Nettsider med emneord «Democracy»

This project studies whether and how particular political institutional characteristics – for example concerning the ruling party, election systems, and the protection of civil liberties – affect economic policies and outcomes under different conditions. More specifically, the project analyzes how different institutions, both in democracies and dictatorships, impact on economic growth and redistributive policies, thereby addressing issues of immense importance for the welfare of citizens across the world.

A common view in scholarly literature and public debate is that the relationship between parties and interest groups shapes the nature of democratic governance. Still, party-group relationships have been largely overlooked by political scientists to date and taken for granted across different countries, institutional make-ups, types of party systems, and sectors. The proposed research project will advance the state of the art in this field by seeking to systematically examine the nature, the shaping factors and the consequences for policy-making of party-group relationships in long-established democracies across the world.

The project aims at contributing to our understanding of the democracy concept's structure, and to improve measurement of democracy and its sub-components. Furthermore, the project investigates how democracy, and various constitutional- and other institutional structures, affect economic growth, inequality, conflict and stability of political institutions and regimes.