Final Flashcards
What is Olson’s roving bandit?
Steal everything from a target once. Narrow interest
What is a narrow interest?
Leaving a target ruined
What is Olson’s stationary bandit?
Steal fractionally from targets regularly over time. Encompassing interest. He has to care about how well everyone in his territory is doing, so he can sustain his taking of wealth
What is an encompassing interest?
Keep targets productive
What is the logic of encompassing interests?
The more your society produces, the more wealth you can extract from it in the long term. The more public goods you provide, the more your society will produce
How do you increase a states’ encompassing interest?
Monopoly on taxation/theft and a long time horizon
What happens as a monopoly on taxation declines?
Rival bandits (with no encompassing interest) will plunder, leaving nothing
What is a long time horizon for bandits?
Expectation of remaining in power. Shortened by fear of loss of power: coup/revolution/assassination
Why is hereditary succession best for long time horizon?
Legitimacy of own rule (fewer challenges), concern for successor (own kin), and concern for historical legacy
Why are poorly institutionalized regimes the worst for time horizon?
Leaders have short time horizon. Plunder, deposit in foreign accounts, and make a quick exit when in danger. Staying in power in the short term requires bribery of rival elites, not public goods spending
What is a principal?
An actor who is able both to grand authority and remind it. The government.
What is an agent?
Recipient of a grant of authority. Bureaucrats.
What happens in centralized predation?
Less spending on public goods than no predation
What happens in decentralized predation?
No spending on public goods because of predation
What are the incentives of a stationary bandit under predation?
They have an incentive to centralize predation and have less corruption at the lower level
What is rent?
Income from non-produced sources. Landlords, natural resource exploits, extortion/bribery, legal privilege
What is a patron?
Father-like protector/provider
What is a client?
Dependent of patron
What is clientelism?
Transactions between patrons and clients whereby material favors are offered in return for political support. Loyalty expected.
What is patrimonialism?
A form of government based on rulers’ family-households. Patron-client relations. Can replicate fractal. Assign land and legal rights to dependents.
What are the two forms of patrimonialism?
Feudalism and prebendalism
What is feudalism?
Ruler grants revenue generating land to vassal in exchange for military service. Peasants owe labor and a share of production to their lord, ostensibly for military protection (and protection from their lord)
What is prebendalism?
Ruler grants revenue generating office to client in exchange for political support and/or revenue. Officeholders seek rents for themselves, kin, and constituents. Difference of office vs. land
What is rational legal authority?
The opposite of patrimonialism. Impersonal, rule-bound, with superior-subordinate relationships. Hierarchy is defined by rules, not persona; loyalty. Promotion based on technical competence. Separation between law-making and administration. Changes in rules come from outside the bureaucracy, not the bureaucrats themselves. Bureaucrats are insulated from conflicts of interest and lack discretion in applying laws
What is neopatrimonialism?
Hybrid between patrimonialism and rational-legal authority. System is formally constructed as rational legal, not household. Informal patrimonial relationship pervade the rational-legal system
What are the implications of rational-legal authority?
Rational-legal authority often underpins strong states, government policy will be carried out, if procedure allows
What are the implications of patrimonial and neopatrimonial systems?
They often underpin weak states, because you can’t be confident policy will be executed by bureaucrats. They impede economic reforms
What is the low level equilibrium trap?
The very fact that a state is neopatrimonial impedes the reforms you’d like to impose to get to the rational legal authority
How does a bigger state lead for more cronyism?
Developmental states create large bureaucracies to regulate businesses. Corrupt bureaucrats sell regulatory favor to business
How does more cronyism lead to bigger states?
Patrons create prebends for clients (i.e. jobs), prebends with more regulatory authority are more valuable to clients, so states expand regulatory authority
Why do PCFs pay off bureaucrats?
Access to opportunities, advantages over competitors, exclude competitors, gain monopoly profits, avoid market exclusion, and avoid persecution
Why, under cronyism, is there not as much innovation?
Firms must invest in rent-seeking rather than innovations, leading to economic stagnation
Why do dictator’s engage in cronyism?
