Grabbing power
Dictators Walking the Mogadishu Line: How Men Become Monsters and Monsters Become Men
Shaun Larcom, Mare Sarr & Tim Willems
World Bank Economic Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
History offers many examples of dictators who worsened their behavior significantly over time (like Zimbabwe’s Mugabe) as well as dictators who displayed remarkable improvements (like Rawlings of Ghana). We show that such mutations can result from rational behavior when the dictator’s flow use of repression is complementary to his stock of wrongdoings: past wrongdoings then perpetuate further wrongdoings and the dictator can unintentionally get trapped in a repressive steady state where he himself suffers from ex-post regret. This then begs the question why such a dictator would ever choose to do wrong in the first place. We show that this can be explained from the dictator’s uncertainty over his degree of impunity in relation to wrongdoing, which induces him to experiment along this dimension. This produces a setting where any individual rising to power can end up as either a moderate leader, or as a dreaded tyrant. Since derailment is accidental and accompanied by ex-post regret, increasing accountability can be in the interest of both the public and the dictator.
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Terrorism Risk and Democratic Preferences in Pakistan
Faiz Ur Rehman & Paolo Vanin
Journal of Development Economics, January 2017, Pages 95–106
Abstract:
Beyond direct damages, terrorism creates fear and insecurity, potentially reducing support for democratic institutions if these are deemed inadequate to tackle the threat. To investigate this possibility, we use data from Pakistan, a country that experienced an exponential rise in terrorism since 2001. Exploiting individual-level data on democratic attitudes and district-level information on terrorist attacks, we document that persistent exposure to terrorism (and more broadly to violence) is associated to a significantly lower support for democratic values. This correlation is robust to various alternative specifications (including an IV strategy), relevant in magnitude, and more pronounced for individuals who are male, poor, or less exposed to the media. Terrorism thus threatens not only individuals, but also democratic institutions.
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Why class inequality breeds coups but not civil wars
Christian Houle
Journal of Peace Research, September 2016, Pages 680-695
Abstract:
Does class inequality increase the risk of civil war? I posit that inequality between social classes affects civil wars through two pathways: (1) it heightens the risk of political violence by fueling distributive conflicts; and (2) it reduces structural coup-proofing, which, in turn, increases the capacity of the military to fight insurgents. Combining these effects implies that the net effect of class inequality on civil war is ambiguous. Although class inequality increases the propensity for violence, in unequal countries political violence rarely takes the form of wars because such countries have strong militaries. Class inequality, however, breeds other forms of political violence. In particular, it increases the likelihood of military coups. The two effects of class inequality reinforce each other in the case of coups: inequality simultaneously stirs distributional conflicts and increases the capacity of the military to mount coups by reducing coup-proofing. Using data on 128 developing countries between 1960 and 2008, I find that while class inequality fosters coups, it has no discernible effect on civil wars. I also provide evidence consistent with my causal mechanisms: (1) inequality creates greater threat to the rulers by fueling political instability; (2) inequality reduces structural coup-proofing; and (3) structural coup-proofing increases the likelihood of civil war.
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Rescuing Autocracy from Itself: China's Anti-Corruption Campaign
Xi Lu & Peter Lorentzen
University of California Working Paper, September 2016
Abstract:
In order to maintain popular support or at least acquiescence, autocrats must control the rapacious tendencies of other members of the governing elite. At the same time, the support of this elite is at least as important as the support of the broader population. This creates difficult tradeoffs and limits the autocrat's ability to enforce discipline. We explore this issue in the context of Chinese leader Xi Jinping's ongoing anti-corruption campaign. There have been two schools of thought about this campaign. One holds that it is nothing but a cover for intra-elite struggle and a purge of Xi's opponents, while the other finds more credibility in the CCP's claim that the movement is sincere. In this article, we demonstrate three facts, using a new dataset we have created. First, we use the political connections revealed by legal documents and media reports to visualize the corruption network. We demonstrate that although many of the corrupt officials are connected, Xi's most prominent political opponent, Bo Xilai, is less central by any network measure than other officials who were not viewed as challenging Xi's leadership. Second, we use a recursive selection model to analyze who the campaign has targeted, providing evidence that even personal ties to top leaders provided little protection. Finally, using another comprehensive dataset on the prefectural-city level, we show that the provinces later targeted by the corruption campaign differed from the rest in important ways. In particular, it appears that promotion patterns departed from the growth-oriented meritocratic selection procedures evidence in other provinces. Overall, our findings contradict the factional purge view and are more consistent with the view that the campaign is indeed primarily an attempt to root out systemic corruption problems.
