The Geography of Democratic Discontent

Abstract

Understanding the determinants of support for democracy remains at the heart of many puzzles in international and comparative political economy. A central but still unresolved topic in this literature is the conditions under which such support dissipates. To answer this question, this article focuses on distributional politics: since democratic leaders possess limited budgets but need to win elections, they often skew resources toward one politically influential sector, leading to more negative attitudes toward democracy among electorally ignored populations. In particular, we argue that governments often face a key political trade-off: whether to direct resources to the agricultural sector or to encourage urban development. After developing this argument in a formal model, we detail historical accounts that substantiate the mechanisms identified in the model. Finally, we provide cross-national quantitative evidence that discontent with democracy increases among geographic populations when governments disproportionately distribute resources toward other sectors.