Industrialization, class conflict, and the closing window of democratic opportunity

This paper addresses two long-standing questions in the political economy of development: how the timing of industrialization affects the transition to democracy and how different social classes shape that transition. We develop a sequential game among landed elites, industrialists, and workers embedded in a growth model with endogenous industrialization. The model identifies a window of democratic opportunity during which the industrial class prefers democracy to industrial autocracy. Whether democracy occurs depends on two dimensions of workers’ de facto political power: their power against the landed class determines when industrialization occurs and when landed rule ends; their power against the industrial class determines when the democratic window closes. Later industrialization therefore makes democratization less likely but not impossible. A calibration to Great Britain and numerical exercises for early and late industrializers show that the revolt threat required to sustain democracy rises as industrialization is delayed. Faster technological growth advances political transitions but does not, by itself, determine whether democracy or industrial autocracy follows landed rule.