Comparative Politics Week 4-6

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101 Terms

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What did Olson say about Groups/Organizations?

Organizations are expected to further the interests of their members.

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Examples of groups/organizations

Labor unions, farm organizations, corporations, and states

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Labor unions

Aim for higher wages and better working conditons

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Farm organizations

Favorable legislation for their members

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Corporations

further the interests of its stockholders

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State

Further the common interests of its citizens

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Goods and services provided by the government:

Defense, police protection, law and order

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What are public goods two main features?

Non-excludable: cannot prevent people from consuming it. Excludable: the manager could restrict the consumption of these goods to certain consumers.

Non-rivalrous: The consumption by one consumer doesn't prevent the consumption of others, or doesn't reduce the ability of another party to consume it.

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Examples of club goods, common-pool resources, and private goods?

Club goods: Cinemas, & private parks

Common-pool resources: fish stocks in the sea, & coal

Private good: food, & clothing

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What is olsons free rider problem?

When one organization provides public goods, which is non-excludable and non-rivalrous, each member could enjoy the benefits of it.

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What did Olson say about the free rider problem?

"Through all of the members of the group have a common interest in obtaining this collective benefit, they have no common interest in paying the cost of providing that common good'

"Each would prefer that the others pay the entire cost, and ordinarily would get any benefit provided whether he had borne part of the cost or not"

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Examples of the free rider problem

labor unions, elections, group projects, & military alliance

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Parts of the selectorate theory

Public & private goods, leader & challenger, residents, selectorate, and winning coalition

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What are the two differing parts of the leader and challenger?

Democracy: Incumbent leader and presidential candidate, and incumbent party leader of the 2nd largest party

Autocracy: Incumbent leader & ...

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Who was Lin Biao?

-Famous military leader of the CCP & one of the Marshals.

-Involved in civil war from Northeast China to Hainan Island.

-During cultural revolution was named Mao's designated successor as the sole Vice Chairman of the CCP.

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What was the Lin Biao incident in 1971?

-Coup against Mao: Project 571

-Planned to assassinate Mao but failed

-Tried to escape the Soviet Union after coup failed.

-Crashed in Mongolia

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What is the succession problem in North Korea?

-Kim Jong-Nam (Kim Jong-Un older brother) assassinated in Malaysia in 2017.

-Potential coup against Kim Jong-Un by Jang Song-Thaek

-Sentenced to death by Kim Jong-Un

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Define the leader in the selectorate theory

Those who have the authority to raise taxes and allocate government funds to pursue chosen policies, including private uses of the monies as well as uses aimed at the general welfare.

-Make efforts to ensure that his supporters understand that they receive private goods because of his efforts. (fulfill promises made)

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Define the challenger in the selectorate theory?

An individual or would-be leadership group attempting to depose the incumbent leader within the "rules" or norms of transition in the existing system so that the challenger can gain control over policy choices regarding taxing and spending.

-Promise the members of the existing coalition more rewards than they currently receive

-Lacks long-term credibility (commitment problem)

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What are the differences and similarities between the leader and the challenger?

Differences:

-Incumbent usually have informational advantage relative to challengers.

-The primary problem and incumbent paces in the selectorate theory is the figure out how to prevent being replaces by a challenger.

Similarities:

-Both are drawn from the selectorate (but not all members of the selectorate are necessarily eligible to be the leader.

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What are residents in the selectorate theory?

-Residents can be subdivided along a critical dimension: those in the selectorate and those not.

-One goal of revolutions is to replace members of the selectorate with individuals from the disenfranchised group, or to add this group to the selectorate.

-Politics is evolving so that the selectorate expands to take in more members, which reduces the size of the disenfranchised group.

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What is the selectorate in the selectorate theory?

The set of people who endowments include the qualities of character required to choose governments leadership and is necessary for gaining access to private benefits delivered by the governments leadership.

-Have a government say in leadership selection

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What is the winning coalition in the selectorate theory?

A subset of the selectorate of sufficient size such that the subset's support endows the leadership with political power over the remainder of the selectorate as well as over the disenfranchised members of the society.

-In exchange for support, members of winning coalition receive a share of whatever private benefits the incumbent delivered to her supporters.

