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  • A Positive Effect of Political Dynasties

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    Daisy Ann Mora
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    Political dynasties have long been criticized for undermining democracy. However, this document argues that politicians from democratic dynasties may be more likely to support democracy compared to non-dynastic politicians. A democratic dynasty is defined as one whose founder explicitly supported democratic reforms or belonged to a pro-democracy party. Politicians from democratic dynasties have an interest in maintaining democracy to preserve their electoral advantage. They may also cultivate and pass on a democratic culture and evolve in a pro-democracy environment that shapes their preferences.

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    Political dynasties have long been criticized for undermining democracy. However, this document argues that politicians from democratic dynasties may be more likely to support democracy compared to non-dynastic politicians. A democratic dynasty is defined as one whose founder explicitly supported democratic reforms or belonged to a pro-democracy party. Politicians from democratic dynasties have an interest in maintaining democracy to preserve their electoral advantage. They may also cultivate and pass on a democratic culture and evolve in a pro-democracy environment that shapes their preferences.

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    54 views1 page

    A Positive Effect of Political Dynasties

    Uploaded by

    Daisy Ann Mora
    Political dynasties have long been criticized for undermining democracy. However, this document argues that politicians from democratic dynasties may be more likely to support democracy compared to non-dynastic politicians. A democratic dynasty is defined as one whose founder explicitly supported democratic reforms or belonged to a pro-democracy party. Politicians from democratic dynasties have an interest in maintaining democracy to preserve their electoral advantage. They may also cultivate and pass on a democratic culture and evolve in a pro-democracy environment that shapes their preferences.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    A Positive Effect of Political Dynasties:

    Dynastic politicians, defined specifically as politicians who are related by blood to other
    individuals formerly holding political office (Dal Bó et al., 2009; Geys and Smith, 2017), have long been
    suspected to undermine the representative nature of democracies (Pareto, 1901; Michels, 1911). As a
    group, they are on average less educated (Geys, 2017), conduct poorer public policies (Braganca et al.,
    2015), put lower effort in politics (Rossi, 2017, Geys and Smith, 2017), and rely on clientelism (Cruz et al.,
    2017). Those results are obtained by pooling all dynastic politicians together. But should one really
    consider political dynasties as a monolithic group? or could extreme circumstances lead members of
    different political dynasties to vote in opposite fashion? In other words: is there ground to expect that
    political dynasties may be heterogeneous, prompting their members to act in different ways? We argue
    that politicians belonging to a democratic dynasty are more likely than their non-dynastic peers to stand-
    up for democracy, should the necessity arise. A politician is considered as belonging to a democratic
    dynasty if he.she fulfills two criteria. First, the politician must belong to a dynasty. He.she should
    therefore be related by blood to other individuals formerly holding political office. Second, his.her
    dynasty has to qualify as democratic. We consider that a dynasty is democratic if its founder showed
    explicit support for democracy by either (1) supporting democratic reforms under autocracy or (2) by
    belonging to a party supporting democracy as political system in a democracy. More specifically, the
    founders of democratic dynasties must have opposed former autocratic regimes, supported the
    democratic regime in which they started their political career, or both. Conversely, the following dynastic
    politicians are considered as non-democratic: descendants of supporters of former autocratic regimes;
    descendants of politicians opposing the democracy they started their political career in; descendants of
    politicians showing no explicit support to democratic norms. The conjecture, that politicians belonging to
    a democratic dynasty are more likely than their non-dynastic peers to stand-up for democracy, rests on a
    series of non-mutually exclusive reasons. Firstly, democratic political dynasties have a vested interest in
    democracy, because they survive thanks to the transmission of an electoral advantage (Camp, 1982, Dal
    Bó et al., 2009, Fiva and Smith, 2018). That advantage would disappear after an autocratic reversal.
    Secondly, democratic dynasties may cultivate and transmit a democratic culture resulting in a stronger
    attachment to democracy (Bisin and Verdier, 2001). Thirdly, democratic dynastic politicians evolve in a
    pro-democracy environment that may shape their preferences and serve as a commitment device
    lengthening their horizon (Calvó-Armengol and Jackson, 2009, Olson, 1993, and Besley and Reynal-
    Querol, 2017).

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