Scientific Evidence of a Clash between Das Sollen and Das Sein in the book Oligarchy by Jeffrey A Winters

Abstract

Winters’ book is a must-read for students of comparative democratizationand its focus on power and coercion is a helpful corrective to New InstitutionalEconomics. One of the central, and most discomforting claims, advanced byWinters is that oligarchy is perfectly compatible with democracy, an insight hetraces back to Aristotle. Civil oligarchies can be democratic, but need not be, asdemonstrated by the case of Singapore. This Asian city-state also serves toremind us about the tentative relationship between the rule of law anddemocracy. Singapore tamed both its oligarchs and its political oppositionthrough the courts