Olson's Theory of Stability and Growth Mancur Olson has challenged the mainstream view of the benefits of "pattern maintenance." Explicitly treating political stability as an independent variable, he claims in a recent book that a more complex relationship exists with economic growth.8 War, revolution, and other destabilizing events obviously disrupt economic activities in the short term, but, he argues, they also set the stage for more rapid growth in the medium term. Over the long term, however, Olson asserts that political stability can be economically dysfunctional and cause growth to decelerate. He alleges that stability has these economic effects because of the self-seeking activity of interest groups or "distributional coalitions." Drawing from his earlier work on the individualistic basis of group behavior, Olson asserts that "stable societies with unchanged boundaries tend to accumulate more collusions and organizations for collective action over time."9 His major conclusion is that these "distributional coalitions slow down a society's capacity to adopt new technologies and to reallocate resources in response to changing economic conditions, and thereby reduce the rate of economic growth."10 Olson is careful to avoid suggesting, however, that chronic political instability is beneficial for economic growth, despite the fact that it might keep