The Evolution of Suffrage Institutions in the New World

Abstract

Most analysis of how the distribution of political power affects the patterns of growth has been confined to the late-twentieth century. One problem associated with a focus on the modern record is that processes that take place over the long run are not examined. We may all agree that institutions concerned with the distribution of political power have an impact on growth, but our interpretation of the relationship will vary with our understanding of where institutions come from: to what degree are institutions exogenous, and to what degree are they endogenous. This paper contributes to our knowledge of where institutions have come from by examining how the rules governing the extension of suffrage, a key measure of the distribution of political influence, evolved over time within the United States and across the societies of the Americas.We have previously argued that there was enormous variation in the initial extent of inequality across the New World colonial societies established by the Europeans because of differences in their factor endowments present early in their histories. Moreover, these initial differences in inequality may have persisted over time if they affected the ability of elites to obtain disproportionate political leverage, and to shape legal frameworks and state policies to advantage themselves relative to others in terms of access to economic and other opportunities. In this paper, we show that the early patterns of the extension of the franchise, the proportions of the respective populations voting, and other aspects of the conduct of elections are indeed generally consistent with the notion that the extent of initial inequality and population heterogeneity was associated across societies --even within the United States --with the nature of the political institutions that evolved. Specifically, where there was greater inequality, the proportion of the population that had the right to vote was generally lower, and the timing of the extensions of this right from elite groups to a broad population generally later, than in areas where there was relative homogeneity in the population. elite to a broad spectrum of the population might, for example, be expected to lead to greater investment in infrastructure and other public goods and services conducive to growth (such as schooling), a reduction in levels of corruption, a wider participation of the population in commercial activity and economic matters generally, and perhaps more competition throughout the economy. 4 Why a political elite chooses to concede more formal influence to other groups, and whether the conditions that encourage it to do so are related to the potential impact of the change on long-term development, are also key issues.Most of the systematic analysis of how the distribution of political power affects the patterns of growth has been confined to experience over the late-twentieth century. 5This work has made important contributions to our knowledge, but the lack of comparable data has hampered investigation of earl...

Das Vermächtnis der Plantagenwirtschaft: Bildungsungleichheiten und Entwicklung in einer vergleichenden Perspektive

“…Under the domination of powerful local agrarian oligarchs and the lack of secret voting, agricultural workers were urged to -tive secret ballots in Chile led to major changes in voting behaviour, causing electoral losses for right-wing parties representing the landed oligarchy interests in localities dominated by patron-client relationships. 12 Moreover, the landed elite also shaped institutions to their advantage through suffrage rights based on literacy or wealth requirements (see Engerman and Sokoloff 2005b).…”

Cana, café, cacau: agrarian structure and educational inequalities in Brazil

“…In Brazil, for example, suffrage laws were conditioned on literacy by the «Lei Saraiva» in 1881 and remained unchanged until 1988. Given that 70 per cent of the total population over 9 years of age was illiterate in 1920 (see Engerman and Sokoloff 2001;Table 4), restricting the franchise and keeping workers uneducated was certainly an effective tool to avoid political competition. Furthermore, it is known from political sociology that education is conducive to political mobilization and participation (see Downs 1957or Brady et al 1995 4 .…”

Equity, efficiency and inequality traps: A research agenda

“…Some authors have drawn on comparative historical studies, treating colonization as a natural experiment, as in Acemoglu et al [2]. There is also a series of comparative historical studies by Engerman and Sokoloff [32,33] on the interaction between factor endowments, political inequalities and a range of choices over political and economic institutions, for example related to suffrage and education provision. 16 An illustrative area of interactions with dynamic processes concerns the patent systems of the US and the Britain in the nineteenth century [44].…”