How the structure of legal authority affects political inequality

In the process of both European and American state development, legal institutions developed from many separate venues with overlapping jurisdictions to a hierarchical structure with authority concentrated in the lawmaking institutions of the state. This paper investigates the effects of concentrating authority in an institution whose decisions in a current conflict also bind other (subordinate) institutions deciding future conflicts. To do so, I present a simple formalization of this dimension of legal authority and use a formal model to analyze the effects of varying this dimension on competition among groups in society. The structure of legal authority is formalized as a probability that outcomes of group conflict in the current round determine outcomes in future rounds. In the model, concentrating legal authority increases incentives for competing groups to invest in political organization. In turn, this increases political inequality: As all groups invest more effort, groups with a resource advantage are better able to make use of their advantage. This paper contributes to our understanding of state development as well as ways in which the legal authority of the state structures contemporary politics.