Political exchange and the voting franchise: Universal democracy as an emergent process

The expansion of democracy presents a puzzle for a rational choice theory of politics: why would those in power choose to dilute their power by expanding the voting franchise? This article introduces a new path of democratization, through mutually-beneficial political exchange aimed at securing collective-consumption goods. This political exchange path will produce a more constrained state than other paths to democracy, due to the subjective preferences of the two groups and the possibility of revoking the franchise. This article briefly applies the democratization framework to the United State prior to the Civil War.

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