Explaining mobilization for revolts by private interests and kinship relations. A comment on Armandola, Doehne and Rost

Abstract

The authors study the role of kinship relationships in explaining mobilization for a revolt in Basel, Switzerland, in 1691; rebels consisted of a weaker fraction of the elite and individuals with citizen rights. The empirical section shows that revolts are mainly driven by the elite’s distant kin rather than the rebels’ close kin. Allowing for coalition formation, as in the new theory of corruption, conflict, and inequality proposed in this comment, can give an alternative explanation. In the first formal model, we assume “elite” corresponds to the term “enforcer” in the new theory. This is a nonproductive individual who is the strongest in terms of fighting against peasants over a prize in a contest. In this simple model, there are no other players. Thus, this framework predicts that the only rebels would come from within the elite. Historical evidence shows that the marginal elite got stronger relatively and, thus, excluded the oligarchy from the winning coalition to take over the government. The direct application of this model would imply that non-elite members were not part of the rebellion. However, the historical facts presented by Armandola et al. show that non-elite citizens also participated in the revolt. To match these facts in Armandola et al., we allow informally individuals with citizen rights to participate in the rebellion. Peasants, a term also used in the new theory, and marginalized groups (a term only used in the commented paper) in the cities did not participate. Kinship effects are discussed.