How to spot societal tipping points in real time

Social scientists are using new methods to study pivotal societal turning points in real time. What they are learning could shape how policymakers address democratic backsliding, environmental crises, and other key challenges of our time.

The French Revolution, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Fidel Castro seizing power in Cuba—events like these fundamentally transform societies and how people within them live. Other moments seem equally full of potential for radical change, but the status quo prevails. For example, the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in China and the 2011 Arab Spring uprising didn’t lead to lasting shifts in political and economic institutions.

Social scientists studying these rare historical turning points—which they call “critical junctures”—usually only look backward, evaluating how these moments remade institutions after a massive shift occurs. But researchers are now learning more by studying these crossroads as they are occurring, according to a new paper published in the Annual Review of Economics.

“If we identify critical junctures in real time, we can embed survey measurement and experiments in these contexts,” says Assistant Professor Jonathan Weigel, who co-authored the paper with Noam Yuchtman of Oxford and Michael Callen of the London School of Economics and Political Science. “That can help us understand why some countries get on an institutional path that leads to prosperity and others are stuck on one that leads to ruin. Is it really a coin flip, or are there certain things a leader can do in these moments of deep uncertainty?”

“If we identify critical junctures in real time, we can embed survey measurement and experiments in these contexts. That can help us understand why some countries get on an institutional path that leads to prosperity and others are stuck on one that leads to ruin. Is it really a coin flip, or are there certain things a leader can do in these moments of deep uncertainty?” —Jonathan Weigel

Studying critical junctures while they are happening can allow scholars to test competing theories about what causes institutional change, such as class conflict or social movements. Academics define institutions as the fundamental “rules of the game” that shape incentives and behavior—for example, a democratic versus an autocratic political regime. The empirical study of institutions was pioneered by Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and former UC Berkeley faculty James Robinson, who won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics for their contribution.

Identifying the potential for negative upheaval in the moment could also help policymakers intervene. For example, “if we value democracy, the ability to recognize when it’s truly under threat versus just grandiose rhetoric is important,” Weigel says. “Many Americans are asking themselves this question about our democracy right now.”

A new research approach

Traditional retrospective studies alone are limited because they leave out many critical junctures in which institutional change did not occur. To address this gap, Weigel and his co-authors argue that scholars can recognize pivotal moments in the present by regularly asking people what they predict the future of key institutions will be.

“For example, researchers might ask, ‘How will political power be allocated in five years?’” Weigel says. “If everyone agrees that power will be determined through democratic elections, then the society does not appear to be in a critical juncture.” If, however, many people seem uncertain, or if expectations vary widely across society, that could signal a critical juncture in which multiple future paths are possible.

One example of such a survey was deployed in Afghanistan, where NATO asked 11,500 citizens each quarter whether they believed the Afghan army would defeat the Taliban in the next few years. In 2008, when the survey started, just under 40% predicted the army would win, nearly a quarter thought it would lose, and one-third weren’t sure. This deep uncertainty about the country’s institutional future suggests that Afghanistan was in the throes of a critical juncture, Weigel says.

“You can observe how those beliefs responded to real changes in the world, such as the announcement of a surge in U.S. troop deployments,” he says. “That gives us a sense that beliefs can be a useful barometer for understanding the potential for institutional change and whether we’re getting close to a critical juncture.”

“You can observe how those beliefs responded to real changes in the world, such as the announcement of a surge in U.S. troop deployments. That gives us a sense that beliefs can be a useful barometer for understanding the potential for institutional change and whether we’re getting close to a critical juncture.” —Jonathan Weigel

Weigel and his colleagues are now building on their work by trying to embed a question on beliefs about institutions in a global survey and launching a study that will use artificial intelligence to analyze newspaper archives to identify historical and current critical junctures.

Meanwhile, Weigel points to growing disagreement about the integrity of U.S. elections as a warning sign that the country’s political system is under threat. “A large part of the electorate claims the 2020 election was stolen, and many people are reportedly planning for what happens if the 2024 elections aren’t respected. These are signs of disagreement over the future rules of the game that would suggest we’re in a critical juncture,” he says—though he does not know of any systematic measurement of these beliefs to date. “Someone should collect them!” he adds.

Work in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Weigel, who joined Haas in 2021, has been working in this field since starting his PhD in political economy and government at Harvard University in 2012. For over a decade, he has collaborated with the provincial government of the Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the world’s poorest countries, to conduct randomized control trials related to state capacity, primarily focusing on taxation.

In the DRC, the formal state lacks legitimate authority. Many actors vie for political control, and there is widespread disagreement about the future of institutions. Weigel’s research seeks to understand the state’s efforts to build its capacity and accumulate legitimacy. His study of the provincial capital Kananga’s first citywide property tax collection campaign found that it not only raised substantial revenue but also increased citizens’ perceptions of government performance and boosted political participation and demand for political accountability.

Research on institutions and randomized control trials used to be seen as separate areas of study with nothing in common. Weigel and his colleagues point out that a new body of research has emerged that bridges the gap.

“I remember a senior political economist saying, ‘You could never run a randomized controlled trial about something I’m interested in,’” Weigel says. “That was the mood for a long time.” But things are starting to change.

A growing field

Over the past 15 years, studies that use randomized controlled trials to analyze critical junctures in real time to better understand institutional change have increased fivefold, Weigel and his colleagues point out. Already, the growing field has yielded insights about the ability of states to strengthen the social compact, improve law enforcement, and expand political inclusion and accountability.

For example, recent experiments have found that giving voters more say over who parties pick as political candidates improved democratic representation in Sierra Leone; that widely deploying an election monitoring technology improved perceptions of election integrity and willingness to engage with formal state institutions in Afghanistan; and that letting companies comment on new labor laws in Vietnam increased compliance even when regulations were unchanged.

The researchers argue that expanding this area of study can shed light on key current issues, such as declines in democratic freedoms, the effects of climate change on institutions, and the rights of marginalized groups.

Inspired by Paul Farmer

Weigel’s interest in these topics dates to his time as an undergraduate at Harvard, where he studied with the late Paul Farmer, founder of Partners In Health. After graduating, Weigel spent two years as a researcher for the organization, which works with local governments to provide health care in the world’s poorest places.

“Paul had an incredible commitment to understanding the reasons why Haitians were so poor when just across the border, the Dominican Republic was much more successful,” he says. “My underlying interest is what lies at the root of why some countries have so much and other countries have so little.”

Weigel was inspired by the Partners In Health model of collaborating closely with local governments, rather than trying to build parallel structures to provide services, as many NGOs do. To that end, he founded a research organization in the DRC called ODEKA to work with the government and evaluate its efforts to build state capacity. He has led multiple randomized controlled trials that have led to improved tax collection and higher rates of political participation and is now working with ODEKA to evaluate the rollout of a more progressive and fully digitized property tax system in Kananga, DRC. “Collaborating closely with our Congolese colleagues has been one of the incredibly rewarding parts of my work,” Weigel says.

ODEKA employs a staff of nearly 70. “A lot of my papers are inspired by this close partnership,” he says. “I also personally feel really good about getting to provide stable employment for an outstanding set of individuals for the past 11 years.”

Read the full paper:

Experiments About Institutions
By Michael Callen, Jonathan L. Weigel, and Noam Yuchtman
Annual Review of Economics, August 2024