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Unlikely Democrats: Economic Elite Uncertainty under Dictatorship and Support for Democratization
Michael Albertus & Victor Gay
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Influential recent scholarship assumes that authoritarian rulers act as perfect agents of economic elites, foreclosing the possibility that economic elites may at times prefer democracy absent a popular threat from below. Motivated by a puzzling set of democratic transitions, we relax this assumption and examine how elite uncertainty about dictatorship — a novel and generalizable causal mechanism impacting democratization — can induce elite support for democracy. We construct a noisy signaling model in which a potential autocrat attempts to convince economic elites that he will be a faithful partner should elites install him in power. The model generates clear predictions about how two major types of elite uncertainty — uncertainty in a potential autocratic successor's policies produced by variance in the pool of would-be dictator types, and uncertainty in the truthfulness of policy promises made by potential autocratic successors — impact the likelihood of elite-driven democratization. We demonstrate the model's plausibility in a series of cases of democratic transition.
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Inequality and the Emergence of Vigilante Organizations: The Case of Mexican Autodefensas
Brian Phillips
Comparative Political Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
What explains the emergence of vigilante organizations? Throughout the world, vigilantes emerge to illegally punish perceived criminals, often leading to serious consequences. However, the literature presents partial and conflicting explanations for this phenomenon. This article argues that local economic inequality creates a situation ripe for vigilante organizations. Inequality creates demand for vigilantism because poorer citizens feel relatively deprived of security compared with wealthier neighbors who have advantages regarding private and public security. In addition, inequality suggests a patron-and-worker distribution of labor, and this is ideal for organizing a particular type of group, the patron-funded vigilante group. Empirical tests use original data on the 2013 wave of Mexican vigilante organizations, present in 13 of Mexico’s 32 federal entities. Municipal-level income inequality is robustly associated with organized vigilantism. Less support is found for competing explanations.
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The Rebels’ Resource Curse: A Theory of Insurgent-Civilian Dynamics
Radha Sarkar & Amar Sarkar
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, forthcoming
Abstract:
The relationship between armed rebels and local civilians is among the least understood aspects of insurgency. This article posits a novel theory, the rebels’ resource curse, to argue that the interaction between rebel groups and local communities can be traced to revenue-generating resources. The theory is developed using a case study comparison approach to critically analyse how access to revenue- generating resources among the Naxalites in India and the FARC in Colombia affect these interactions. The theory proposes that insurgents face a resource curse similar to that faced by states. Rather than resource wealth contributing to greater social engagement and fruitful insurgent-civilian interactions, it appears to precipitate isolationist, and even exploitative and violent, relations between insurgents and local civilian populations. Conversely, resource scarcity predicts a greater degree of social integration and cohesion between civilians and insurgents. The framework of the rebels’ resource curse can also be applied productively to other insurgent groups, enhancing our understanding of the social realities of insurgency.
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Mining and Local Corruption in Africa
Carl Henrik Knutsen et al.
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
We investigate whether mining affects local corruption in Africa. Several cross-country analyses report that natural resources have adverse effects on political institutions by increasing corruption, whereas other country-level studies show no evidence of such “political resource curses.” These studies face well-known endogeneity and other methodological issues, and employing micro-level data would allow for drawing stronger inferences. Hence, we connect 92,762 Afrobarometer survey respondents to spatial data on 496 industrial mines. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, we find that mining increases bribe payments, and this result is robust to using alternative models. Mines are initially located in less corrupt areas, but mining areas turn more corrupt after mines open. When exploring mechanisms, we find that local economic activity relates differently to corruption in mining and non-mining areas, suggesting that mining income incentivizes and enables local officials already present to require more bribes.
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Elections, Ethnicity, and Political Instability
Charles Butcher & Benjamin Goldsmith
Comparative Political Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article provides a new perspective on the impact of elections on violent political instability in ethnically divided states. A number of scholars argue that elections may provoke large-scale violence in ethnically divided states. In this article, we theorize that elections have a pacifying effect in the most ethnically fractionalized countries as they reduce endemic uncertainty and encourage coalition building, lowering the rate at which electoral losers discount the future. Probit regressions using cross-national data for the period 1960-2010 support the notion that instability onsets are less likely in ethnically fractionalized states during election periods, and especially in the year after a national election.
