The Shifting Relationship between Post-War Capitalism and Democracy (The Government and Opposition/Leonard Schapiro Lecture, 2021)

This article argues that the relationship between capitalism and democracy is not immutable but subject to changes over time best understood as movements across distinctive growth and representation regimes. Growth regimes are the institutionalized practices central to how a country secures economic...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Government and opposition (London) 2022-01, Vol.57 (1), p.1-30
Main Author: Hall, Peter A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Capitalism
Democracy
Democratization
Elections
Government
Political development
Political economy
Political power
Politics
Private property
Property rights
Prosperity
Public policy
Representation
Rule of law
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Summary:This article argues that the relationship between capitalism and democracy is not immutable but subject to changes over time best understood as movements across distinctive growth and representation regimes. Growth regimes are the institutionalized practices central to how a country secures economic prosperity based on complementary sets of firm strategies and government policies. Representation regimes reflect conditions in the arenas of electoral and producer group politics that confer influence on specific segments of the population. The emphasis is on how economic experiences and changes in the structure of electoral cleavages alter the terms of political contestation, thereby giving voice to specific sets of interests and altering the balance of influence between capitalism and democracy. The analysis examines how the growth and representation regimes of the developed democracies have changed through three post-war eras to yield distinctive distributive outcomes in each era.
ISSN:0017-257X
1477-7053
DOI:10.1017/gov.2021.35