Why Do Voters Dismantle Checks and Balances?
研究选民为何支持废除对行政权的制衡机制，认为制衡虽能限制总统寻租，但也会降低精英通过非选举手段贿赂政客的成本，因此在不平等高、精英组织强的国家，选民可能为换取再分配而容忍一定程度的总统租金。
Voters often dismantle constitutional checks and balances on the executive. If such checks and balances limit presidential abuses of power and rents, why do voters support their removal? We argue that by reducing politician rents, checks and balances also make it cheaper to bribe or influence politicians through non-electoral means. In weakly institutionalized polities where such non-electoral influences, particularly by the better organized elite, are a major concern, voters may prefer a political system without checks and balances as a way of insulating politicians from these influences. When they do so, they are effectively accepting a certain amount of politician (presidential) rents in return for redistribution. We show that checks and balances are less likely to emerge when the elite is better organized and is more likely to be able to influence or bribe politicians, and when inequality and potential taxes are high (which makes redistribution more valuable to the majority). We also provide case study evidence from Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela consistent with the model. Copyright 2013, Oxford University Press.