What forces lead to democracy's creation? Why does it sometimes consolidate only to collapse at other times? Written by two of the foremost authorities on this subject in the world, this volume develops a framework for analyzing the creation and consolidation of democracy. It revolutionizes scholarship on the factors underlying government and popular movements toward democracy or dictatorship. Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson argue that different social groups prefer different political institutions because of the way they allocate political power and resources. Their book, the subject of a four-day seminar at Harvard's Center for Basic Research in the Social Sciences, was also the basis for the Walras-Bowley lecture at the joint meetings of the European Economic Association and Econometric Society in 2003 and is the winner of the John Bates Clark Medal. Daron Acemoglu is Charles P. Kindleberger Professor of Applied Economics at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received the 2005 John Bates Clark Medal awarded by the American Economic Association as the best economist working in the United States under age 40. He is the author of the forthcoming text Introduction to Modern Economic Growth. James A. Robinson is Professor of Government at Harvard University. He is a Harvard Faculty Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and a member of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research's Program on Institutions, Organizations, and Growth. He is coeditor with Jared Diamond of the forthcoming book Natural Experiments in History.

什么力量导致了民主的产生？为什么它有时会巩固，而有时又会崩溃？本书由世界上关于这一主题的两位最重要的权威撰写，为分析民主的建立和巩固制定了一个框架。它彻底改变了关于政府和民众走向民主或独裁的因素的学术研究。Daron Acemoglu和James Robinson认为，不同的社会群体喜欢不同的政治体制，因为他们分配政治权力和资源的方式。他们的书是哈佛大学社会科学基础研究中心为期四天的研讨会的主题，也是2003年欧洲经济学会和计量经济学会联合会议上Walras-Bowley讲座的基础，并且是John Bates Clark奖章的得主。Daron Acemoglu是麻省理工学院应用经济学的Charles P. Kindleberger教授。他获得了2005年美国经济学会颁发的约翰-贝茨-克拉克奖章，作为在美国工作的40岁以下最佳经济学家。他是即将出版的《现代经济增长简介》的作者。詹姆斯-A-罗宾逊是哈佛大学的政府学教授。他是韦瑟黑德国际事务中心的哈佛教员助理，也是加拿大高级研究所的机构、组织和增长项目的成员。他与贾里德-戴蒙德共同编辑了即将出版的《历史中的自然实验》一书。