POL 103 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Democratic Russia, Social Capital, Social Market Economy
27 Nov 2016
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Document Summary
Allows for lower taxes and good government services. Problem: citizens want fair share of state revenues. Solution: secrecy government tries to conceal size of revenue. Even after controlling for: higher incomes, slow economic growth, geographic & temporal closeness (waves), islamic culture. Islam as a religion does not lend itself to democratic self-governing. Example tunisia- protests against president ben ali begin as protest against economic misery, high food prices, president promises lower food prices (too late), other rulers increase key subsidies (syria, saudi. What causes democratization: citizens do not want to pay taxes if they do not receive public benefits, it taxes are too high (relative to benefit), population tries to dispose government, revolution can result in democracy (not always successful) Michael ross: oil producing countries are less likely to be democratic/ democratize. Prediction 1: oil-producing states are less democratic than non-producers. Prediction 2: oil-producing states provide their citizens with more tangible benefits.
