Vote or Fight?
研究为何有些国家通过投票分配政治权力而另一些则通过战斗，发现经济因素如生产效率、石油财富和种族分裂同时影响投票和战斗，且全球不平等减少对降低冲突和促进民主至关重要。
Abstract Why do some nations allocate power through voting while others do it through fighting? When political power is indivisible, voting is a substitute for fighting—provided the losing side accepts the outcome. We study a theoretical model of this substitution, and use a country-level panel dataset to assess empirically whether the economic factors influencing fighting also shape voting. They do. We contribute several theoretical and empirical innovations. First, we apply a recently developed method for analysing conflict resolution functions to derive robust theoretical results. Second, we introduce a new explanatory variable—productive efficiency as measured by income relative to the global frontier—and we explain the theoretical and empirical relevance of this variable. Finally, we show that absolute income levels do not matter, whereas oil wealth and ethnic divisions do—though their influence is less important than that of productive efficiency in explaining patterns of fighting and voting. A key implication of our analysis is that reducing global inequality is crucial for decreasing conflict and fostering democracy.