Domestic interests and control regimes

Bates, Robert H.

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511492648.005

Cited by 11 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…However, the very factors -size and dispersal -that render farmers weak lobbyists can render them powerful in electoral settings (Varshney 1995, Bates 2007a. Where representation is achieved through electoral channels, and where rural dwellers constitute a large segment of the voting population, then politicians encounter powerful incentives to cater to the interests of farmers.…”

Section: Votingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Economy of Agricultural Trade Interventions in Africa

Bates¹,

Block²

2009

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This paper uses new data on agricultural policy interventions to examine the political economy of agricultural trade policies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Historically, African governments have discriminated against agricultural producers in general (relative to producers in non-agricultural sectors), and against producers of export agriculture in particular. While more moderate in recent years, these patterns of discrimination persist. They do so even though farmers comprise a political majority. Rather than claiming the existence of a single best approach to the analysis of policy choice, we explore the impact of three factors: institutions, regional inequality, and tax revenuegeneration. We find that agricultural taxation increases with the rural population share in the absence of electoral party competition; yet, the existence of party competition turns the lobbying disadvantage of the rural majority into political advantage. We also find that privileged cash crop regions are particular targets for redistributive taxation, unless the country's president comes from that region. In addition, governments of resource-rich countries, while continuing to tax export producers, reduce their taxation of food consumers. 1 When greater than zero, the indicators suggest that government policies favor farming; when the relative rate of assistance is below zero, it suggests policies have an anti-agricultural bias.As indicated in chapter 2, governments in Africa, like those elsewhere, have adopted less distorting/more neutral policies since the 1980s. Increasingly their policies impact farming and other industries in a less biased manner. However, policies in Africa continue to alter prices in ways that discriminate against farming, and more so than in other developing country regions.In this chapter we describe the levels of protection in our sample of 20 Sub-SaharanAfrican countries 2 and the manner in which they vary; and, drawing from the literature on the political economy of agriculture, we advance and test a series of explanations for the patterns we observe. , and Zimbabwe (L). These countries account for no less than 90 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa's population, GDP, farm households and agricultural output. "C" indicates coastal; "L" indicates landlocked, and "R" indicates resource-rich. Note that for five of these countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Togo) the data refer only to cotton. We include these countries only in our analyses of agricultural exportables and tradables. The data in figure 2 suggest that Africa's governments (with the exception of those in landlocked countries) have tended to protect food crops, raising the level of domestic prices above those prevailing in world markets, while taxing cash crops. The distortions introduced by government policies have eroded over time, with nominal rates of assistance for cash crops converging toward zero. Within the region, governments of resource rich countries tend to provide the most favorable policy environment for producers of both food a...

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Section: Votingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Economy of Agricultural Trade Interventions in Africa

Bates¹,

Block²

2009

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“…For the importance of electoral channels in transmitting the interest of agricultural/rural population see also Varshney () or Bates ().…”

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confidence: 99%

Political competition and policy choices: the evidence from agricultural protection

Fałkowski

Olper

2013

Agricultural Economics

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This article investigates whether political competition plays an important role in determining the level of agricultural protection. In order to do so, we exploit variation in political and economic data from 74 developing and developed countries for the post-war period. We use two measures of political competition: one that captures the extent to which political power can be freely contested regardless of election results and one based on vote share at last parliamentary elections. Our results, based on static and dynamic panel estimators, show unambiguously that the higher the level of political competitions is, the higher the agricultural protection. JEL classifications: D72, D78, F13, O13, P16

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“…Most studies incorporate some measure of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, trade openness, and some measure of the size or density of the population as socioeconomic indicators, though some also include measures of literacy, infant mortality, urban population, and economic growth (e.g. Bates, 2007; Carment et al , 2008). Regime type indicators include incorporating the Polity index and its squared term (Iqbal and Starr, 2008), including the separate autocracy and democracy indices (Howard, 2008), or distinguishing between no-party, one-party and multi-party systems (Bates, 2008a, c).…”

Section: A Predatory Theory Approach To State Failurementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Regime type indicators include incorporating the Polity index and its squared term (Iqbal and Starr, 2008), including the separate autocracy and democracy indices (Howard, 2008), or distinguishing between no-party, one-party and multi-party systems (Bates, 2008a, c). Measures of internal political behavior and institutional characteristics may include riots, strikes, and demonstrations (Howard, 2008), corruption (Howard, 2008), legislative effectiveness (King and Zeng, 2001), and elections (Bates, 2007). Measures of the external political environment may include the number of state borders experiencing conflict (Howard, 2008), collapse in a contiguous state, state failures in the system, and distance-weighted state failures in the system (Iqbal and Starr, 2008), or number of neighboring states reporting militias, civil or interstate wars (Bates, 2008b).…”

Section: A Predatory Theory Approach To State Failurementioning

confidence: 99%

State fiscal capacity and state failure

Thies

2014

Eur. Pol. Sci. Rev.

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This paper develops a predatory theory approach to understanding state failure. Predatory theory expects that state revenue extraction is central to the ability of states to engage in any other activities. States that are able to maximize their revenue extraction subject to well-known constraints are therefore likely to avoid state failure. On the other hand, when state failure occurs, it should reduce state revenue extraction. These hypotheses receive mixed support in several two-stage least-squares time-series analyses that control for the endogenous relationship between state fiscal capacity and state failure. While state failure reduces state fiscal capacity, state fiscal capacity does not deter state failure onset or incidence. In the sub-Saharan African subsample, state fiscal capacity does reduce the incidence of state failure despite a reciprocal negative effect.

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Domestic interests and control regimes

Cited by 11 publications

References 6 publications

Political Economy of Agricultural Trade Interventions in Africa

Political Economy of Agricultural Trade Interventions in Africa

Political competition and policy choices: the evidence from agricultural protection

State fiscal capacity and state failure

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