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The commander’s dilemma: Creating and controlling armed group violence
Amelia Hoover Green
Journal of Peace Research, September 2016, Pages 619-632
Abstract:
This article proposes a framework for understanding variation in armed groups’ abilities to control wartime violence, including violence against civilians. I argue that patterns (both levels and forms) of violence are shaped by armed group leaders’ attempts to meet two conflicting imperatives. To succeed, commanders must build a fighting force capable of swift, unhesitating violence; they must also maintain some control over the level, form(s), and targeting of violence. I refer to this situation as the Commander’s Dilemma. Drawing on literatures from psychology and sociology, I argue that effective behavioral control cannot be achieved via extrinsic incentives (i.e. pecuniary or non-pecuniary rewards and punishments) alone. Rather, effective control of combatant violence depends upon armed group institutions intended to align combatants’ preferences with those of commanders. I therefore focus analytically on political education, the armed group institution most likely to operate in this way. In particular, I hypothesize that armed groups with strong and consistent institutions for political education should display, on average, narrower repertoires of violence than those without. This argument finds preliminary support in a cross-national analysis of reported rape by rebel forces, as well as a qualitative investigation of armed groups during civil war in El Salvador. More broadly, this approach suggests that the creation of restraint is at least as important to our understandings of wartime violence as the production of violence.
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Joanne Song McLaughlin
Journal of Comparative Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Many studies have found that Chinese Communist Party membership brings economic benefits to party members, but some studies also argue that the premium associated with party membership is merely due to members’ higher levels of ability and advantageous family backgrounds. The lack of consensus on the economic returns of party membership implies that the role of party membership is not well understood. This study estimates the economic returns to Chinese Communist Party membership using complementary approaches to address the endogeneity of party membership status: propensity score matching and instrumental variable. Although the magnitudes of these estimates vary across estimators, all the estimates show positive economic returns to party membership. This paper also examines possible mechanisms for how party membership may bring benefits to members and provides evidence that party membership may generate political capital, but not social capital in the labor market in China.
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Borrowed Time: Sovereign Finance, Regime Type, and Leader Survival
Matthew DiGiuseppe & Patrick Shea
Economics & Politics, November 2016, Pages 342–367
Abstract:
This study explores the conditional influence of sovereign credit on leader survival. We specifically focus on credit's heterogeneous effect on leadership survival across regimes. We argue that non-democratic leaders are more sensitive to credit access and cost than democratic leadership. We use event history analysis to test the conditional relationship between sovereign credit and leader tenure from 1981 to 2004. Examining both domestic and global determinants of credit access and costs, our findings are consistent with the assertion that non-democratic leadership survival is linked to credit even when addressing issues of endogeneity.
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Pathogens, Weather Shocks, and Civil Conflicts
Matteo Cervellati, Uwe Sunde & Simona Valmori
Economic Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper documents a statistically strong and quantitatively relevant effect of high exposure to infectious diseases on the risk of civil conflicts. The analysis exploits data on the presence and endemicity of multi-host vector-transmitted pathogens in a country, which is closely related to geo-climatic conditions due to the specific features of these pathogens. Exploiting within-country variation over time shows that this effect of pathogen exposure is significantly amplified by weather shocks. The results indicate health shocks and the outbreak of epidemics as a potential channel, while we find no evidence that the effect works through alternative channels like income, population dynamics, or institutions.
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Civil War and the Formation of Social Trust in Kosovo: Posttraumatic Growth or War-related Distress?
Sara Kijewski & Markus Freitag
Journal of Conflict Resolution, forthcoming
Abstract:
While a new, growing subset of the literature argues that armed conflict does not necessarily erode social cohesion in the postwar era, we challenge this perspective and examine how civil war experiences shape social trust in Kosovo after the war from 1998 to 1999. Based on a nationwide survey conducted in 2010 and the disaggregated conflict event data set of the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, we simultaneously analyze the impact of individual war-related experiences and exposure to war in the community through hierarchical analyses of twenty-six municipalities. Our findings confirm that civil war is negatively related to social trust. This effect proves to be more conclusive for individual war experiences than for contextual war exposure. Arguably, the occurrence of instances of violence with lasting psychological as well as social structural consequences provides people with clear evidence of the untrustworthiness, uncooperativeness, and hostility of others, diminishing social trust in the aftermath of war.
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Resilient Leaders and Institutional Reform: Theory and Evidence
Timothy Besley, Torsten Persson & Marta Reynal-Querol
Economica, October 2016, Pages 584–623
Abstract:
Strengthening executive constraints is one of the key means of improving political governance. This paper argues that resilient leaders who face a lower probability of being replaced are less likely to reform institutions in the direction of constraining executive power. We test this idea empirically using data on leaders since 1875 using two proxies of resilience: whether a leader survives long enough to die in office, and whether recent natural disasters occur during the leader's tenure. We show that both are associated with lower rates of leader turnover and a lower probability of a transition to strong executive constraints. This effect is robust across a wide range of specifications. Moreover, in line with the theory, it is specific to strengthening executive constraints rather than generalized political reform.
