Erik Bengtsson

Deputy head of the Department of Economic History, Senior lecturer

The Social Origins of Democracy and Authoritarianism Reconsidered: Prussia and Sweden in Comparison

Author

Erik Bengtsson
Felix Kersting

Summary, in English

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.

Department/s