Does Landholding Inequality Block Democratization?: A Test of the “Bread and Democracy” Thesis and the Case of Prussia

Abstract

Recent cross-national studies have returned their attention to the structural determinants of political regimes, highlighting in particular the factor of “landholding inequality” as a decisive barrier to democratization. This article provides thefirstsystematic test of such hypotheses at the microlevel and proposes a new account of authoritarianism's durability by examining the crucial case of pre-World War I Prussia. The article analyzes the results of a roll-call vote on a watershed piece of legislation that was defeated on the eve of World War I-legislation that would have democratized suffrage rules in Germany's largest state. When examined systematically, this historically and theoretically important vote reveals two surprising lessons: first, landholding inequality undercuts the prospects of democratization even holding income inequality constant. Second, the nature of elite competition and electoral considerations, shaped by the institutional configuration of nondemocratic regimes, can also thwart democratization, even when socioeconomic conditions may appear to make a society ripe for regime change.