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The Role of Civil Wars and Elections in Inducing Political Assassinations
Arie Perliger
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, forthcoming
Abstract:
Political assassinations can dramatically impact political and social dynamics, especially in times of violent political conflicts or electoral competition. The current study explores if and how specific social and political events facilitate the occurrence of political assassinations. After an examination of the logic of political assassinations, a theoretical framework is presented, which explains the role of civil wars and electoral processes as facilitators of different types of political assassinations. The theory is tested via a dataset of political assassinations worldwide between the years 1946–2013. The findings confirm that different sets of structural and contextual factors facilitate assassinations against heads of state, legislators, and leaders of opposition movements/parties. In addition, the findings illustrate the tendency of elections, especially in non-liberal settings and in polarized societies, to facilitate political assassinations rather than to calm the political environment. In contrast, civil wars have a more limited impact on the probability of assassinations, and their intensity and endurance mainly enhance the risk of assassinations of legislators.
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Oil and terrorism: An investigation of mediators
James Piazza
Public Choice, forthcoming
Abstract:
Do states with oil wealth experience more terrorism and, if so, why? Drawing from the intrastate war literature, this study considers several factors that prospectively mediate the relationship between oil wealth and terrorism: state weakness; rentier state authoritarianism; corruption of government officials; income inequality; human rights violations; foreign military intervention; and heightened separatist activity. Based on structural equation modeling on a sample of 130 non-OECD countries for the period 1970–2012, the paper produces two main empirical findings. First, while onshore oil production increases terrorist attacks in countries, on- and offshore production and oil revenues from exports do not increase such attacks. Second, the impact of oil on terrorism is mediated through increased human rights abuses. Exploitation of oil is found to be associated with a worsening of physical integrity rights abuses that, in turn, lead to popular grievances that help to fuel terrorist campaigns.
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Good Geography, Good Institutions? Historical Evidence from Nineteenth-Century British Colonies
Eik Swee & Laura Panza
European Economic Review, October 2016, Pages 264–283
Abstract:
This paper uses a historical natural experiment – the opening of the Suez Canal – to investigate the relationship between geography and the formation of institutions. While the conventional view is that good geography (commodity endowment) inevitably favours the creation of extractive institutions, we discover that a second aspect of geography – location – may in fact encourage the establishment of non-extractive institutions when rent extraction by elites depends on the productivity of non-elites. Specifically, we find that entrepôt colonies (Hong Kong and the Straits Settlements) received larger public investments in the post-Suez period than resource colonies (British India, Ceylon, and West Africa), after accounting for year effects and permanent differences across colonies. We demonstrate, using supplementary data, that the entrepôt colonies' locational advantage, coupled with their lack of extractable resources, plays a key role in explaining our empirical findings.
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Viola Lucas & Thomas Richter
Research & Politics, August 2016
Abstract:
This article surveys the effects of state hydrocarbon rents — defined as government income from oil and natural gas — on authoritarian survival and the onset of democracy. We also examine the association of changing state hydrocarbon rents with state spending and taxation based on a new collection of historical data, the Global State Revenues and Expenditures dataset. Using these novel data, we provide evidence that increasing state rents from oil and gas hinder democratization by reducing citizens’ tax burden. However, an increase in the oil and gas income flowing directly into state coffers does not appear to lower the average risk of ouster by rival authoritarian elites. We have found no evidence of the systematic distributional effects of state hydrocarbon income on regime survival.
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Adrien Detges
Journal of Peace Research, September 2016, Pages 696-710
Abstract:
Despite growing concerns about the possible security implications of extreme precipitation shortfalls in vulnerable and politically fragile regions, the particular conditions that make armed violence more or less likely in times of drought remain poorly understood. Using a spatially disaggregated research design and focusing on sub-Saharan Africa, the present analysis assesses how far violent and nonviolent outcomes in the wake of drought can be accounted for by regional differences in the provision of key infrastructures that help coping with drought and preventing violence. The results indicate that civil conflict events in connection with drought are more likely in administrative areas with poorly developed road infrastructures. Drought-related communal violence, on the other hand, is more likely in regions where an important part of the population lacks access to an improved water source. Thus, while the provision of key infrastructures seems to moderate local conflict risks in connection with drought, there are nevertheless important distinctions with regard to different types of infrastructures and forms of armed violence. However, the importance of precipitation shortfalls as a conflict-facilitating factor in sub-Saharan Africa should not be overstated, as the overall contribution of drought measures to predicting violent events is modest in all calculated models.