Political Legitimacy and Technology Adoption

Abstract

A fundamental question of economic and technological history is why some civilizations adopted new and important technologies and others did not. In this paper, we construct a simple political economy model which suggests that rulers may not accept a productivity-enhancing technology when it negatively affects an agent's ability to provide the ruler legitimacy. However, when other sources of legitimacy emerge, the ruler will accept the technology as long as the new legitimizing source is not negatively affected. This insight helps explain the initial blocking but eventual accepting of the printing press in the Ottoman Empire and industrialization in Tsarist Russia.

Technology adoption in autocratic economies: The role of fiscal capacity

“…Second, I have assumed that the citizens cannot choose the technology. However, the citizens might leapfrog to the technological frontier after they oust the elite, Third, external dominance threats might encourage “defensive modernization”, including technology adoption (Coşgel et al, 2012a; Ward & Rustow, 1964).…”

“…However, increases in income, urbanization, or education might encourage social mobilization (Lipset, 1959) and imply that . Similarly, information and communication technologies such as the printing press, media, radios, phones, or the internet might encourage individuals to question traditional authorities (Coşgel et al, 2012a, 2012b; Deibert, 2002; Dittmar, 2011). However, if the elite monopolizes the new technology it can potentially reinforce its control of the population.…”

“…and Garner (2007) introduce technology blocking in a Schumpeterian growth model and present examples of technology blocking from the Roman Empire, China, Japan, the Islamic world, the Soviet Union in the 1920s, and contemporary China. Coşgel et al (2012aCoşgel et al ( , 2012b assume that different social institutions, such as religious, military, socioeconomic, or bureaucratic institutions, can bestow legitimacy on autocratic rulers, which reduces tax distortions. Since a reduction in tax distortions benefits the ruler, technologies that reduce the ability of social institutions to bestow legitimacy may be resisted.…”

“…This idea might explain why Europe adopted the printing press in the 15th Century, whereas the Ottoman Empire, which depended more on religious legitimacy, waited until the 18th Century. In contrast, the Ottoman Empire quickly adopted military technology, which preserved religious legitimacy (Coşgel et al, 2012a(Coşgel et al, , 2012b.…”

E-voting adoption in many countries: A literature review

“…There are several pieces of evidence from previous literature related to this suggestion. The first evidence comes from the case of Tsarist Russia, as explained by Cosgel et al (2011). They argue that political elites might prefer not to reject new technologies if they do not harm their interests and even provide them with new incentives (Cosgel et al, 2011: 2).…”