The Social Origins of Democracy and Authoritarianism Reconsidered: Prussia and Sweden in Comparison
(2024)- Abstract
- In a large social science literature, unequal rural class structures (“landlordism”) are as-sociated with authoritarian political outcomes. This paper revisits the debate focusingon the electoral consequences of land inequality in Prussia, the locus classicus of the per-nicious effects of landlordism, and Sweden, often perceived as Prussia’s opposite, with afarmer-dominated social structure and stable democratization. Investigating the late19thand early20th century, we show that agrarian inequality was higher in Sweden thanin Prussia, already putting the theory of a landlordism-authoritarianism connection inquestion. In contrast to the existing hypothesis, our within country-analysis indicates nopositive correlation between land inequality... (More)
- In a large social science literature, unequal rural class structures (“landlordism”) are as-sociated with authoritarian political outcomes. This paper revisits the debate focusingon the electoral consequences of land inequality in Prussia, the locus classicus of the per-nicious effects of landlordism, and Sweden, often perceived as Prussia’s opposite, with afarmer-dominated social structure and stable democratization. Investigating the late19thand early20th century, we show that agrarian inequality was higher in Sweden thanin Prussia, already putting the theory of a landlordism-authoritarianism connection inquestion. In contrast to the existing hypothesis, our within country-analysis indicates nopositive correlation between land inequality and electoral support for the Conservativeand Nazi parties and a positive correlation with turnout. We discuss social mobilizationand declining social control of the landed elites as mediating institutional factors. (Less)
- Abstract (Swedish)
- In a large social science literature, unequal rural class structures (“landlordism”) are associated with authoritarian political outcomes. This paper revisits the debate focusing on the electoral consequences of land inequality in Prussia, the locus classicus of the pernicious effects of landlordism, and Sweden, often perceived as Prussia’s opposite, with a farmer-dominated social structure and stable democratization. Investigating the late 19th and early 20th century, we show that agrarian inequality was higher in Sweden than in Prussia, already putting the theory of a landlordism-authoritarianism connection in question. In contrast to the existing hypothesis, our within country-analysis indicates no positive correlation between land... (More)
- In a large social science literature, unequal rural class structures (“landlordism”) are associated with authoritarian political outcomes. This paper revisits the debate focusing on the electoral consequences of land inequality in Prussia, the locus classicus of the pernicious effects of landlordism, and Sweden, often perceived as Prussia’s opposite, with a farmer-dominated social structure and stable democratization. Investigating the late 19th and early 20th century, we show that agrarian inequality was higher in Sweden than in Prussia, already putting the theory of a landlordism-authoritarianism connection in question. In contrast to the existing hypothesis, our within country-analysis indicates no positive correlation between land inequality and electoral support for the Conservative and Nazi parties and a positive correlation with turnout. We discuss social mobilization and declining social control of the landed elites as mediating institutional factors. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/c5464ad4-7116-4493-ab6a-ce38bc9ab1e0
- author
- Bengtsson, Erik LU and Kersting, Felix
- organization
- publishing date
- 2024-11
- type
- Working paper/Preprint
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Land inequality, Democracy, Sonderweg, Conservative, NSDAP, Germany, Sweden
- publisher
- OSF Preprints
- DOI
- 10.31219/osf.io/2jgq8
- project
- The Swedish transition to equality: income inequality with new micro data, 1862–1970
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- c5464ad4-7116-4493-ab6a-ce38bc9ab1e0
- date added to LUP
- 2024-11-11 11:21:35
- date last changed
- 2024-11-11 11:42:29
@misc{c5464ad4-7116-4493-ab6a-ce38bc9ab1e0,
abstract = {{In a large social science literature, unequal rural class structures (“landlordism”) are as-sociated with authoritarian political outcomes. This paper revisits the debate focusingon the electoral consequences of land inequality in Prussia, the locus classicus of the per-nicious effects of landlordism, and Sweden, often perceived as Prussia’s opposite, with afarmer-dominated social structure and stable democratization. Investigating the late19thand early20th century, we show that agrarian inequality was higher in Sweden thanin Prussia, already putting the theory of a landlordism-authoritarianism connection inquestion. In contrast to the existing hypothesis, our within country-analysis indicates nopositive correlation between land inequality and electoral support for the Conservativeand Nazi parties and a positive correlation with turnout. We discuss social mobilizationand declining social control of the landed elites as mediating institutional factors.}},
author = {{Bengtsson, Erik and Kersting, Felix}},
keywords = {{Land inequality; Democracy; Sonderweg; Conservative; NSDAP; Germany; Sweden}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Preprint}},
publisher = {{OSF Preprints}},
title = {{The Social Origins of Democracy and Authoritarianism Reconsidered: Prussia and Sweden in Comparison}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/2jgq8}},
doi = {{10.31219/osf.io/2jgq8}},
year = {{2024}},
}