "from below" will depend on the capacity of the masses to overcome coordination and collective action barriers, and on the ability of the elites to marshal capable and reliable instruments of coercion. I test this argument with a time-series cross-sectional design that analyses data on distributive conflict transitions for up to 95 authoritarian regimes between 1980 and 2008. I find that-when the masses can mobilize and the elites are weak-inequality has a predictable and positive effect on the chances for democratization.