This paper aims at analyzing the effects of social policies on income inequalities in South Africa since the 1990s. Based on a framework of historical institutionalism, the heritage of a distributional regime based on institutional racism is highlighted. This had lasting effects on social...

This paper aims at analyzing the contribution of social policies to declining rates of income inequalities in Brazil since the 1990s. Based on a framework of historical institutionalism, Brazil is characterised as a traditionally patrimonial society, marked by the institution of slavery....

An important dimension of the “modernization hypothesis” is the claim that there is a long-run positive relation between socio-economic development and political democracy. This research strand of the modernization hypothesis, however, has been challenged in a series of papers by Daron...