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In the Soviet Union and other systems, what does the selectorate mainly consist of and what is it determined by?

Adult citizens determined by age, birthplace/naturalization criteria.

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What does the winning coalition consist of?

Subset of people who met the selectorate membership criteria and possess a defined special proficiency or quality, with membership in the Communist Party.

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Public goods are ...?

Indivisible and nonexcludable: they benefit everyone in the society.

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Private goods ...?

are generated by government and go only to members of the winning coalition, and not everyone enjoys the benefits.

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What is the loyalty norm?

-(W/S)

-Selectorate theory suggests a link between the number of people who make up the winning coalition or the selectorate and an incumbent's prospects of political survival.

-Link relates to the risk to coalition members of exclusion from future winning coalitions.

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If the sufficient number of members of the current winning coalition defect by switching allegiance to a rival of the incumbent so that the incumbent is removed from office what must the challenger do?

The challenger must draw W members from the available S members of the selectorate to form a new government.

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If there is only W individuals out of a pool of S candidates are needed to form the new winning coalition...

There is a risk and a cost associated with defection, as well as benefits.

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In what ways do benefits come in and what risks are involved with them?

Benefits come in the form of immediate payment for the defector's support. The risk involves the chance of exclusion and the cost entails being cut off from the future stream of private goods, which occurs if the defector is excluded from the successor winning coalition.

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What is W/S?

Probability of being selected to receive private goods

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What is 1-W/S?

The risk of exclusion and the concomitant loss of future private goods.

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The smaller W/S is?

the less inclines any member of the coalition is to put private benefits at risk by giving support to a political opponent of the incumbent.

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When the coalition is especially small and the selectorate is large what happens?

The loyalty of coalition members to the incumbent is especially high.

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Democratic reform initiated by previous autocratic leaders are?

Very rare

-ex: Taiwan & South Korea

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Citizenship automatically holds out what?

The prospects of benefits, both in terms of public polices and in terms of private benefits.

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If any citizen in a democracy can be members of the winning coalition what happens to the policy preferences of all citizens?

The policy preferences of all citizens must be considered by leaders as they formulate the public policies they pursue and the private goods they allocate.

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what % does an enfranchised resident have in a democratic system with direct election of a president as chief executive to obtain private benefits through membership in a winning coalition?

50%

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Non-democracies selectorate size?

Selectorate size is very small, meaning that the policy preferences of the vast majority of residents (N-S) can be ignored. Citizens in selectorate have chance of gaining access to private benefits in the future and there is a current influence on policy choices. For disenfranchised people the benefits don't exist.

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Positive effect

Positive coefficient, statistically significant

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Negative effect

Negative coefficient, statistically significant

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No effect

Not statistically significant

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What is the Leader Tenure effect

The longer the leaders are in office, higher chance of a stable regime with less provision of total rewards and public goods leading to more private goods compared with public goods.

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What happens to different sizes of the winning coalition

If it is large, then there is a good policy and low private goods which improve survival. This however can lead to corruption harming the leaders' tenure.

If it is small, then there is a good policy leading to bad politics. Corruption will help the leaders' survival. When W/S is small, cost and risk of defection is high.

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Two types of democracy

Electoral and Liberal Democracy

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Electoral Democracy

Joseph Schumpeter provides a minimalist definition of electoral democracy. Allowing citizens to vote on their leaders. Minimalist conceptions acknowledge the need for minimum levels of freedom in order for competition and participation to be meaningful.

Pzeworski and colleagues define it as "a regime in which governmental offices are filled as a consequences of contested elections"

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Liberal Democrcy

a political system in which individual and group liberties are well protected and in which there exist autonomous spheres of civil society and private life, insulated from state control.

Aristotle explains that the best realizable form of government is mixed, or Constitutional government where freedom is constrained by rule of law and popular sovereignty.

American Federalists explain that only a constitutional government can protect individual freedom creating liberalism which led to liberal democracy.

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What does a liberal democracy require

-absence of reserved domains of power for the military.

-requires horizontal accountability of officeholders to one another. This helps to protect constitutionalism, legality, and the deliberative process.

