Good and Bad Regimes
Institutional specialization
Bernardo Guimaraes & Kevin Sheedy
Journal of International Economics, July 2024
Abstract:
This paper presents a theory of institutional specialization in which some countries uphold the rule of law while others choose extractive institutions, even when countries are ex-ante identical. The driving force of specialization is that for incumbents in each country, the first steps to the rule of law have the greatest cost. Good institutions require sharing power and rents, but in places where power is already shared broadly, each power base or branch of government underpinning institutions is individually less important and thus receives lower rents. Countries with diametrically opposed institutions have a symbiotic relationship in the world equilibrium. The transition from sail to steam-powered vessels in 19th-century trade provides suggestive evidence supporting the theory.
Revolution and Democracy in the Twenty-First Century
Andrey Korotayev et al.
Cross-Cultural Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
In this article, we analyze an inverted U-shaped relationship between the type of regime (on the autocracy-democracy scale) and the risks of revolutionary destabilization. Anocracies tend to be more vulnerable to revolutionary destabilization than full autocracies or full (consolidated) democracies. We also point to a strong positive association between the weakening of autocracies and the risks of revolutionary destabilization that exist among full autocracies. In addition, full autocracies moving towards democracy and transitioning to partial autocratic rule are at increased risk of revolutionary destabilization, which explains why the current global spread of democracy is associated with an upswing rather than a downswing in revolutionary activity. Finally, strong forms of revolutionary destabilization are quite possible in cases of deconsolidation of consolidated democracy, which additionally suggests that the era of revolutions will not end in the foreseeable future. Thus, we propose a general theory on the effect of regime type on revolutionary destabilization and address inconsistencies among various studies regarding the impact of the regime on revolutionary instability. The conducted research also allows us to contribute to the answer to the question posed by many researchers of revolutions at the end of the last century -- will the era of revolutions end with the global spread of democracy? Our analysis suggests that if this happens someday, it will not be in any foreseeable future.
In the Shadows of Great Men: Retired Leaders and Informal Power Constraints in Autocracies
Junyan Jiang, Tianyang Xi & Haojun Xie
British Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Autocratic leaders differ considerably in how they consolidate power, but what gives rise to these variations remains under-theorized. This article studies how informal political constraints associated with retired leaders shape intra-elite power dynamics. We argue that ageing leaders' efforts to manage the succession problem create an important yet impermanent check on the power of subsequent leaders. To test this argument, we use the massive text corpus of Google Ngram to develop a new measure of power for a global sample of autocratic leaders and elites and employ a research design that leverages within-incumbent variations in former leaders' influence for identification. We show that incumbent leaders' ability to consolidate power becomes more limited when operating in an environment where influential former leaders are present. Further analyses suggest that the presence of former leaders is most effective in reducing incumbents' ability to appoint or remove high-level military and civilian personnel unilaterally. These findings have implications for our understanding of the dynamics of power-sharing and institutional change in autocracies.
Pre-Modern Institutions and Later Support for Autocrats in Democratic Elections
Jonathan Stavnskær Doucette
British Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
A history of local inclusive institutions is correlated with higher levels of democracy today. However, it is unclear whether this reflects the effect of historical institutions on democracy or a prior common cause. Using a geographic natural experiment, this letter demonstrates that historical experience with inclusive institutions is related to less support for autocratic parties in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Germany. This suggests that electoral support for political parties that seek to subvert democracy can be influenced by pre-modern institutions even when they were destroyed prior to the introduction of democracy.
On the origins of national identity. German nation-building after Napoleon
Felix Kersting & Nikolaus Wolf
Journal of Comparative Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
What are the origins of national identity? We investigate the success of propaganda as one the first nation-building policies conducted in the German lands around 1815. To elicit identity changes at the level of individuals we use data on first names across German cities and villages. To validate the approach of using first names, we show that soldiers with national names had a higher likelihood to be honored for bravery during the German-French War. Exploiting unanticipated border changes together with variation within the same families over time, i.e., family fixed effects, we find that parents in treated cities responded by choosing national (rather than ruler) first names for their children. We do not find a corresponding increase in villages suggesting that national identity was more prevalent among the urban population, in particular the elite, during this period.
Courting Civilians During Conflict: Evidence from Taliban Judges in Afghanistan
Donald Grasse, Renard Sexton & Austin Wright
International Organization, Winter 2024, Pages 134-169
Abstract:
Rebels regularly provide public services, especially legal services, but the consequences of such programs are unclear. We argue that rebel courts can boost civilian support for insurgency and augment attack capacity by increasing the legitimacy of the rebellion, creating a vested interest in rebel rule, or enabling rebel coercion of the civilian population. We study the impact of the Taliban's judiciary by leveraging cross-district and over-time variation in exposure to Taliban courts using a trajectory-balancing design. We find that rebel courts reduced civilian support for the government and increased it for the Taliban, and were associated with more attacks and more coalition casualties. Exploring mechanisms, we find that courts resolved major interpersonal disputes between civilians but also facilitated more insurgent intimidation of civilians, and that changes in public opinion are unlikely to have been driven solely by social desirability bias. Our findings help explain the logic of rebel courts and highlight the complex interactions between warfare and institutional development in weak states.
