International dimensions of political regime dynamics
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Birmingham
Department Name: Economics
Abstract
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Organisations
Publications
Aidt T
(2011)
Political regimes and foreign intervention
in Journal of Development Economics
Aidt T
(2018)
The golden hello and political transitions
in Journal of Comparative Economics
Albornoz F
(2011)
Foreign investment and expropriation under oligarchy and democracy
in Economics & Politics
Albornoz F
(2014)
Civil war and U.S. foreign influence
in Journal of Development Economics
Albornoz F
(2013)
Decentralization, political competition and corruption
in Journal of Development Economics
Liu X
(2014)
Free Trade Agreements and the Consolidation of Democracy
in American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics
| Description | This project aimed at improving our understanding of regime change and civil war by studying typically overlooked interactions between a country and the rest fo the world. This was a significant task because the scholarly work on these topics focussed almost entirely on domestic determinants The main specifc findings of the different parts of this project are: • Foreign intervention is most likely to originate from countries where the government has a substantial pro-investor bias and to be directed at destinations where FDI is highly profitable and where income inequality is high. • Foreign-sponsored coups d'état are more likely to be directed at democratic governments of poor countries. • In countries where FDI is highly profitable but the domestic elite is weak, foreign intervention tends to be aimed at stabilizing dictatorships. • if foreign investment is undertaken in the sector that uses labour less (more) intensively then expropriation of foreign capital is more likely to take place under democratic (autocratic or oligarchic) political regimes. • The formation of free trade agreements can critically reduce the incentive of authoritarian groups to seek power by destroying protectionist rents, thus making democracies last longer. Taken together, we are succesfully showed that foreign intervention plays a more important role for a proper understanding of domestic policy choices, for institutional dynamics and for internal conflict than is commonly acknowledged in both empirical and theoretical research. |
| Exploitation Route | The findings have received hundreds of citations and triggered new research. In a recent paper accepted by the Journal of Economics Literature, we expand our analysis to propose a unifying theoretical framework to understand when and which form of foreign influence is chosen and use it to organize and evaluate the new political economics literature on foreign influence along with work in cognate disciplines. The development of the literature that this project contributed to establish will have impact on the management of international relations and will warn against imposing institutional changes to particular countries without considering the influence of third countries. This acknowledgement will contribution to balanced demands on institutional change in developing economies. |
| Sectors | Government, Democracy and Justice |