Test Two Dev. Countries

We ALL are getting a 100

A&R: Extractive Institutions

Extractive institutions can generate growth, but they rarely sustain

development.

• “Catch-up” growth is different from innovation-led growth.

• Catch-up growth = reallocation of labor and capital toward higher

productivity uses.

• Sustained development = recurrent innovation via creative destruction.

• Centralization can mobilize resources, but extraction tends to block creative

destruction and invite elite conflict.

Growth is possible under extraction, but it is typically bounded.

• Extractive institutions can produce rapid growth by mobilizing labor and capital, especially during catch-up.

• They struggle to sustain development because they weaken innovation incentives, distort information, and block creative destruction.

Authoritarian & Extractive Mid-Week Case Studies

A&R Why is extractive growth rarely sustainable?

(Gandhi 2008) Why do dictatorships show wide variations in economic growth?

• Institutions can help dictators trade concessions for cooperation in a more

structured way.

• That structure can support growth through stability, predictability, and

information.

• Institutionalization is linked to coalition breadth, not only to coercion.

Broadened Incorporation of groups within a dictatorship instead of narrow exclusivity generates more economic growth.

If institutionalized authoritarianism can improve performance and stabilize coalitions, when does that strength create confidence that elections are survivable for the autocrats?

S&W: Differences of democratizations through weakness & strength

Developmental Socialism shared features CN & VN

• Communist ruling party with monopoly over political

authority.

• Party-state retains authority over labor, media,

and political association.

• Market opening and global integration under party

supervision.

• Growth used as performance legitimacy.

• Co-optation of new economic elites into party-state

channels.

• Global integration increases resources for co-

optation and repression

• Selective repression combined with controlled

responsiveness.

Developmental Socialism Differences CN & VN

• China: stronger re-centralization and

personalized leadership in the 2010s.

• Vietnam: more collective leadership and more

visible legislative and local deliberation.

• China: superpower rivalry elevates nationalist

and security incentives against opening.

External threat narratives strengthen

nationalist legitimation.

• Vietnam: security concern is China’s influence,

which shapes external alignment incentives.

Developmental Socialism

China’s Pol. Dev Timeline, 1949-1989

China Pol Dev, 1992-2012

China Pol Dev, 2013-2023

Where does China’s institutional strength come from? (Party-bureaucratic)

Party-bureaucratic strength

• Party cadre management and evaluation.

• Capacity to mobilize resources across levels

of government.

• Ability to implement major reforms, then

adjust after shocks.

• Policy experimentation with central

oversight and learning.

• Revenue capacity strengthened by fiscal

reforms.

Where does China’s institutional strength come from? (Coercive-Informational)

Coercive and informational strength

• Cohesive security apparatus and party

control of coercion.

• Censorship and surveillance that reduce

collective action capacity.

• Consultative and grievance channels that

gather information.

• Co-optation of entrepreneurs and

professionals into party networks.

• High ability to prevent independent national

opposition organization.

Why does China remain closed?

Vietnam Political Dev, 1945-2007

Vietnam Political Dev, 2007-Now

Where does Vietnam’s institutional strength come from? (Coercive-Informational)

Security apparatus capable of

preventing national opposition

organization.

• Censorship and controlled media

environment, especially online.

• Selective tolerance of criticism and

protest to gather information.

• Anti-corruption campaigns that

strengthen discipline and deter elite

defection.

Where does Vietnam’s institutional strength come from? (Party-Bureaucratic)

Collective leadership norms and

regularized succession cycles.

• Policy implementation through

provinces with real authority.

• Legislative deliberation that can surface

problems and improve information.

• Ability to balance growth, distribution,

and stability goals.

Why does Vietnam remain closed?

Summary of week 8

• Authoritarian politics is structured by institutions and organizations, like in democracies.

• Growth and stability depend on how rulers manage coalitions, not only on coercion.

• Strength can stabilize dictatorship and, in some contexts, make democratization strategically

plausible.

• Gandhi (2008):

• Institutions inside dictatorships can improve performance by structuring bargaining.

• Institutionalization can broaden support and increase durability.

• Growth patterns differ systematically across the level of institutionalization.

• Slater & Wong (2022):

• Economic development can generate organizational strength that produces regime confidence.

• Signals and timing shape whether or not rulers concede.

