Books

Property without Rights: Origins and Consequences of the Property Rights Gap 
(Cambridge University Press, 2021)
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This book, published in the Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics series, is motivated by a puzzling and consequential fact: major land reform programs have reallocated property in more than one-third of the world's countries in the last century and impacted over one billion people, but only rarely granted beneficiaries complete property rights. Why is this the case and what are the consequences? This book draws on wide-ranging original data and charts new conceptual terrain to reveal the political origins of the property rights gap. It shows that land reform programs are most often implemented by authoritarian governments that deliberately withhold property rights from beneficiaries. In so doing, governments generate coercive leverage over rural populations and exert social control. This is politically advantageous to ruling governments but it has negative development consequences: it slows economic growth, productivity, and urbanization and it exacerbates inequality. The book also examines the conditions under which subsequent governments close property rights gaps, usually as a result of democratization or foreign pressure.
Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy 
(Cambridge University Press, 2018; co-authored with Victor Menaldo)

This book explores the origins of democracy and the impact that autocratic legacies have after democratization. We argue that, in terms of institutional design, the allocation of power and privilege, and the lived experiences of citizens, democracy often does not reset the political game after displacing authoritarianism. Democratic institutions are frequently designed by the outgoing authoritarian regime to shield incumbent elites from the rule of law and give them an unfair advantage over politics and the economy after democratization. We systematically document and analyze the constitutional tools that outgoing authoritarian elites use to accomplish these ends, such as electoral system design, legislative appointments, federalism, legal immunities, constitutional tribunal design, and supermajority thresholds for change. Our book provides wide-ranging evidence for these claims using data that spans the globe and dates from 1800 to the present. We also conduct detailed case studies of Chile and Sweden. In doing so, we also explain why some democracies successfully overhaul their elite-biased constitutions to found more egalitarian social contracts. 

Autocracy and Redistribution: The Politics of Land Reform (Cambridge University Press, 2015)

This book, published in the Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics series, explores the political conditions under which land reform occurs, motivated by an interest in why governments implement egalitarian reforms. Based on fieldwork in Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela, as well as archival work, I collected and coded country-year data on land expropriation and redistribution, negotiated transfers, and colonization from 1930-2008 for all of Latin America as well as subnational data for many cases. I have also coded country-year data on major and minor episodes of land redistribution for the whole world since 1900 to demonstrate the broad scope of  my findings. The project sheds light on when and why land reform programs are implemented, and why they are structured in different ways.

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Mid-Length Peer-Reviewed Publications

  • Albertus, Michael, Sofia Fenner, and Dan Slater. 2018. Coercive Distribution. Cambridge University Press, Elements Series.

Journal Articles

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Book Chapters

Working Papers

  • Albertus, Michael, and Noah Schouela. "When Redistribution Backfires: Theory and Evidence from Land Reform in Portugal."
  • Albertus, Michael, Mauricio Espinoza, and Ricardo Fort. "Pathways of Development: The Long Shadow of Peru's Inca Road."
  • Albertus, Michael. "Indigeneity and Belonging: Evidence from Peru's Peasant Communities."
  • ​Albertus, Michael, and Victor Gay. "The Road to Rebellion: State-Building and Rural Uprisings in the Run-up to the French Revolution."
  • Albertus, Michael, and Mark Deming. "Trajectories and Consequences of Authoritarian Elite Persistence Under Democracy."