Ballot or Bullet: The Impact of the UK’s Representation of the People Act on Peace and Prosperity
利用英国1867年《人民代表法案》这一民主化关键节点，研究发现选举权扩展显著促进了和平与地方经济增长，主要机制是民众政治影响力提升。
Abstract Does democracy curb domestic political violence? To study this, we focus on the United Kingdom’s Representation of the People Act of 1867—which is a critical juncture in the history of democratisation. Constructing a novel borough (‘urban centre’) level dataset on social conflict events and economic performance around the 1868 elections (the first elections where newly enfranchised citizens could vote), we exploit arguably exogenous variation in enfranchisement intensity. We find a strong and robust peace-promoting effect of franchise extension and identify as a major channel of transmission the increase of the population’s political influence (voice) and local economic growth.