Economic elites and the constitutional design of sharing political power (original) (raw)

The Quality of Political Institutions and the Curse of Natural Resources*

The Economic Journal, 2011

We propose a theoretical model to explain empirical regularities related to the curse of natural resources, which emphasises the behaviour and incentives of politicians. We extend the standard voting model to give voters political control beyond the elections. This gives rise to a new restriction that policies should not give rise to a revolution. Our model clarifies when resource discoveries might lead to revolutions, namely, in countries with weak institutions. It also suggests that for bad political institutions human capital depends negatively on natural resources, while for high institutional quality the dependence is reversed. This finding is corroborated in cross-section regressions.

Who controls the wealth? Electoral system design and ethnic war in resource-rich countries

Electoral Studies, 2014

Both natural resource wealth and electoral system design are frequently investigated factors in the civil wars literature. So far, however, there is no well-known study which explicitly considers the interaction effect between these two factors on the risk of violent ethnic conflict. We argue that resource-rich countries with a proportional electoral system for the legislature are less prone to ethnic civil war than resource-rich countries with a majoritarian or mixed electoral system, as proportional electoral systems tend to increase the effective number of parliamentary parties and thus the number of groups who can share state control over resource wealth. We find empirical support for this argument using binary time-series-cross-section analysis covering 83 to 140 countries between 1984 and 2007.

Natural Resources and the Tipping Points of Political Power—A Research Agenda

Sustainability

A general assumption concerning the relationship between natural recourses and politics is that the degradation of natural resources will destabilize political regimes causing civil wars, mass migration, or the erosion of democratic systems. Despite individual attempts to explore the relationship between different political regimes and various resources in more detail, a systematic explanation of the complex relationship between natural resources and political regimes is still lacking. In this paper, we suggest a research agenda in order to better understand their interconnectedness. We start by exploring the respective potentials of Earth system science (ESS) and the logic of Earth spheres. We argue that the notion of distinct Earth spheres has its merits but also significant disadvantages. We then propose to concentrate on a resource perspective as the more expedient starting point for investigating the nature of the interconnection between the ecosphere and humans. We refine our ...

Beyond Divide and Rule: Weak Dictators, Natural Resources and Civil Conflict

2011

We propose a model where an autocrat rules over an ethnically divided society. The dictator selects the tax rate over domestic production and the nation's natural resources to maximize his rents under the threat of a regime-switching revolution. We show that a weak ruler may let the country plunge in civil war to increase his personal rents. Inter-group fighting weakens potential opposition to the ruler, thereby allowing him to increase fiscal pressure. We show that the presence of natural resources exacerbates the incentives of the ruler to promote civil conflict for his own profit, especially if the resources are unequally distributed across ethnic groups. We validate the main predictions of the model using cross-country data over the period 1960-2007, and show that our empirical results are not likely to be driven by omitted observable determinants of civil war incidence or by unobservable country-specific heterogeneity.

The Different Impacts of Different Types of Natural Resources on Political Institutions in Developing Countries

Journal of Economic Development

Rents generated by natural resources are usually thought to weaken the quality of institutions, particularly in developing countries. Our hypothesis is that this effect may differ depending on the types of natural resources characterized by their different degree of appropriability. We test this hypothesis using panel data covering 90 developing countries for the period 1970-2010. We find that total rents weaken the quality of institutions. However, while oil rents have a significant negative effect, forest and mineral rents do not, after controlling for the other relevant determinants of institutional quality, institutional persistence, neighbor effect, and endogeneity of rents.

Roots and Fruits of Democracy: Natural Resources, Income Distribution and Social Violence

2015

This paper proposes the argument that natural resource abundance and large economic inequality, by shaping the interests of different social groups, are key factors for the determination of the transition scenario from authoritarianism to democracy. In turn, the transition scenario, and in particular the level of violence during democratization, determines the success or failure of a democratic reform. We analyze the historical experience of countries that democratized during the "third wave" of democratization in order to shed some light on the determinants and consequences of current and future democratic transitions.

Natural Resource Rents, Institutions and Political Violence: A Theoretical Exploration

Research Square (Research Square), 2023

Natural resource abundance has been linked to major violent con icts in the world. Collier and Hoe er (1998) were the rst to discuss distributional concerns among different groups and its potential in instigating violence in the presence of natural resources. This work traces the theories that link natural resource rents to violence and develops a theoretical framework which can explain the role institutional accountability and third-party interference in that relationship. We have considered the dynamics between the dominant and minority groups in determining the shares in natural resources and then have adapted the framework by Elbadawi and Soto (2015) for explaining the motivation for exploitation and rebellion. Onwards, we modify the framework by incorporating institutional cost and third-party interference into the baseline analysis. The derived outcomes depict that indiscriminate institutional accountability for exploitation and aggression can be instrumental in neutralizing the effect of natural resource rents on political violence. Further, the effectiveness of institutional cost of violence is compromised in case of third-party interference. Our work makes a case for not only institutional reforms that would penalize exploitation and violence but also for a less con ictual foreign policy for a developing nation.

Political Institutions And Ethnic-Economic Conflicts

International Journal of Marketing and Technology, 2016

Democracy is one of the important issues in today's world. Democracy is a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected (Lijphart, 1999). The term institution is commonly applied to customs and behavior patterns that are important to a society, as well as to particular formal organizations of government and public service. According to North (1990) an institution is a draft that names of the actors, their respective behavioral strategies, the cycle in which the actors choose from them, the information they possess when they make their selections, and the outcome resulting from the combination of actor choices. North (1990) emphasises another important feature as the institutional structure. Institutions have to be developed in political, economic and social life to solve those problems. Political institutions are created to solve collective action problems (Moe, 1990). They result from not only cooperation also competition between rational political actors. According to Lijphart (1999), that consensus democracies have an equal or slightly better record than majoritarian democracies in economic management and in the control of violence. Ethnic conflicts are one of the most important examples of social conflicts. Although there are disagreements when it comes to more specific political institutions as discussed above, Easterly (2001) argues that in general institutions that give legal protection to minorities, guarantee freedom from expropriation, grant freedom from repudiation of contracts, and facilitate cooperation for public services would constrain the amount of damage that one ethnic group could do to another (p.690). Corruption tends to arise when governments interventionism increase in attempting to tackle with market failures instead of promoting private alternatives.Economıc problems are also important for our topic. For states, to make economy run properly requires well regulated markets with a limited government interventionism under the assurances of self-restrained political institutions.According to Huntington (1968), primary differences between developed and developing countries depend on the level of political IJMT Volume 6, Issue 7 International Journal of Marketing and Technology http://www.ijmra.us 2 July 2016 institutions. More specifically, short of political institutions are indicated in developing countries compare to developed countries.