TY  - JOUR
AU  - Acemoglu,Daron
AU  - Robinson,James A.
AU  - Torvik,Ragnar
TI  - Why Do Voters Dismantle Checks and Balances?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 17293
PY  - 2011
Y2  - August 2011
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17293
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17293.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Daron Acemoglu
Department of Economics
MIT, E52-380B
50 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA  02142-1347
Tel: 617/253-1927
Fax: 617/253-1330
E-Mail: daron@mit.edu

James A. Robinson
Harvard University
Department of Government
N309, 1737 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, MA  02138
Tel: 617/496-2839
Fax: 617/495-0438
E-Mail: jrobinson@gov.harvard.edu

Ragnar Torvik
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Department of Economics
N-7491 Trondheim
Norway
E-Mail: ragnar.torvik@svt.ntnu.no
AB  - Voters often dismantle constitutional checks and balances on the executive. If such checks and balances limit presidential abuses of power and rents, why do voters support their removal? We argue that by reducing politician rents, checks and balances also make it cheaper to bribe or influence politicians through non-electoral means. In weakly-institutionalized polities where such non-electoral influences, particularly by the better organized elite, are a major concern, voters may prefer a political system without checks and balances as a way of insulating politicians from these influences. When they do so, they are effectively accepting a certain amount of politician (presidential) rents in return for redistribution. We show that checks and balances are less likely to emerge when the elite is better organized and is more likely to be able to influence or bribe politicians, and when inequality and potential taxes are high (which makes redistribution more valuable to the majority). We also provide case study evidence from Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela and econometric evidence on voter attitudes from a Latin American survey consistent with the model.
ER  -