Social hierarchies exist in democracies as well as in authoritarian societies. However, their nature is different. Democratic hierarchies are built bottom-up through election while autocratic hierarchies are built top-down through domination. Both, however, have power asymmetries between the weaker citizens and the stronger politicians, which are amplified the stronger the hierarchies are. This manuscript introduces a model that combines pro-/anti-social behavior with different degrees of hierarchies. It is argued that this model has the power to categorize countries according to these criteria and indicate when and how societies move between democracy and authoritarianism. Importantly, I illustrate that the balance between power asymmetries and principal-agent chains is key for understanding when and why democracies sometimes transcend into authoritarianism.

中文翻译：

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民主国家和威权主义中的社会等级制度：权力不对称和委托代理链之间的平衡

民主国家和专制社会都存在社会等级制度。然而，它们的性质是不同的。民主的等级制度是通过选举自下而上建立的，而专制等级制度是通过统治自上而下建立的。然而，两者都在较弱的公民和较强的政治家之间存在权力不对称，这种不对称性随着等级制度的加强而被放大。这份手稿介绍了一种将亲/反社会行为与不同程度的等级相结合的模型。有人认为，该模型有能力根据这些标准对国家进行分类，并表明社会何时以及如何在民主和威权主义之间转变。重要的，