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1. Electoral Rentierism? The Cross-National and Subnational Effect of Oil on Electoral Competitiveness in Multiparty Autocracies

Author:
Matthias Basedau and Michael Wahman
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Building on theoretical insights from research on the rentier state and the “resource curse,” several studies have supported the argument that oil hinders democracy. However, previous research on the rentier state has neglected the global surge of multiparty autocracies or “electoral authoritarian” regimes since the end of the Cold War. No systematic study has been carried out on the question of whether or not and how oil affects electoral contests in nondemocratic regimes. In this paper we contribute to filling this gap by combing the literature on multiparty autocracy and the political economy of the rentier state. As oil production creates substantial, nontransparent revenue streams to national and subnational governments, we hypothesize that oil production has a negative effect on electoral competitiveness, both cross‐ and subnationally, in multiparty autocracies. Consequently, the democratic “resource curse” emphasized in earlier work on the rentier state is likely to persist even after the introduction of multipartyism in cases where oil production predates democratic institutions. The paper tests the hypothesis cross‐nationally, using data on all multiparty elections held in the world in the period 1975–2010, and subnationally, using a new data set on subnational election results and oil production in Nigeria. Our results confirm that oil impedes electoral competitiveness, both cross‐ and subnationally, in multiparty autocracies.
Topic:
Cold War, Democratization, and Oil
Political Geography:
Africa and Nigeria

2. Regime Type, Inequality, and Redistributive Transfers in Developing Countries

Author:
Marina Dodlova and Anna Giolbas
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
The debate on whether democracy and inequality increase the level of redistribution in a country is still ongoing. We construct a model that predicts a higher probability of redistribution in democracies than in autocracies. Further, with higher initial inequality, there should be more redistribution in democracies but not necessarily in autocracies. We test these predictions using data on social transfers in developing countries for the period 1960–2010. We confirm that democracy increases redistribution and, to some extent, that there is more redistribution with rising inequality. Hence, on the basis of a direct measure of redistribution, we present evidence to confirm the median voter theorem.
Topic:
Democratization, Social Stratification, and Authoritarianism

3. How Do Non-Democratic Regimes Claim Legitimacy? Comparative Insights from Post-Soviet Countries

Author:
Christian von Soest and Julia Grauvogel
Publication Date:
08-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
The analysis using the new Regime Legitimation Expert Survey (RLES) demonstrates that non‐democratic rulers in post‐Soviet countries use specific combinations of legitimating claims to stay in power. Most notably, rulers claim to be the guardians of citizens’ socio‐ economic well‐being. Second, despite recurrent infringements on political and civil rights, they maintain that their power is rule‐based and embodies the will of the people, as they have been given popular electoral mandates. Third, they couple these elements with input‐based legitimation strategies that focus on nationalist ideologies, the personal capabilities and charismatic aura of the rulers, and the regime’s foundational myth. Overall, the reliance on these input‐based strategies is lower in the western post‐Soviet Eurasian countries and very pronounced among the authoritarian rulers of Central Asia.
Topic:
Democratization, Authoritarianism, and Political Activism
Political Geography:
Eastern Europe

4. A Democratic Rentier State? Taxation, Aid Dependency, and Political Representation in Benin

Author:
Giulia Piccolino
Publication Date:
09-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Drawing on the history of statebuilding in Western Europe, fiscal sociology has proposed the existence of a mutually reinforcing effect between the emergence of representative government and effective taxation. This paper looks at the case of Benin, a low-income West African country that underwent a fairly successful democratization process in the early 1990s. It finds, in contrast to previous studies that have emphasized dependency on aid rents, that Benin appears to have reinforced its extractive capacities since democratization. However, the effect of democratization has been largely indirect, while other factors, such as the influence of the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and the size of the country's informal sector, have played a more direct role in encouraging or inhibiting tax extraction. Nevertheless, the hypothesis that effective taxation depends on a quasiconsensual relationship between government and taxpayers finds some confirmation in the Beninese case.
Topic:
Democratization, Politics, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Europe and West Africa

5. Subnational Electoral Contexts and Corruption in Mexico

Author:
Brian M. Faughnan, Jonathan T. Hiskey, and Scott D. Revey
Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Scholars of the world's most recent democratization processes have tended to focus on how national-level institutions have developed and how citizens have interpreted and responded to those developments. In this paper, we argue that the distinct subnational political environments that emerge from uneven national regime transitions are important determinants of how people view their political world. Specifically, we argue that citizens' experiences with and attitudes towards corruption are particularly influenced by the subnational political context in which those citizens live. We use survey data from across Mexico to test our theoretical expectations that a multi-party electoral context will heighten citizens' awareness of corruption as a governance issue, even as their chances of being victimized by corrupt behavior is reduced. Conversely, we posit that one-party electoral environments should facilitate a "business as usual" attitude toward corruption among government officials and citizens. As efforts to deepen democracy and improve governance continue across the developing world, our findings highlight the need to incorporate subnational political processes into efforts to under- stand and address such critical issues as corruption and its consequences.
Topic:
Corruption and Democratization
Political Geography:
Mexico