-extensive provisions for political and civic pluralism as well as for individual and group freedoms so that contending interests and values may be expressed and compete through processes of articulation and representation.

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In wealthy societies are democracies stable?

Yes

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An autocracy is a source of what?

Legitimacy: not based on real elections

EX: Monarchies, eldest son; modern autocracies, family: North Korea and Syria; Communist regime, chosen by previous leader: Soviet Unions, Collective Leadership: a group of political elites like China; Political interference, political campaigns: North Korea and China; Interference in personal life, Pandemic, BBC News Blank paper symbol of China protests; Political interference in education, censorship, and propaganda

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What happens to losers of autocracies

Political elites like Bo Xilai becomes a political prisoner or Lin Biao and Kim Jong-Nam died; dissidents either are exiled or also become political prisoners like protesters like Wu'er Kaixi and Wang Dan. Coup or assassination is more likely

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What kind of countries are more likely to be democracies?

Richer countries

The trend is that income tends to grow steadily during times of peace.

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Does correlation always lead to causation?

No, correlation does not mean causation.

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What are the two theories discussed in Week 5 slides?

Theory 1: Democracies may be more likely to emerge in economically stable democracies. This is an endogenous explanation.

Theory 2: Democracies may be established independently of economic development but may be more likely to survive in developed countries. This is an exogenous explanation.

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What is the Modernization theory?

This is an endogenous explanation stating that development is under authoritarianism. Basically saying that societies are developing among a path from traditional to modern through economic growth and advancement.

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Another explanation would be the exogenous explanation meaning what?

Dictatorships are equally likely to die and democracies emerge at any level of development.

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Is the emergence of democracy a by product of economic development?

No, democracy is or is not established by political actors pursuing their goals and it can be initiated at any level of development. Once it is established economic constraints plays a role in survival.

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When arguing if the U.S. should continue the embargo with Cuba, who dismisses the counterargument that trade will promote economic development?

Juan Lopez

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What did Przeworski and Limongi in 1997 create?

The endogenous and exogenous theory.

Endogenous: development increases likelihood that poor countries will undergo a transition to democracy

Exogenous: Developments make democracies less likely to fall to dictatorship, once democracies are established.

Przeworski and Limongi (1997): the probability that any given country will become democratic does not change as its level of income rises.

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What are the two assumptions of the exogenous theory?

1: Development protects democracy

2: Development doesn't lead to more likely to transit to a democracy.

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What did Boix and Stokes (2003) say?

economic development both causes democracy and sustains it.

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What does PDA and PAD mean?

PDA is negatively correlated with per capita income.

PAD is independent of the level of development.

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What happens if the endogenous theory is correct?

By the time the world becomes rich, the number of remaining dictatorships would be small.

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What is the small sample?

Small variations in the number of transition events would cause large changes in our probability estimates.

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Sometimes data available is influenced by survival bias. True or false?

True

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What was the sample problem in Przeworski and Limongi (1997)?

In 1950, the distribution of regimes was not random but highly correlates with per capita income

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If a government introduces a policy that negatively affects a citizen or group of citizens, what could the citizen do?

Respond by exiting (emigration), using voice (protests), or remain loyal

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What might the government do if the citizen decides to use their voice?

Gov. might respond positively by reversing its policy change, or they could ignore the use of voice leading the citizen to exit or remain loyal

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Explain the Game?

Pre-history: Gov. has caused a deleterious change in the citizen's environment, resulting in a transfer of benefit from the citizen to the government. Value of benefit = 1

Game begins from citizens response to change.

Exiting: Citizen receives payoff (E) and the government keeps benefit (1) that is seized in the game's pre-history.

Remain loyal: Citizen accepts loss of benefit and receives status quo payoff (0), government keeps benefit (1) that is seized but obtains additional payoff (L>0) for getting loyal citizen.

Use voice: Citizen pays cost (c>0), may receive imprisonment, loss of employment, or death. If government responds positively, it returns benefit seized to the citizen, citizen receives benefit (1) minus cost of using voice (c) while the government obtains loyal citizen (L). If the government ignores voice and the citizen decides to exit they receive exit payoff (E) minus the cost of voice (c) while government gets to keep benefit (1) it seized. If citizen remains loyal after voice is ignores the citizen loses benefit (0) but has to pay cost of voice (c) while government gets to keep benefit (1) and loyal citizen (L).