**A&R: The Vicious Circle

Vicious Circle in Sierra Leone: Railway to Bo

Vicious Circle in Sierra Leone: Marketing Boards

taxation without broad development

• The colonial state claimed the marketing board would

stabilize farmers’ income by smoothing price swings.

• In practice, the board became a tax machine: it

systematically paid farmers well below the world price.

• Extraction intensified after independence. By the mid-

1960s, farmers received only about half the world price;

under Stevens the share sometimes fell to roughly one-

tenth.

• The money did not return as broad public goods ->

enrichment of rulers and cronies, plus the financing of

political support.

Vicious Circle in Sierra Leone: Chiefs, land, and investment

• Indirect rule survived independence. Paramount

chiefs still collected taxes and remained tied to

recognized “ruling houses.”

• Because chiefs were custodians of land, farmers’

rights were insecure unless they were politically

connected or rooted in the local ruling structure.

• Land could not easily be sold or used as

collateral. Outsiders could not safely plant

perennial crops because doing so might trigger

disputes over rights.

• The result was weak incentives to invest, adopt

new methods, or protect the soil.

Vicious Circle in Sierra Leone: Diamonds in Sierra Leone

• Because the diamonds were alluvial, many

people could potentially have participated in

mining. In principle, that could have

broadened opportunity.

• Colonial authorities did the opposite: they

granted a monopoly to the Sierra Leone

Selection Trust under De Beers and even

allowed a private Diamond Protection Force.

• After independence, Stevens nationalized the

arrangement into the National Diamond Mining

Company and turned diamond control into a

political resource.

Vicious Circle in Sierra Leone: Violence and state capacity under Stevens

• Stevens did not trust a strong national army; a

powerful military could become a threat to his

own rule.

• He therefore weakened the regular army and

relied instead on loyal paramilitary forces such

as the Internal Security Unit and the Special

Security Division.

• This move protected the ruler in the short run

but accelerated the erosion of state authority.

Personalized coercive institutions helped make

future disorder more likely.

Extractive Institutions: Guatemalan Example

Extractive Institutions: The US South Example

Extractive Institutions: The Ethiopia Example

What can break the vicious circle?

What is clientelism?

distribution (or promises) of resources by political office holders or candidates in exchange for political support, primarily (not exclusively) the vote. Typically selective, particularistic, and tied to informal but binding understandings.

What is patronage?

allocation of jobs, contracts, and public resources through political connections. Often supplies the material base and organizational glue for clientelist exchange.

What is machine politics?

organized systems that routinize targeted distribution and mobilization. Machines solve delivery (who gets what) and enforcement (how compliance is signaled when vote choice is private).

What are brokers?

intermediaries who translate need into requests and translate access into participation. Broker power rests on gatekeeping, information advantages, and scarcity management.

What is programmatic politics?

distribution by rules to categories rather than personal ties. Reduces broker

monopoly and weakens contingent exchange.

What is turnout buying?

What are the different ways to combine voter preference and clientelism?

Turnout-Buying, Argentina

Auyero: Where is clientelism most prominent? How does Clientelism work?

Latin America; Clientelism works through relationships, not only through explicit exchanges at election time.

Auyero: Clientelism as problem-solving network

Clientelism in the Philippines: Dynastism

Dominant parties are heavily dynastic.

• 57% of legislators from the dominant party

belong to political clans.

• Around 160 political clans have had two or more

members serve in Congress.

• They account for more than 400 of the 2,407

individuals elected to the national legislature

since 1907.

Historic aid precedents

Apolitical, palliative rather than transformational

Politicization of aid: Post-Cold War Geopolitics

Politicization of aid: Complex Humanitarian Emergencies

Politicization of aid: Political Economy of Funding

Humanitarian funding rose sharply throughout the 1990s.

• Official assistance increased from about $2.1 billion in

1990 to $5.9 billion in 2000, and humanitarian aid

grew as a share of official development assistance.

• A small donor oligopoly mattered greatly -- The US

dominated, followed by the European Community

Humanitarian Organization (ECHO), the UK, several

European states, Canada, and Japan.

• More money = more leverage, more expectations, and

more monitoring.

Politicization of aid: Change in normative/legal environment

Sovereignty was becoming more “conditional” ->

• State legitimacy was increasingly tied to rule of law,

markets, democracy, and what later became familiar

as a “responsibility-to-protect” logic.

