Economic elites and the constitutional design of sharing political power

Abstract What explains the emergence and persistence of institutions aimed at preventing any ruling group from using state apparatus to advance particularistic interests? To answer this recurring question, a burgeoning literature examines establishment power-sharing in societies divided by ethnic or religious cleavages. Going beyond existing scholarly work focused on these specific settings, we argue that political can also be result common disputes within economic elite. We propose are likely emerge persist when competition between elite factions with dissimilar interests is balanced. address possibility endogeneity configurations public institutions, leverage natural resource diversity as an instrument for configurations. show that, where geological resources more diverse, similarly powerful groups emerge, leading ultimately mechanisms allow protect their diverging interests.