Do rights to resistance discipline the elites? An experiment on the threat of overthrow

Konstantin Chatziathanasiou (), Svenja Hippel () and Michael Kurschilgen
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Konstantin Chatziathanasiou: University of Münster
Svenja Hippel: Unversity of Würzburg

Munich Papers in Political Economy from Munich School of Politics and Public Policy and the School of Management at the Technical University of Munich

Abstract: The threat of overthrow stabilizes a constitution because it disciplines the elites. This is the main rationale behind rights to resistance. In this paper, we test this conjecture experimentally. We model a society in which players can produce wealth by solving a coordination problem. Coordination is facilitated through a pre-game status-ranking. Compliance with the status hierarchy yields an efficient yet inequitable payoff distribution, in which a player’s wealth is determined by her pre-game status. Between treatments, we vary (a) whether overthrows – which reset the status-ranking via collective disobedience – are possible or not, and (b) whether voluntary redistributive transfers – which high-status players can use to appease the low-status players – are available or not. In contrast to established thinking we find that, on average, the threat of overthrow does not have a stabilizing effect as high-status players fail to provide sufficient redistribution to prevent overthrows. However, if an overthrow brings generous players into high-status positions, groups stabilize and prosper. This suggests an alternative rationale for rights to resistance.

Keywords: Rights to resistance; civil resistance; constitutional stability; redistribution; coordination; battle of the sexes; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C92 D74 H23 P48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2020-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-exp
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