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How can loyal citizens help government?

Supplying government with the political support to retain power or by providing them with legitimacy. Can also invest in the economy.

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If E>0 what happens?

Citizen will choose exit instead of being loyal.

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If L>1 after using voice what happens?

The government will choose to respond knowing that not responding would lead to losing a citizen (exiting).

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If E>1-c what happens?

Citizen will not choose voicing at the first but would directly choose to exit.

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Two types of government

Dependent and Independent

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If L>1 what kind of government is that?

Dependent (on citizen in that it values the citizen's loyalty more than the benefit taken.)

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If L<1 what kind of government is that?

Autonomous (in that it values what is seized at least as much as the citizen's loyalty.)

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Which type of government values the citizens continued investment more than what it would obtain by taking the citizen's assest?

Dependent

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What are the two types of citizens?

One with credible exit threat and those without one.

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If E<0 what kind of citizen is that?

Citizen with no credible exit threat. Citizen will never choose to exit because they can do at least as well by being loyal.

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If E>0 what kind of citizen is that?

One with a credible exit threat. Citizen might exit given that the exit payoff is greater than the loyalty payoff.

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If E>1-c what does that mean?

The citizen's exit payoff is so great that they would not use voice even if it was effective.

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If E<1-c what does that mean?

The citizen might use voice since the value associated with the successful use of voice is at least as great as that from exiting.

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When does the government only respond positively to a citizen?

When the citizen has a credible exit threat and the gov. is dependent on them.

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Who is Meng Wanzhou?

Deputy chair of the board and CFO of Huawei. Daughter of the founder of Huawei.

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Individuals who have a credible exit threats are advantaged over those who do not. True or false?

True

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The existence of a credible exit threat does not automatically give an individual the ability to exert influence over another actor. True or false?

True

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An autonomous government responds positively to use of voice even if citizen has a credible exit threat. True or false?

False

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What makes a citizens voice possible? And which type of government would respond positively?

-A citizens credible exit threat

-Dependent

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What kind of governments are China and North Korea?

Autonomous and do not rely on citizen support to stay in power. Citizens lack credible exit threats so they are ignored.

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According to classic modernization theory, states are more likely to do what?

Become democratic and stay democratic as they become wealthier.

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What is Barrington Moore's famous refrai?

'No Bourgeois, No Democracy'

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Representative government is more likely when what happens?

When those who rule depend on societal groups that possess mobile and liquid assets (middle class).

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Dependent ruling elites respond to what?

Preferences of citizens with credible exit threats.

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Citizens with credible exit threats exert what over a dependent government as long as the government remains dependent on them?

Leverage

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Citizens with credible exit threats may decide to dis-invest if the government starts to become more autonomous and not listen to the citizens which would force them to establish democratic institutions that can do what?

Constrain them in the future is one way that ruling elites can solve their credible commitment problem and gain access to the investment on which they depend on.

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Nearly all OPEC members are what?

Non-democracies

ex: Saudi Arabia (Monarchy)

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What are the 3 possible explanations?

1: rentier effect, resource rich governments use low tax rates and patronage to relive pressures for greater accountability.

2: repression effect, argues that resource wealth retards democratization by enabling governments to boost their funding for internal security.

3: modernization effect, holds that growth based on export of oil and minerals fails to bring about the social and cultural changes that ten to produce democratic government.

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Explain rentier effect

-Countries derive a large fraction of their revenues from external rents

1: Taxation effect- governments derive revenues from sale of oil become highly likely to tax populations less heavily, public will be less likely to demand accountability and involvement.

2: spending effect- oil wealth may lead to greater spending on patronage, this dampens latent pressures for democratization.

3: Group formation effect- when oil revenues provide government with money, government will use its largesse to prevent formation of social groups independent from the state and may demand political rights.

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Explain repression effect

Citizens in resource rich states may want democracy as much as citizens elsewhere, resource wealth however, allows government to spend more on internal security and block population's democratic aspirations.