Acemoglu, D., & Robinson, J. (2019) | References

What This Research Found

Acemoglu and Robinson's sweeping analysis examines how political liberty emerges, survives, and fails across human societies. Drawing on case studies from ancient Greece to modern Scandinavia, from pre-colonial Africa to contemporary China, they develop a framework centred on a crucial insight: liberty exists only in a "narrow corridor" where state power and societal power balance each other.

The corridor framework defines liberty structurally. Liberty isn't simply the absence of government—that leads to anarchy, violence, and domination by private actors. Nor is liberty compatible with unconstrained state power—that leads to despotism. Liberty exists only where state and society are both strong and constrain each other. The state is strong enough to provide security and services; society is strong enough to prevent the state from becoming tyrannical.

Entering the corridor is difficult; staying in it requires constant effort. Societies don't automatically progress toward liberty. Some never enter the corridor, trapped in either stateless violence or despotic control. Those that enter must actively maintain the balance—if either state or society becomes too dominant, liberty erodes. This explains why democracy is fragile even in societies that have enjoyed it for generations.

Fear and instability push societies out of the corridor. When people feel unsafe—whether from crime, economic collapse, external threats, or internal chaos—they become willing to trade liberty for security. Aspiring authoritarians exploit this dynamic, either creating crises or exaggerating existing ones to justify seizing power. Once outside the corridor, returning is difficult because the new power-holders work to prevent re-entry.

Institutions matter because they constrain power. Robust institutions—independent courts, free press, professional bureaucracies, civil society organisations—prevent any single actor from dominating. When narcissistic leaders attack these institutions, they're not just pursuing personal grudges; they're systematically removing the constraints that keep society in the corridor. Each institution weakened makes the corridor narrower.

Why This Matters for Survivors

The dynamics you recognise operate at every scale. If you've experienced narcissistic abuse, you'll recognise the political patterns Acemoglu and Robinson describe: the grandiose promises, the creation of fear and dependency, the attacks on anyone who might constrain the abuser's power, the gaslighting about reality, the exploitation of trust. These aren't just metaphorical similarities—they're the same underlying psychology operating at different scales. Your experience gives you insight into political dynamics that many observers miss.

Understanding structure explains why "just leave" is inadequate. Survivors know that escaping narcissistic abuse requires more than deciding to leave—it requires resources, support systems, safe options, and often institutional intervention. Similarly, protecting against political narcissism requires more than individual awareness. The corridor framework shows why: power imbalances that enable abuse must be addressed structurally, not just through individual choices.

Narcissistic leaders exploit conditions you understand. The fear, instability, and broken trust that make populations vulnerable to narcissistic leaders are the political equivalents of what narcissistic abusers create in relationships. Just as an abuser isolates their victim and creates dependency, narcissistic political leaders isolate their base from countervailing information and create emotional dependency on their leadership. The tactics are recognisable; only the scale differs.

Your recovery insights apply to societal healing. The path out of narcissistic abuse involves rebuilding trust, establishing boundaries, creating support networks, and developing independence. These same elements—trust-building, institutional boundaries, civil society networks, distributed power—are what Acemoglu and Robinson identify as necessary for societies to enter or remain in the corridor of liberty. Recovery principles scale.

Clinical Implications

For mental health professionals, the corridor framework offers a lens for understanding how political context affects individual and collective wellbeing.

Political narcissism creates collective trauma. When narcissistic leaders gain power, entire populations experience dynamics similar to individual narcissistic abuse: gaslighting about reality, unpredictable enforcement of rules, punishment for dissent, rewards for loyalty regardless of competence. Clinicians should assess how patients' political context may be contributing to symptoms that might otherwise be attributed to individual pathology.

Survivors may have unique insight into political dynamics. Patients who've experienced narcissistic abuse may recognise political narcissism more readily than those who haven't. This recognition can be validating (confirming their pattern-recognition skills) but also re-traumatising (seeing their personal experience replicated at scale). Clinicians can help survivors use their insight constructively while managing the emotional impact.

Institutional trust affects treatment. When political leaders systematically undermine institutions—attacking media, courts, healthcare systems—patients' ability to trust institutional support diminishes. This affects willingness to seek help, belief in treatment efficacy, and engagement with systems that might protect them. Clinicians operating in environments of institutional erosion face additional barriers.

Collective action may be therapeutic. While therapy traditionally focuses on individual healing, the corridor framework suggests that participation in civil society—the collective action that maintains the balance between state and society—may itself be healing. For some patients, particularly survivors of narcissistic abuse, engagement in protecting institutional constraints may provide agency, community, and purpose that support individual recovery.