Mining competition and violent conflict in Africa: Pitting against each other
Anouk Rigterink et al.
Journal of Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Existing explanations for the well-established relationship between mining and conflict predominantly interpret violence near mines as conflict over territory or government. We provide evidence that competition between artisanal and industrial miners is also an important source of natural resources-related conflict, drawing on qualitative case studies at mining sites in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe, and a large-N analysis. For the latter, we use machine learning to estimate the feasibility of artisanal mining across the continent of Africa based on geological conditions. The impact of price shocks on violent conflict is over three times larger in locations with industrial mining where artisanal mining is feasible than in places with industrial mining unsuitable for artisanal mining. Our estimates suggest that 31 to 55% of the observed mining-conflict relationship is due to violent industrial-artisanal miner competition. This implies new avenues for conflict-mitigation as the clean energy transition increases demand for minerals.
Martial races as clubs? The institutional logic of the martial race system of British India
Charles Miller
Rationality and Society, forthcoming
Abstract:
Military institutions can be seen as a solution to a type of principal-agent problem, in which a government principal contracts with a military agent to produce violence on their behalf. Absent extensive monitoring, low effort should be expected from the military agent. This should especially be the case for a mercenary force which cannot rely on patriotism or ideology. Yet the mercenary army of the British-ruled India consistently produced high and dedicated performance. In this paper, I argue that the otherwise curious institution of recruiting predominantly from the so-called ‘martial races’ helps to explain this puzzle. Drawing on Iannaccone’s club goods model, I argue that the martial race recruitment system represented an effective solution to the principal-agent problem by allowing the British to benefit from a repeat business arrangement with a small number of ethno-religious groups whose costly in-group prohibitions and poor outside options helped both to screen out potential shirkers and deter poor performance on the battlefield.
Avoiding the Political Resource Curse: Evidence from a Most-Likely Case
Moritz Schmoll & Geoffrey Swenson
Studies in Comparative International Development, March 2024, Pages 27–55
Abstract:
Why do some countries escape the political resource curse while others do not? Most scholars argue that avoiding the claimed anti-democratic effects of natural resources, especially oil, largely depends on the quality of pre-existing political institutions and/or the effectiveness of contemporary resource management institutions. Drawing on the most-likely case of Timor-Leste, one of the world’s most oil-dependent countries that nevertheless successfully consolidated democracy, we challenge these dominant theories and highlight new important factors to consider. We show that Timor-Leste did not avoid the curse because of good pre-existing political institutions, good natural resource governance institutions, or an otherwise favorable environment for democracy. Instead, we find that the ideological beliefs of major political actors, their strong popular legitimacy, the absence of a hegemonic actor among them, as well as the approaches of external actors, have produced a consolidated democracy despite strong incentives for the development of authoritarianism. These findings highlight the importance of ideology and agency, of the composition of independence movements, and of constructive international engagement, in particular at critical historical junctures. In short, even countries facing serious political and economic challenges can avoid the political resource curse, and both scholars and policymakers should consider a broader approach to the phenomenon.
Transhumant Pastoralism, Climate Change and Conflict in Africa
Eoin McGuirk & Nathan Nunn
Review of Economic Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
We consider the effects of climate change on seasonally migrant populations that herd livestock -- i.e., transhumant pastoralists -- in Africa. Traditionally, transhumant pastoralists benefit from a cooperative relationship with sedentary agriculturalists whereby arable land is used for crop farming in the wet season and animal grazing in the dry season. Rainfall scarcity can disrupt this arrangement by inducing pastoral groups to migrate to agricultural lands before the harvest, causing conflict to emerge. We examine this hypothesis by combining ethnographic information on the traditional locations of transhumant pastoralists and sedentary agriculturalists with high-resolution data on the location and timing of rainfall and violent conflict events in Africa from 1989−2018. We find that reduced rainfall in the territory of transhumant pastoralists leads to conflict in neighboring areas. Consistent with the proposed mechanism, the conflicts are concentrated in agricultural areas; they occur during the wet season and not the dry season; and they are due to rainfall's impact on plant biomass growth. Since pastoralists tend to be Muslim and agriculturalists Christian, this mechanism accounts for a sizable proportion of the rapid rise in religious conflict observed in recent decades. Regarding policy responses, we find that development aid projects tend not to mitigate the effects that we document. By contrast, the effects are reduced when transhumant pastoralists have greater power in national government, suggesting that more equal political representation is conducive to peace.