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Begin New Search Topic Foreign Aid Political Geography Europe Content Type Working Paper Publishing Institution German Institute of Global and Area Studies

1. A Democratic Rentier State? Taxation, Aid Dependency, and Political Representation in Benin

Author:
Giulia Piccolino
Publication Date:
09-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Drawing on the history of statebuilding in Western Europe, fiscal sociology has proposed the existence of a mutually reinforcing effect between the emergence of representative government and effective taxation. This paper looks at the case of Benin, a low-income West African country that underwent a fairly successful democratization process in the early 1990s. It finds, in contrast to previous studies that have emphasized dependency on aid rents, that Benin appears to have reinforced its extractive capacities since democratization. However, the effect of democratization has been largely indirect, while other factors, such as the influence of the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and the size of the country's informal sector, have played a more direct role in encouraging or inhibiting tax extraction. Nevertheless, the hypothesis that effective taxation depends on a quasiconsensual relationship between government and taxpayers finds some confirmation in the Beninese case.
Topic:
Democratization, Politics, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Europe and West Africa

2. Lessons to Be Learned: Political Party Research and Political Party Assistance

Author:
Gero Erdmann
Publication Date:
10-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Generally speaking, the effects of international political party assistance are viewed negatively, or at least controversially. This study attributes some of the shortcomings of political party aid to the poor relationship between assistance providers and political science party research. They simply operate in different worlds. Party assistance lacks clear-cut concepts and strategies in practice, which makes it difficult to adequately evaluate it. At issue is its “standard method,” with its “transformative” intention to change the party organization of the assistance receivers. At the same time, the scholarship on political parties can provide only limited help to assistance providers due to its own conceptual and methodological restrictions, such as the Western European bias underlying its major concepts, the predominance of a functionalist approach, and the scant empirical research on political parties out-side of Europe and the US. Taking a cue from recent political party research, we could begin to question the overarching role of political parties in the transition and consolidation process of new democracies. Other research findings emphasize the coexistence of different types of party organizations, and the possibility of different organizational developments, which might all be consistent with consolidating democracy. All this suggests the necessity of abandoning the controversial aim of the “transformative impact” of political party aid.
Topic:
Democratization, Politics, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
United States and Europe