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Rulers and the Ruled: Patterned Inequality and the Onset of Mass Political Violence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Manus I. Midlarsky
Manus I. Midlarsky
Affiliation:
University of Colorado, Boulder
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Abstract

The theory of patterned inequality between rulers and ruled provides a valuable analytic approach to the relationship between inequality and political violence. Under conditions of a bifurcated pattern of inequality, the probability of political violence is likely to be greater than under a more generalized inequality typically measured by the Gini index. A strong systematic relationship between patterned inequality in Latin American landholdings and deaths from political violence was discovered using the exponential distribution as a model for the lower portion of the land distribution and the log-exponential for the upper. This degree of association was far stronger than that found between the Gini index of land inequality in Latin America and deaths from political violence. Evidence supporting the theory was also found in an analysis of Middle Eastern landholdings.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 82 , Issue 2 , June 1988 , pp. 491 - 509
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1988

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