Crony relations generate rents that help sustain ruling coalition. Exclusion is often part of a deliberate strategy to exclude independent businesses who could potentially convert their economic strength into political power
Who was Mubarak?
Authoritarian ruler of Egypt from 1981-2011
What is SCAF?
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces- Egyptian military rulers in 2011, transitioned to a democracy
Who was Mursi?
Democratically elected leader of Egypt from 2012-2013. Affiliated with the Islamist, Muslim Brotherhood. Deposed in a coup
Who is Sisi?
After SCAF coup, authoritarian ruler. Has ruled since 2013
What are external rents that come into Egypt?
Oil and gas, Suez Canal, tourism, loans from the IMF, foreign aid from the US since peace with Israel in 1978, foreign aid from the Gulf monarchies since 2013 coup (they do not like the Muslim Brotherhood)
What are Egypt’s problems?
Bloated bureaucracy, but civil servants are critical constituency; Military Inc: military has a privileged role in economy, rentiers; US cares more about Islamism than democracy (hasn’t cut off aid)
What are the implications of Egypt’s position?
Perpetual fiscal crisis, repression of labor and Muslim Brotherhood, short tune horizon for insecure leaders, so little incentive for reform, no taxation, no representation: the more rents a state has access to, the fewer incentives it has to be accountable to its citizens
What is a kleptocracy?
Systematic and widespread extra-legal exploitation of a country for financial gain by ruling elite
What are warlords?
Rulers of states within states. Not traditional, not legitimate. Rule through patronage, depend on outside backing
What are military mafias?
Officers operate illegal businesses
What is civil society?
Voluntary organizations outside the family, market, and state. Includes interest groups, parties, labor union, religious organizations, amateur sporting leagues, gangs (maybe)
What are the functions of civil society?
Disseminate information, watchdog over government, form non-governmental organizations and train leaders, organize mass participation in politics, especially mobilization of protest, and counterbalance to state power: incubator of democracy
What is the principle empirical finding of studying authoritarian and democratic economies?
Rich countries are almost all democratic, poor countries are mostly authoritarian
What are the different theories about causation between democracy and development?
Development leads to democracy (modernization theory), democracy leads to development, democracy and development cause one another, its just a spurious correlation
What are the trajectories of rich countries vs poor countries?
Rich countries stay rich, poor countries vary in trajectory
What do the greatest developmental successes include?
Both democracies and authoritarians
What kind of regimes have the greatest economic disasters?
Authoritarians
What is economic development?
Moving up the value added chain: raw materials -> low tech manufacturing -> high tech manufacturing, and services (so not just getting richer)
What was statism (1950s-70s)?
State needs to take an active role in promoting development
What did statists believe the benefits of authoritarianism?
Overcome political opposition to reform, eliminate institutional veto points, insulate technocrats from societal pressure, and provide economic stability (repress labor unrest and protect private property)
What were the authoritarian exemplars from the 50s-70s?
USSR (50s-60s), Asian tigers (South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong)
What was the democratic laggard from the 50s-70s?
India
Why did the consensus on statism change?
New belief that statism and authoritarianism cause corruption, mismanagement, and decline
Why did the Washington Consensus think democracy and capitalism belong together?
They broaden coalitions: invest in human capital and public goods, not rent for elites. They provide rule of law: attack corruption, create accountability. They maintain openness: feedback is needed for course correction, innovation requires freedom
What were authoritarian failures of the 80s?
USSR, sub-Saharan Africa, Latin American debt crisis
What were the democratic exemplars on the 90s?
Eastern Europe
What is the current ideas about democratic and authoritarian development?
No dominant paradigm
Why has there been no dominant paradigm since the 2000s?
Scholars believe development requires a complex convergence of circumstances. No strong relationship between regime type and economic development. There is the China Model: reform within authoritarianism, especially to incentivize exports and upgrading
What was the East Asian Miracle?
South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong all transitioned from poor backwaters to advanced industrial economies over the span of 40 years
What is the conventional wisdom of why the East Asian Miracle happened?
They were strong, autonomous states. They did ELI instead of ISI