IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jothpo/v9y1997i4p445-475.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Nomenklatura Rule Under Democracy

Author

Listed:
  • Mario Ferrero
  • Giorgio Brosio

Abstract

This paper attempts to explain the puzzling features of the Italian political system up to 1992 by means of an economic model of a democratic Nomenklatura, in which the normal operation of a democratic system is distorted by the self-perpetuation of a ruling elite - `Nomenklatura' - which co-opts members of the opposition into its ranks to secure re-election and maximize per capita rent from political office. Competition for the field is thus suppressed and competition within the field enhanced. The Nomenklatura regime arose as a response to a non-democratic opposition and could not survive the downfall of Communism in the early 1990s. Thus the model yields an explanation for the regime's collapse after 1992.

Suggested Citation

  • Mario Ferrero & Giorgio Brosio, 1997. "Nomenklatura Rule Under Democracy," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 9(4), pages 445-475, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:9:y:1997:i:4:p:445-475
    DOI: 10.1177/0951692897009004002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0951692897009004002
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0951692897009004002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. George Stigler, 1972. "Economic competition and political competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 91-106, September.
    2. Brennan,Geoffrey & Buchanan,James M., 2006. "The Power to Tax," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521027922, October.
    3. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    4. Jackman, Robert W., 1987. "Political Institutions and Voter Turnout in the Industrial Democracies," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(2), pages 405-423, June.
    5. Wintrobe, Ronald, 1990. "The Tinpot and the Totalitarian: An Economic Theory of Dictatorship," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 84(3), pages 849-872, September.
    6. Gary S. Becker, 1983. "A Theory of Competition Among Pressure Groups for Political Influence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(3), pages 371-400.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Howitt, Peter & Wintrobe, Ronald, 1995. "The political economy of inaction," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 329-353, March.
    2. Ferrero, Mario, 2001. "Political exchange in mass party regimes and the transition from socialism," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 365-379, December.
    3. Paolo Martelli, 1998. "Is Nomenklatura Rule the Clue to the Riddle of Italian Politics?," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 10(2), pages 237-244, April.
    4. Ferrero, Mario, 1999. "A model of political enterprise," POLIS Working Papers 9, Institute of Public Policy and Public Choice - POLIS.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stavins, Robert, 2004. "Introduction to the Political Economy of Environmental Regulations," RFF Working Paper Series dp-04-12, Resources for the Future.
    2. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    3. Randall G. Holcombe & Jeffrey A. Mills, 1994. "Is Revenue-Neutral Tax Reform Revenue Neutral?," Public Finance Review, , vol. 22(1), pages 65-85, January.
    4. Benoît Le Maux, 2009. "Governmental behavior in representative democracy: a synthesis of the theoretical literature," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 141(3), pages 447-465, December.
    5. Michael McKee, 1988. "Political competition and the Roman Catholic schools: Ontario, Canada," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 57-67, January.
    6. Arye L. Hillman & Heinrich W. Ursprung, 2016. "Where are the rent seekers?," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 124-141, June.
    7. Thomas A. Garrett & Andrew F. Kozak & Russell M. Rhine, 2010. "Institutions and government growth: a comparison of the 1890s and the 1930s," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 92(Mar), pages 109-120.
    8. Jan Fałkowski & Alessandro Olper, 2014. "Political competition and policy choices: the evidence from agricultural protection," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 45(2), pages 143-158, March.
    9. Rauscher, Michael, 1995. "Protectionists, environmentalists, and the formation of environmental policy in an open economy," Discussion Papers, Series II 256, University of Konstanz, Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 178 "Internationalization of the Economy".
    10. Jennings, Colin, 2011. "The good, the bad and the populist: A model of political agency with emotional voters," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 611-624.
    11. Thomas A. Garrett & Russell M. Rhine, 2006. "On the size and growth of government," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 88(Jan), pages 13-30.
    12. James Alm & Mark Skidmore, 1999. "Why do Tax and Expenditure Limitations Pass in State Elections?," Public Finance Review, , vol. 27(5), pages 481-510, September.
    13. Joseph Michael Newhard, 2016. "An Interest Group Theory of Public Goods Provision: Reassessing the Relative Efficiency of the Market and the State," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 31(Winter 20), pages 21-41.
    14. Mulligan, Casey B. & Tsui, Kevin K., 2015. "Political entry, public policies, and the economy," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 377-397.
    15. M. Alfano & A. Baraldi, 2015. "Is there an optimal level of political competition in terms of economic growth? Evidence from Italy," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 263-285, April.
    16. Bruno S. Frey, 2007. "Overprotected Politicians," CESifo Working Paper Series 2019, CESifo.
    17. Bharatee Bhushan Dash & Sacchidananda Mukherjee, 2013. "Does Political Competition Influence Human Development? Evidence from the Indian States," Working Papers id:5349, eSocialSciences.
    18. Gavoille, Nicolas & Verschelde, Marijn, 2017. "Electoral competition and political selection: An analysis of the activity of French deputies, 1958–2012," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 180-195.
    19. Glenn Furton & Adam Martin, 2019. "Beyond market failure and government failure," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 178(1), pages 197-216, January.
    20. Rojas Rivera, Angela Milena & Molina Guerra, Carlos Andrés, 2015. "A comparative analysis of political competition and local provision of public goods : Brazil, Colombia and Mexico (1991-2010)," Borradores Departamento de Economía 17493, Universidad de Antioquia, CIE.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:9:y:1997:i:4:p:445-475. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.