The Long-Term Consequences of the Black Death for Democracy

• In Event: The Political Economic Origins of Democracy

Abstract

The Black Death (1347-1351) has been widely studied as an event of outstanding relevance for the economic development of the European continent. Many authors suggest that the mass deaths associated with the plague led to significant changes in the relative costs of labor and capital, which created economic incentives for technological advancement and sustained economic growth. In this paper, we make the argument that the Black Death also had significant effects on the development of democracy by uprooting traditional social power structures. Specifically, by increasing the bargaining power of local citizens vs. elites (or labor vs. capital), the Black Death led to the emergence of formal and informal institutions that allowed for more wide ranging political participation by non-elites. These changes had pervasive and long-term consequences for democratic organization. To empirically assess these claims, we test the long-run effects of the Black Death on political organization in Central Europe.

Authors

• Daniel W. Gingerich, University of Virginia

• Jan P. Vogler, University of Konstanz