• Human rights discourse also pulled humanitarianism

toward the center of the international agenda ->

• Many agencies adopted the language of rights, even

though rights-based approaches could make relief

conditional in ways classical relief workers found

troubling.

• A broader “cosmopolitan” ethos reinforced all of this by

insisting that distant suffering generates moral obligations

across borders.

Differences in organizations: Dunantist aid

Differences in organizations: Wilsonian aid

Differences in organizations: Mandate Expansion

Differences in organizations: Resource Dependence

Institutionalization of Humanitarianism

Why did aid organizations become institutionalized?

(1) An influx of agencies created coordination problems: different groups arrived with different standards,

different practices, and different levels of competence.

• (2) Donors were paying much more and therefore demanded proof that agencies were effective and accountable.

Three mechanisms of institutional isomorphism

Coercive isomorphism occurs when powerful actors such as states impose rules and standards.

• Mimetic isomorphism occurs when organizations copy forms viewed as successful under uncertainty.

• Normative isomorphism occurs when professional communities define proper methods of work, control training and entry into the field, and establish expert authority over what counts as legitimate practice.

Official Development Assistance (ODA)

Comes from the official sector.

• Has the promotion of economic development

and welfare as its main objective.

• Is concessional (that is, with low, fixed interest

rate) in character.

• E.g., classic OECD-DAC rule required at least a

25% grant element and excluded ordinary

export credits, military aid, and subsidies for

donor-country firms.

Other Official Flows (OOF)

• A residual category for official money that does

not meet ODA criteria.

• These flows can still be developmental, but

they are not ODA.

• Includes loans that are not concessional

enough, or whose primary purpose is export

promotion rather than development and

welfare.

Chinese aid, ODA-style

• China’s external assistance includes grants,

zero-interest loans, and concessional

foreign-aid loans.

• Activities associated with the aid program

such as turn-key projects, technical

cooperation, material goods, general

humanitarian aid, training programs, and

some concessional loan projects.

Chinese official finance beyond ODA-style aid

• The larger universe includes preferential

export credits, non-concessional state loans,

policy-bank lending, and mixed packages

that combine infrastructure finance, trade

promotion, and support for Chinese firms.

• These may serve development, but they

should not automatically be counted as

ODA-style aid.

Why is Chinese aid misclassified

(1) Transparency is limited:

• Chinese official finance is often reported in ways that make it hard to separate grants,

concessional loans, export credits, and commercial instruments.

• (2) China’s way of doing things:

• Beijing frequently bundles several types of finance together in one package, so outside

observers see one large developmental deal and call the entire package “aid.”

• (3) Negligence over OECD-DAC rules:

• Many analysts are not careful about DAC rules. If they compare all Chinese official finance (incl.

OOF) with OECD’s definition of ODA, they are comparing apples with oranges.

• (4) The misleading PR:

• Some Chinese instruments are genuinely developmental in effect, which makes them easy to

mistake for aid even when they do not meet the formal ODA criteria.

Chinese aid in Angola

China Eximbank financed post-war reconstruction

through an oil-backed line of credit that funded

roads, schools, electricity, water systems, hospitals,

and related infrastructure.

• It looked like development assistance, but it was not

– at least by the definition of ODA.

• The loans were secured with oil exports and

operated more like special state loans or export-

credit style finance.

• The money largely stayed in China, as payments

went to Chinese contractors and suppliers.

Chinese aid in Nigeria

The huge Sino-Nigerian railway deal often cited as

“aid” was actually a mix of construction contracts

and credit negotiations, including a separate $2

billion package linked to oil and a $500 million

preferential export credit.

• Once the deal is unpacked, most of it does not

clearly qualify as ODA.

Regilme and Hodzi benchmarks for systematic aid comparison

US aid vs. China: USA (Official Definition and Accounting)

US aid is clearly defined, publicly reported, and

institutionalized.

• US foreign assistance = a broad portfolio that

includes economic aid, military aid, and

contributions through multilateral

organizations.

• Because the US system is older and more

bureaucratized, its accounting categories are

comparatively transparent.

US aid vs. China: China (Official Definition and Accounting)

China officially highlights grants, interest-free

loans, and concessional loans

• Chinese aid is much harder to decipher

because official statistics were long treated as

sensitive or even classified.

