Theoretical and empirical work on the origins of democracy has long debated two issues: the relative importance of elites and masses and the impact of underlying socioeconomic forces in the transition process. This significant new book by Michael Albertus and Victor Menaldo unpacks the role of both political and economic elites in democratic transitions. The fundamental theoretical puzzle the book poses is why democracies so often prove to be much less redistributive than they are expected to be. In addressing the puzzle, the authors offer a coherent political economy framework that specifies the conditions in which we can expect either “elite-biased” or “popular” transitions.

The central framing point is that both authoritarian rulers and their allies within the economic elite might see it in their interest to support a transition to democracy, but only when they can impose de jure rules that assure their property rights and wider interests. This in turn is more likely under two conditions: when incumbent elites are motivated by threats posed from rival economic elites capable of coordinating with mass popular interests; and when they can rely on authoritarian legislatures and relatively strong states to ensure credible and sustainable commitments between alliance partners. Truly “popular” democracies emerge in the face of shocks, when the absence of co-opting legislatures and the weakness of the state impede elite coordination and offer an opening to rival political coalitions.

The authors go on to show that the distinction between elite-biased and popular democracies makes a difference. The principal indicator of an elite democracy is whether the fundamental rules of the game—constitutions—are initially written under the auspices of the outgoing authoritarian regime or de novo by democratic groups that replace them. The authors provide a very useful catalog of the variety of ways that constitutions lock in de jure protections for the outgoing elites through majority-constraining checks and balances, protection of property rights, amnesty for outgoing officials, and super-majority requirements that make constitutions difficult to change. On the basis of the distinction between the origins of the constitutions, and using V-Dem data dating back to the early nineteenth century, Albertus and Menaldo provide statistical evidence that elite-biased regimes have a smaller range of consultation, more restrictive suffrage, are less egalitarian across social groups, and more unequal in the distribution of resources. With economic data available since the 1970s, they also show that elite-biased democracies have smaller states, lower levels of social spending, and less exchange-rate flexibility. They are also less likely to prosecute outgoing dictators.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the authors show that although the constitutional rules imposed by elite-biased democracies are difficult to change, not only are these regimes better than the authoritarian alternative, but they also have the potential to become more popular over time. This becomes much more likely with generational change, as outgoing elites are replaced by actors with weaker stakes in the old order, and as economic changes and new organizational resources increase the capacity of reformist challengers.

The book adds value in a number of ways, not only by theorizing the heterogeneity of causal processes leading to democracy, but also by developing a more nuanced model of how elite interests work. Rather than assuming a unified political-economic elite, as is the case with much of the formal and sociological literature, the authors ground the logic of transitions in more complex dynamics in which the interests of authoritarian political elites and contending economic interests are by no means tightly aligned (see also Dan Slater, Benjamin Smith, and Gautam Nair, “Economic Origins of Democratic Breakdown? The Redistributive Model and the Postcolonial State,” Perspectives on Politics, 12(2), 2004).

One question about this analysis concerns the incidence of cases falling into different transition paths and the findings with respect to post-transition dynamics. Although the book is largely framed in terms of the puzzle of elite-led transitions, the incidence of these cases is somewhat less than the framing might suggest. As their highly original data show (Figures 3.1 and 3.2, pp. 76 and 79), only a minority of democracies—about 25% at the current conjuncture—operate with autocratic constitutions. Moreover, although coded as a binary variable, these constitutions differ in the balance of power at the time of the transition, and not all can be considered equally constrained by the authoritarian past. As Chapter 5 shows in some detail—and as we found in Dictators and Democrats (2016)—transitional bargains may generate path dependence, but with some noticeable decay. Posttransition dynamics typically prove as important for long-run democratic equilibria as the transitions that structure both the Albertus and Menaldo book and our work on the topic.

An important conclusion follows with respect to the balance of theoretical and substantive focus: that “popular transitions” and post-transition processes in all systems are more significant than Albertus and Menaldo’s framing suggests. The book sees popular transitions arising from “revolutions,” a somewhat unfortunate choice of terms in our view. In fact, few democratic transitions arise from revolutions or insurgencies as typically conceived, but rather from mass mobilizations, often relatively peaceful. The driving factors in the authors’ popular transition model are the well-known role of economic shocks—a contingent and short-run rather than structural economic factor—and the absence of co-opting and coordinating institutions.

The Swedish case study is instructive in showing how long-run post-transition causal processes are important for understanding the shape that democracy ultimately takes in equilibrium. As the authors acknowledge, by their own measure Sweden did not become a “popular” democracy until the constitutional reforms of 1974, decades after the basic features of the egalitarian welfare system had been put into place. It is true that these achievements were facilitated by earlier institutional reforms, but again as the authors acknowledge, the main factor was a change in the political balance of power that came with the formation of the red—green alliance in the 1930s and the institutionalization of a wage-setting formula after World War II. Moreover, although the 1974 Constitution did eliminate some of the “elite overhang,” in the Swedish system, it is also true that many of the egalitarian reforms that followed had to be modified significantly in the other direction following the severe recession of the early 1990s.

With respect to transitional processes, the authors place much weight on the role of constitutions; and the research and tabular material on constitutional design is one of the important contributions of the book. But, as noted, constitutions are clearly endogenous to the balance of power, not only at the time of the transition but going forward as well. In the authors’ extended analysis of Chile, it is telling that efforts to reign in military authority tended to come only after the death or retirement of cohorts associated with the old dictatorship. Constitutional protections were undoubtedly important in the establishment of a political equilibrium favoring the old elites, but they were clearly undergirded by the power resources of the elites themselves and tended to diminish in importance only as these resources declined. More generally, the emphasis on de jure power tends to understate the importance of lingering de facto threats; economic corruption and military threats continue to loom large in many African and Latin American democracies.

Finally, it is worth considering in more detail the nature of the constitutional and political bargains that undergird both elite and popular transitions. The book makes an important contribution by noting the significance of popular transitions for redistribution (although this point is still contested). Yet it may underestimate the extent to which all transitions—both elite and popular—involve difficult trade-offs between the interests of elites and mass publics. Important distinctions need to be drawn between popular transitions that strike reasonable balances in this regard and those that drive off the rails. The book rightly critiques the work of Thomas Piketty for concluding that growing inequality is built into the dynamics of capitalist systems; Piketty’s own data show significant differences between levels of inequality in European welfare states and the United States. But it is also the case that majority-constraining checks may provide mechanisms that are essential for both economic and political stability. This lesson is seen in the predictable economic difficulties that followed the radical redistributive initiatives of Latin American popular governments in the 1980s and early 2000s.

In sum, this is an impressive work that adds theoretical value in a tightly structured model that differentiates more sharply between and among political and economic elite interests; it thus deepens the sophistication of the current socioeconomic turn in the study of democracy. It also adds particular value in understanding the role of constitutions and in providing new evidence of their effects. This latter point is particularly significant in pushing the theory and analysis of democratic transitions forward. Put most simply, in what ways do democratic transitions ultimately matter?