6. Contingent Democrats in Action: Organized Labor and Regime Change in the Republic of Niger

Author:
Sebastian Elischer
Publication Date:
08-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
The effects of organized labor on regime change in developing countries are not clear‐cut. Optimists argue that union agitation is conducive to both democratic transition and consolidation processes. Pessimists hold that unions will support any regime that is conducive to their demands. Accordingly, unions may support regime transitions; however, once their economic interests are under threat, they will jeopardize the subsequent consolidation process. Systematic studies on the effects of organized labor on regime change in sub‐ Saharan Africa are sparse and largely confined to the (pre)transition phase. This article examines the role of organized labor in Niger between 1990 and 2010. Given the high number of regime breakdowns during the period, a longitudinal study of Nigerien labor enables a critical examination of motives and actions of organized labor toward different regime types. In contrast to other recent findings on African unionism, the article confirms the pessimistic view.
Topic:
Civil Society, Democratization, Development, Regime Change, and Labor Issues
Political Geography:
Africa

7. Claims to Legitimacy Matter: Why Sanctions Fail to Instigate Democratization in Authoritarian Regimes

Author:
Christian von Soest and Julia Grauvogel
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
International sanctions have been one of the most commonly used tools of Western foreign policy in the post‐Cold War era to instigate democratization globally. However, despite long‐term external pressure through sanctions imposed by the European Union, the United States and/or the United Nations, nondemocratic rule in cases such as Belarus, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea and Syria has proven to be extremely persistent. In this paper, we analyze a new global dataset on sanctions from 1990 to 2011 and assess which international and domestic factors account for the persistence of nondemocratic rule in targeted regimes. The results of a fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) of 120 episodes of sanctions provide new insights for the research on both sanctions and authoritarian regimes. Most significantly, sanctions strengthen nondemocratic rule if the regime manages to incorporate their existence into its legitimation strategy. Such a “rally‐round‐the‐flag” effect occurs most often in cases where comprehensive sanctions targeting the entire population are imposed on regimes that enjoy strong claims to legitimacy and have only limited linkages to the sanction sender.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Democratization, Governance, and Sanctions
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, North Korea, United Nations, and Syria

8. Hooray for Global Justice? Emerging Democracies in a Multipolar World

Author:
Julian Culp and Johannes Plagemann
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Rising powers are fundamentally shifting the relations of power in the global economic and political landscape. International political theory, however, has so far failed to evaluate this nascent multipolarity. This article fills this lacuna by synthesizing empirical and normative modes of inquiry. It examines the transformation of sovereignty exercised by emerging democracies and shows that – in stark contrast to emerging democracies' foreign policy rhetoric – the "softening" of sovereignty has become the norm. The present paper assesses this softening of sovereignty on the basis of a "democratic-internationalist" conception of global justice. This conception holds that global justice demands the establishment of reasonably democratic transnational relations that enable people themselves to determine what else justice requires. Because we find that the exercise of soft sovereignty by emerging democracies contributes to the realization of reasonably democratic transnational relations, we conclude that this nascent multipolarity ought to be welcomed from the democratic-internationalist view of global justice.
Topic:
Democratization, Development, Economics, Emerging Markets, Globalization, and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
Brazil

9. Informelle Politik“ und „informelle Institutionen“: Konzeptionelle Grundlagen, analytische Zugänge und Herausforderungen für das Studium autoritärer und anderer politischer Herrschaftssysteme

Author:
Patrick Köllner
Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Understanding and explaining the shape and functioning of systems of political rule requires a focus on their informal elements, which exist alongside and interact with formal elements. And indeed, political science and area studies have long been concerned with various aspects of “informal politics” and “informal institutions”. Based on a survey of relevant literature, I show that the empirically-rich work focusing on the “non-OECD world” has applied the term “informal politics” in different ways, leading to conceptual ambiguity. Moreover, the term informal politics, as used in the literature, tends to lack in terms of conceptual differentiation. In contrast, the conceptual and broader analytical foundations of the study of informal institutions have become more advanced in recent times. Here, I particularly highlight work on different “genetic” types of informal institutions – tradition- and transition-based informal institutions – and on the possible relations between informal and formal institutions. Finally, I suggest that a focus on political regimes is particularly useful for analyzing, from an institutional perspective, the shape and functioning of autocracies (and other systems of political rule). However, the very opacity of such systems of rule as well as practical research obstacles will continue to bedevil the study of informal institutions in autocracies.
Topic:
Democratization, Political Economy, Politics, Political Theory, and Governance

10. Liberalist Variation in Taiwan: Four Democratization Orientations

Author:
Wang Hung-jen
Publication Date:
11-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
In this paper I analyse how Taiwanese liberalist scholars have discursively and operationally shaped the meanings of Taiwanese democratization via a mix of liberal values and nationalist concerns. I will argue that a valid understanding of democratization in Taiwan has never emerged in a way that adequately responds to a liberalist perspective of the country's ongoing political development. Instead, such an understanding has been subjectively influenced by liberal intellectuals writing on the subject. In other words, current discourses in Taiwan represent efforts on the part of scholars to manage connections between liberalist values and nationalist concerns rather than shared views regarding facts emerging from Taiwanese democratization. In this paper I discuss four types of liberalist orientations to Taiwanese democratization – universal, moderate, pragmatic and nationalist – in the contexts of national-identity constraints, a balance between liberal values and national identity, and flexibility regarding liberalist and nationalist concerns. I conclude that democratization research in Taiwan reflects an aspect of knowledge production formulated by the relationship between the researcher and the subject under study.
Topic:
Democratization and Development
Political Geography:
Taiwan