Democracy unleashed

• Department of Political and Social Sciences

This session of the Political Behaviour Colloquium features a presentation by Sebastián Cortesi, PhD Candidate at Johns Hopkins University

During the first wave of democratisation, authoritarian elites extended voting rights while simultaneously imposing and entrenching stringent eligibility requirements for top state positions. This paper tests whether the repeal of property and income qualifications for office increased taxation in Argentina, where the federal constitution imposed universal male suffrage while allowing the provinces to maintain property and income qualifications for office. Exploiting the staggered removal of officeholding requirements, I find that eligibility reform increased taxation by about a third and that this effect was more pronounced among less economically developed provinces. Micro-level evidence suggests that political selection drove this effect, with less affluent politicians and shorter careers following eligibility reform. These findings emphasize how elites can limit the redistributive potential of democracy through institutional design. 

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