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The analysis using the new Regime Legitimation Expert Survey (RLES) demonstrates that non‐democratic rulers in post‐Soviet countries use specific combinations of legitimating claims to stay in power. Most notably, rulers claim to be the guardians of citizens' socioeconomic well‐being. Second, despite recurrent infringements on political and civil rights, they maintain that their power is rule‐based and embodies the will of the people, as they have been given popular electoral mandates. Third, they couple these elements with inputbased legitimation strategies that focus on nationalist ideologies, the personal capabilities and charismatic aura of the rulers, and the regime's foundational myth. Overall, the reliance on these input‐based strategies is lower in the western post‐Soviet Eurasian countries and very pronounced among the authoritarian rulers of Central Asia.

Since the end of the Cold War, Western powers have frequently used sanctions as a reaction to declining levels of democracy and human rights violations in authoritarian regimes. However, some of the world's most repressive authoritarian regimes have never been subjected to sanctions, while other more competitive autocracies have been exposed to repeated sanction episodes instigated by Western democracies as an attempt to enhance democracy and human rights. In this paper, we investigate how the United States and the European Union have selectively used sanctions as a tool to improve the level of democracy in targeted authoritarian states. Using a new dataset on democratic sanctions between 1990 and 2010, time-series-cross-sectional logistic regression and a number of strategically selected case studies, we find strong support for the suggestion that senders select economically and politically vulnerable targets where the expected probability of sanction success is high.

Previous research, which has focused mostly on pre-1990 dynamics, has shown that sanctions have a negative impact on the level of democracy in targeted authoritarian countries. Given this finding, it is puzzling that democratization has become the most common goal of sanctions issued against authoritarian states. This paper studies how sanctions have affected democratization in targeted countries since the end of the Cold War and asks whether "democratic sanctions", those that explicitly aim to promote democracy, are in fact counterproductive. Contrary to the earlier research, this analysis demonstrates that sanctions do not generally decrease the level of democracy in targeted countries. Using a new data set covering sanctions for the period 1990-2010 and cross-sectional time-series analysis, the study shows that sanctions have an insignificant but positive democratic effect. More importantly, it finds that "democratic sanctions" have a statistically significant positive effect on democratic development in targeted countries. This positive outcome can be explained by the smaller selection effect associated with this specific sanction type. The high cost of conceding to "democratic sanctions" makes authoritarian regimes less likely to give in to senders' demands before sanctions are implemented. The high-cost argument is corroborated by a supplementary test that demonstrates that democratic sanctions in particular make authoritarian institutions and rulers more instable. -- sanctions ; authoritarian regimes ; persistence ; regime change ; ruler exit ; concession costs ; post-Cold War era

Eigene Einnahmen sind von zentraler Bedeutung für jeden Staat, da sie die Grundlage für alle anderen staatlichen Leistungen bilden (z.B. Sicherheit, öffentliche Wohlfahrt). Jedoch ist genau die Fähigkeit, Steuern zu erheben ein fundamentales Defizit afrikanischer Staaten: Mehr als die Hälfte des Steuerpotenzials wird nicht ausgeschöpft, die meisten Länder sind von Entwicklungshilfe abhängig. Warum? Zur Beantwortung dieser Frage vergleicht die Arbeit Sambia und Botswana, zwei Länder im südlichen Afrika. Als Grundlage dient das Konzept des "Neopatrimonialismus", das politische Einflussnahme und Korruption als Ursache für schwache Staatlichkeit ansieht. Die Untersuchung zeigt, dass der Grad der politischen Einflussnahme, Korruption und wirtschaftliche Entwicklung das Umfeld der Steuerverwaltung bestimmen. Im Zusammenspiel mit anderen Faktoren wie Entwicklungshilfe erklären sie die geringe Fähigkeit vieler afrikanischer Staaten, Steuern zu erheben. Die Dissertation wurde mit dem Dissertationspreis der Research Academy Leipzig und dem Nachwuchspreis der Vereinigung für Afrikawissenschaften in Deutschland (VAD) ausgezeichnet

Following the neopatrimonialism paradigm, it can be hypothesised that in African states informal politics of the rulers infringe on the collection of taxes and in turn reduce state revenues. This article tests this proposition for the case of Zambia. The main finding is that there is no linear correlation between a neopatrimonial system and the collection of taxes. Neopatrimonial continuity in the country is evidenced by three factors; the concentration of political power, the award of personal favours and the misuse of state resources. Despite this continuity, the revenue performance has increased considerably with the creation of the semi-autonomous Zambia Revenue Authority. This demonstrates that the effect of neopatrimonialism on public policy in the African state is highly context-specific and dependent on the interaction with additional variables. Donor pressure has been the most important in the Zambian case. In order to apply neopatrimonialism for further empirical work on public policy in the African state, these additional variables have to be incorporated into the analysis. -- Neopatrimonialism ; collection of revenue ; tax systems ; Zambia ; African state ; donors

The worldwide diffusion of the good governance agenda and new public management has triggered a renewed focus on state capability and, more specifically, on the capability to raise revenue in developing countries. However, the analytical tools for a comprehensive understanding of the capability to raise revenue remain underdeveloped. This article aims at filling this gap and presents a model consisting of the three process dimensions "information collection and processing", "merit orientation" and "administrative accountability". "Revenue performance" constitutes the fourth capability dimension which assesses tax administration's output. This model is applied to the case of the Zambia Revenue Authority. The dimensions prove to be valuable not only for assessing the how much but also the how of collecting taxes. They can be a useful tool for future comparative analyses of tax administrations' capabilities in developing countries. -- capability to raise revenue ; revenue authority ; tax administration ; Zambia