Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

by Daron Acemoğlu

and Britain was highly urbanized.

the First Reform Act to Britain in 1832.

the Chartist movement, whose People’s Charter of 1838 included the clauses

secret ballot

Though the Chartists disintegrated after 1848, they were followed by the National Reform Union, founded in 1864, and the Reform League, which was founded in 1865.

Second Reform Act of 1867, in which the total electorate was doubled and working-class voters became the majority in all urban constituencies.

Third Reform Act of 1884,

the Representation of the People Act of 1918

all women also received the vote on the same terms as men in 1928.

negotiated during the war

radicalism of the Russian Revolution.

One major consequence of the First Reform Act was the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846.

In 1871 the Liberal prime minister Gladstone opened up the civil service to public examination, making it meritocratic,

Liberal and Tory governments during this period introduced a considerable amount of labor market legislation.

the Masters and Servants Acts, which allowed employers to use the law to reduce the mobility of their workers, was repealed,

During 1906–1914, the Liberal Party, under the leadership of H. H. Asquith and David Lloyd George, began to use the state to provide far more public services, including health and unemployment insurance, government-financed pension...

The tax system also became more “progressive,” so that wealthier people bore a heavier burden.

the education system, which was previously either primarily for the elite, run by religious denominations, or required poor people to pay fees, was made more accessible to the masses;

the Education Act...

the Education Act of 1902

“gradual virtuous circle.”

forces that reduced the stakes involved in clinging to power.

prevented ventures into uncharted territories.

pluralism emerging from the Glorious Revolution, and the rule of law that it introduced, that made gradual change feasible, and desirable, in Britain.

These institutions were reinforced by the Constitution of the United States, with its system of constraints and its separation of powers.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, all white males, though not women or blacks, could vote in the United States. Economic institutions became more inclusive—for example, with the passage of the Homestead Act in 1862