Sabancı University
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

POLITICAL SCIENCE SEMINAR

Legal Institutions
and Democratic Survival

Jeffrey K. Staton

(Associate Professor of Political Science
at Emory University)

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

13:30  FASS 2034

Abtract:

Do institutions designed to limit arbitrary government promote the survival of democratic regimes? Although the international effort to build the rule of law is predicated on a belief that they do, mainstream research on democratic survival typically treats institutions as epiphenomenal. We argue that institutions encourage regime survival by addressing problems of monitoring and social coordination that complicate democratic compromise. We find that property rights institutions generally, and judicial institutions specifically, encourage survival, especially so when macroeconomic conditions favor inter-class compromise.

P.S.: The seminar will be in English.