Why do some societies have political institutions that support productively inefficient outcomes? And why does the political power of elites vested in these outcomes often grow over time, even when they are unable to block more efficient modes of production? We propose an explanation centered on the interplay between political and cultural change. We build a model in which cultural values are transmitted inter-generationally. The cultural composition of society, in turn, determines public-goods provision as well as the future political power of elites from different cultural groups. We characterize the equilibrium of the model and provide sufficient conditions for the emergence of cultural revivals. These are characterized as movements in which both the cultural composition of society as well as the political power of elites who are vested in productively inefficient outcomes grow over time. We reveal the usefulness of our framework by applying it to two case studies: the Jim Crow South and Turkey’s Gülen Movement.

为什么有些社会有支持生产效率低下的结果的政治机构？为什么赋予这些成果的精英人士的政治权力经常随着时间而增长，即使他们无法阻止更有效的生产方式呢？我们提出一个围绕政治和文化变化之间相互作用的解释。我们建立了一个文化价值在世代间传播的模型。反过来，社会的文化构成决定了公共物品的提供以及来自不同文化群体的精英们未来的政治力量。我们刻画了模型的均衡性，并为文化复兴的出现提供了充分的条件。这些运动的特征是，随着时间的流逝，社会的文化组成以及享有生产效率低下的成果的精英人士的政治力量都在增长。通过将其应用于两个案例研究，我们揭示了该框架的有用性：Jim Crow South和土耳其的Gülen运动。