Though there is wide agreement among political scientists that separation of political and socio-economic statuses is necessary for the functioning of democracy, wide disagreement exists over the extent to which political statuses in tlie United States differ from socio-economic ones. This article focuses on PACs (Political Action Committees) as a new means for status-fusion in the United State...

cultural world is a network of presuppositions which is intuitively present behind the consciousness of iranian thinkers like an indisputable, unanalyzable, general background. this network of constructive rules forms the modern iranian political discourses which are studied in this paper in terms of progressivist, identity-seeking, and contemporary political discourses. each of the above polit...

Old elites can block changes, but not all do. Why is it that stronger elites may allow more changes than weaker elites? Why do economies with larger stocks of natural resources not grow faster than economies poorer in natural resources? We argue that old elites hold some power to extract rents from the economy. Whereas old sectors (i.e. agriculture or extraction of natural resources) are not af...

During the nineteenth century, most Western societies extended voting rights, a decision that led to unprecedented redistributive programs. We argue that these political reforms can be viewed as strategic decisions by political elites to prevent widespread social unrest and revolution. Political transition, rather than redistribution under existing political institutions, occurs because current...