• Aid is often bundled with trade, investment,

concessional loans, and other state-backed

finance.

• Beijing also dislikes “donor-recipient”

language for political and diplomatic reasons

and prefers terms such as “cooperation,”

“mutual benefit,” and “South-South

exchange.”

US aid vs. China: China (Historical Foundations)

Chinese aid began in the 1950s with support for

North Korea, Vietnam, and other anti-imperial

or anti-colonial struggles.

• In the 1960s and 1970s, aid supported Third

World leadership claims and diplomatic

competition with Taiwan.

• From the late 1970s onward, China's aid

became less ideological and more pragmatic

and economy-driven.

• As China's global economic footprint grew, aid

merged more closely with trade, infrastructure,

debt relief, and resource access.

US aid vs. China: US (Historical Foundations)

The modern US aid tradition is rooted in the

Marshall Plan and post-1945 reconstruction.

• During the Cold War, aid served anti-

communist containment and alliance-building.

• After the Cold War, it was recalibrated toward

market-oriented liberal democracy.

• After 9/11, military assistance and

counterterror priorities became central again.

US aid vs. China: US (Goals and Priorities)

US aid combines economic development,

humanitarian programming, governance

reform, and large military assistance.

• Washington often links aid to democratic

governance, market-led development,

human rights, and civil-society

empowerment.

• Military and security aid remain especially

important in strategic regions and conflict

settings.

US aid vs. China: China (Goals and Priorities)

Chinese assistance is concentrated more

heavily in infrastructure, agriculture,

technical cooperation, education, training,

and state capacity.

• The Chinese model does not center political

liberalization or civil society empowerment.

• Its language is developmental and state-

centric: strengthen growth, build

infrastructure, expand markets, and sustain

mutually beneficial cooperation.

US aid vs. China: US (who recieves aid, and how is it delivered?)

Recipients include states, militaries, multilateral

organizations, private corporations, philanthropic

institutions, and civil society actors.

• Delivery is spread across a large bureaucratic

apparatus, especially USAID, the Department of

State, the Department of Defense, and now the US

International Development Finance Corporation

(DFC).

• That breadth reflects the US view that development

is a multi-stakeholder project rather than an

exclusively state-to-state undertaking.

US aid vs. China: China (who recieves aid, and how is it delivered?)

Recipient governments are the central counterpart.

Chinese aid is far less oriented toward NGOs and civil

society organizations.

• Historically, Chinese aid management was

fragmented across many agencies, with policy banks

playing a major role.

• The creation of China International Development

Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) in 2018 was meant to

centralize planning, improve coordination, and align

aid more closely with foreign policy and the BRI.

Chinese aid and legitimacy building

Chinese aid is tied to core interests defined by the party-state CCP: sovereignty,

national security, territorial integrity, social stability, and long-term economic

development.

• Aid and official finance help secure markets, commodities, and safer

environments for Chinese investments and citizens abroad.

• Through peacekeeping, regional security support, and BRI-linked finance,

Beijing also tries to present itself as a responsible major power that provides

public goods neglected by traditional powers.

• Its rhetoric of South-South cooperation, non-interference, and mutual benefit

is therefore part of China’s broader claim to legitimacy in the Global South.

US aid as leverage

US aid has long served perceived geostrategic and economic interests, from the

Marshall Plan, to Cold War alliance-building, to the global war on terror.

• Its official discourse highlights democracy, human rights, markets, and

multilateralism, but in fact aid often supports recipient elites whose survival aligns

with US interests.

• Because the US funds governments, NGOs, multilaterals, and private actors, its aid

regime reflects a more plural and market-oriented vision of development than China’s

state-centered model.

• Aid also underwrites US claim to international legitimacy as a provider of global public

goods, although that legitimacy can erode when US policy turns unilateral or openly

transactional.

Cambodian timeline 1953-1989

Cambodia 1989-2018

UNTAC, Cambodia, 1993 election & forced coalition

Cambodian aid dependence and governance after 1993

Cambodia’s political regime, 1993-2010s

Cambodia’s political regime, 1993-the 2010s

• Hun Sen’s 1997 self-coup briefly renewed

foreign pressure.

• Aid suspensions, delayed ASEAN admission,

and the empty UN seat pushed the regime to

restore a formally competitive arena in 1998.

