Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/141833 
Year of Publication: 
2016
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 5856
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
During the past two centuries, western nations have successively extended the voting franchise to citizens of lower income. We explain this process of democratization as a rational way for incumbent elites to wage war effectively on other nations, as in a strategic game of international conflict handing over military spending decisions to citizens who face a lower tax cost of arming may confer a strategic delegation advantage. We find supporting empirical evidence in case studies of franchise extensions in the United Kingdom, France, and the United States.
Subjects: 
war
conflict
contest
democracy
franchise extension
JEL: 
D72
D74
F51
O15
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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