Broader Implications

The corridor framework extends beyond political science to illuminate how narcissistic dynamics operate across social contexts.

Organisations as Micro-Polities

Companies, non-profits, churches, and other organisations are micro-polities that can exist inside or outside their own corridors. Organisations with strong governance (boards, HR policies, transparent processes) constrain narcissistic leaders; those with concentrated power enable them. The same dynamics Acemoglu and Robinson describe at national scale operate within any organisation where power can be accumulated and abused.

The Media Environment

Free press is essential to maintaining the corridor—it informs citizens and exposes abuses. Narcissistic leaders invariably attack media credibility ("fake news," "enemy of the people") because an informed population is harder to manipulate. The degradation of shared information environments through propaganda, disinformation, and platform manipulation narrows the corridor by making collective action based on shared reality more difficult.

Economic Inequality

High inequality narrows the corridor from both sides. The wealthy may capture the state for their interests (too much state serving too few); the excluded may turn to violence or support destabilising leaders (too little legitimate state serving them). Narcissistic leaders exploit inequality by promising to restore what the "corrupt elite" has taken—even while serving elite interests themselves. Reducing inequality widens the corridor.

Democratic Backsliding

The current wave of democratic backsliding worldwide illustrates the corridor framework in action. Narcissistic leaders in multiple countries follow remarkably similar playbooks: attack the press, politicise the judiciary, demonise opponents, claim unique ability to represent "the people," and gradually dismantle the institutional constraints that check their power. Each erosion makes the next easier; the corridor narrows.

Educational Implications

Civic education that helps citizens recognise manipulation—including narcissistic political tactics—may help maintain the corridor. The book cites Finland's comprehensive media literacy education as a model; Finnish citizens proved more resistant to propaganda than other Europeans. Teaching citizens to recognise narcissistic manipulation in political contexts may be as important as teaching it for personal relationships.

Historical Perspective

The corridor framework helps explain historical episodes that might otherwise seem inexplicable: how did sophisticated societies fall for obviously narcissistic leaders? The answer isn't that past populations were uniquely gullible but that structural conditions—fear, instability, institutional weakness—made narcissistic appeals resonate. This historical awareness may help contemporary societies recognise when they're becoming vulnerable.

Limitations and Considerations

The framework is structural, not predictive. Acemoglu and Robinson explain conditions that enable or constrain liberty but don't predict specific outcomes. Whether a particular society enters or exits the corridor depends on contingent factors their framework doesn't capture.

Individual leaders still matter. While the framework emphasises structural conditions, individual choices by leaders and citizens affect outcomes. Structure creates possibilities; individuals realise them. A society may be vulnerable to narcissistic leadership without necessarily succumbing.

Cultural factors receive less attention. The framework emphasises political economy and institutions more than culture, ideology, or collective psychology. Critics argue this underweights how shared beliefs and values shape whether societies enter and remain in the corridor.

The corridor concept may be too binary. Reality may involve more gradations than "in the corridor" or "out of it." Different dimensions of liberty may vary independently; a society might have economic freedom but limited political freedom, or vice versa.

How This Research Is Used in the Book

Acemoglu and Robinson's framework appears in Chapter 15: Political Narcissus to explain structural conditions that make populations vulnerable to narcissistic political leaders:

"The conditions that create vulnerability to narcissistic appeals are what Acemoglu and Robinson call 'the narrow corridor' where democracy survives between anarchy and authoritarianism. Reducing inequality and strengthening institutions—this is the slow, unglamorous work that makes populations less susceptible to grandiose promises of simple solutions."

The book uses the corridor framework to argue that protecting against political narcissism requires more than rejecting individual narcissistic leaders—it requires maintaining the structural conditions (strong institutions, engaged civil society, reduced inequality) that keep society in the corridor where narcissistic appeals don't resonate as strongly.

Historical Context

The Narrow Corridor appeared in 2019 as concerns about democratic backsliding intensified worldwide. Populist movements were gaining strength across established democracies; authoritarian leaders were consolidating power in multiple countries; and longstanding assumptions about democracy's inevitable triumph seemed increasingly naive.

Acemoglu and Robinson's previous collaboration, Why Nations Fail (2012), had established the importance of inclusive versus extractive institutions for economic development. The Narrow Corridor extended this framework to political liberty specifically, providing a more dynamic model of how liberty is won, maintained, and lost.

The book drew on an enormous range of historical and contemporary cases—from the Athenian polis to modern China, from Shaka Zulu's kingdom to contemporary Scandinavia—making its arguments both broadly applicable and richly illustrated. Its publication during a period of obvious democratic stress gave it immediate policy relevance.

The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty

APA Citation