• However, by then, the balance of power had

already shifted.

• The 1998 election took place after a

decisive coercive reset.

• FUNCINPEC had been purged from the

state, its rural networks were destroyed,

and its organization splintered.

• The Hun Sen/CPP regime packed the

electoral commission, restricted opposition

media access, used state resources freely,

and ran the thumbprint campaign to

monitor and intimidate rural voters.

• After 1998 external pressure fell again.

• Assistance was restored, business

financing for the opposition became

dangerous, and the ruling CPP

consolidated control over television,

radio, courts, and patronage resources.

Cambodia’s political regime, 2012-onwards

Cambodia-Chinese linkage: capital, tycoons, & the ccp

Cambodia-Chinese linkage: sanctions, trade, and diplomatic cover

Cambodia-Chinese linkage: discourse, repression, and military cooperation

Spice Trade & the Coercive Monopoly

Slave Trade & the Coercive Monopoly

South Africa’s dual economy

Cederman: Civil-War debate; grievance-centered

Davies (1962) and Gurr (1970) linked conflict to relative

deprivation: various forms of collective violence arise

from frustrations caused by a widening gap between

one’s aspirations and actual economic status, usually

tied to material well-being.

• Structural arguments (e.g., Acemoglu and Robinson

2005) associated uneven land or wealth distributions

with revolt, rebellion, and redistributive struggle.

• Horowitz (1985) and Gurr (1993) extended grievance

arguments to ethnic conflict, where status inequality

and exclusion can supply group-based motives for

mobilization.

Cederman: Civil-War debate; opportunity/feasibility

Snyder and Tilly (1972) argued that hardship is too

widespread to explain variation in conflict. Hence, they

argued that opportunity-based mobilization, rather

than grievances, causes internal conflict and

revolutions.

• Collier and Hoeffler (2004) treated grievance individual-

level indicators such as the Gini coefficient as weak

predictors and rejected grievances and inequality as

causes of civil war.

• Fearon and Laitin (2003) found little support for

grievance proxies and stressed low income, weak

institutions, insurgency-friendly terrain, and state

weakness as causes of civil war.

Cederman: Economic, Political, Vertical versus Horizontal Inequality

Vertical inequality = differences among

individuals/households within a country (e.g., Gini).

• Horizontal inequality = differences between politically

relevant ethnic groups and the state. Two dimensions

are highlighted :

• Economic horizontal inequality = a group’s wealth

relative to the national average.

• Political horizontal inequality = a group’s access to

central executive power.

Cederman: Civil Conflict Findings

This pattern holds in both directions: groups that are poorer than

average and groups that are richer than average are both more

conflict-prone (Model 5; also Model 4/Figure 5 and 6).

• Groups that are excluded from executive power face higher conflict

risk than groups that are included (Model 3).

• Economic inequality and political exclusion appear together in the

results -> both group wealth differences and exclusion from central

power raise the likelihood of conflict (Model 3).

• Older literature likely missed part of the inequality-conflict

relationship because it focused too much on country-level

inequality and not enough on inequality between politically

relevant groups.

El Salvador: 1970s-2023

El Salvador: Decentralization and armed actors

• Decentralization can absorb grievances, tailor

policy to local conditions, and reduce conflict

(e.g., Bland 2006; Brinkerhoff 2011).

• Others argue that decentralization can

strengthen secessionism, empower regionally

organized challengers, or fragment the state

security apparatus (e.g., Brancati 2006).

El Salvador: Criminal governance and the state

• An emerging line of literature treats gangs as

“shadow states,” “parallel states,” or providers of

criminal governance (e.g., Chipkin & Swilling

2018; Van Klinken 2003).

• Some work stresses complementarity (a

symbiotic relationship of sort) between gang rule

and state rule, especially where gangs protect

lucrative drug markets (e.g., Lessing 2021).

• Eaton et al. (2024) argue that El Salvador fits a

different pattern because Salvadoran gangs relied

heavily on extortion rather than retail drug rents.

As such, their relation to municipal government

was more “parasitic” than complementary.

Myanmar: Timeline

What is democracy?

Contingent Consent

In democracy, Winners do not use temporary advantage to permanently lock out losers; losers keep playing because future access is possible

Bounded uncertainty

Outcomes are uncertain, but procedures are stable enough that people accept results and comply.