Suchergebnisse

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

The present article illustrates how the main actors in global health governance (GHG) - governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), intergovernmental organizations (IOs), and transnational pharmaceutical companies (TNPCs) - have been interacting and, as a result, modifying the global health architecture in general and AIDS treatment in particular. Using the concept of "power types" (Keohane/Martin) and "interfaces" (Norman Long), the authors examine the conflicts among major GHG actors that have arisen surrounding the limited access to medicines for fighting HIV/AIDS basically as a result of the Agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), in force since 1995. They then analyze the efforts of Brazil and South Africa to obtain fast and low-cost access to antiretroviral medication against AIDS. They conclude that while policy makers in the two countries have used different approaches to tackle the AIDS problem, they have been able, with the support of NGOs, to modify TRIPS and change some WTO rules at the global level along legal interfaces. At the national level the results of the fight against AIDS have been encouraging for Brazil, but not for South Africa, where authorities denied the challenge for a prolonged period of time. The authors see the different outcomes as a consequence of Brazil's ability to combine discoursive, legal, administrative, and resource-based interfaces. -- global health governance ; HIV/AIDS in Brazil and South Africa ; discoursive, legal, organizational and resource-based interfaces ; WTO ; transnational pharmaceutical companies ; NGOs