Kevin M. Morrison

Oil, Nontax Revenue, and the Redistributional Foundations of Regime Stability

Nontax revenues make up a substantial amount of government revenue around the world, though scholars usually focus on individual sources of such revenue (for example, foreign aid and state-owned oil companies). Using a theory of regime change that builds on recent models of the redistributional foundations of dictatorships and democracies, I generate hypotheses regarding all nontax revenue and regime stability. I argue that an increase in nontax revenue should be associated with less taxation of elites in democracies, more social spending in dictatorships, and more stability for both regime types. I find support for all three of these hypotheses in a cross-sectional time-series analysis, covering all countries and years for which the necessary data are available. Significantly, I show that the particular source of nontax revenue does not make a difference: they all act similarly with regard to regime stability and the causal mechanisms.

Inequality and Deliberative Development: Revisiting Bolivia's Experience with the PRSP

The deliberative-development approach to policy-making has gained popularity in both academic and policy circles. However, insufficient attention has been paid to the requirements necessary for deliberation to have beneficial effects on policy, some of which are detailed in this article, in particular the need for equality among deliberators. The article examines Bolivias 2000 National Dialogue and demonstrates the effects of inequality - not between elites and non-elites, but between groups within civil society - on the legitimacy of the outcome. Its findings have important implications for the design of deliberative-development institutions. Copyright 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Nontax Revenue, Social Cleavages, and Authoritarian Stability in Mexico and Kenya: “Internationalization, Institutions, and Political Change” Revisited

What determines how authoritarian regimes use internationally attained revenues such as natural resource rents to stay in power? The answer, this article argues, lies partly in the nature of the socioeconomic cleavages in the country. The article presents a comparison of Kenya and Mexico, two countries that experienced similar rises and falls in internationally derived nontax revenue in the context of similar political regimes. The countries differed, however, in their socioeconomic cleavages: In Mexico, cleavages were along sectoral or class lines, whereas in Kenya they were along ethnic lines. The author demonstrates how these differences led governments in the countries to use nontax revenues in different ways, with important consequences in particular for social spending. Despite the recent turn in the resource curse literature emphasizing domestic contextual factors, socioeconomic cleavages have been relatively ignored. The findings here begin to fill that gap, with important implications for several literatures.

As the World Bank Turns: Determinants of IDA Lending in the Cold War and After

How does the internal organization of a foreign aid donor affect its aid allocation decisions? Despite the voluminous literature on the political economy of foreign aid, little systematic scholarship exists on this topic. This paper analyzes the allocations of the International Development Association (IDA), the World Banks lending arm for the poorest countries, to all eligible countries between 1977 and 2005. While factors such as a countrys need and its policy environment have consistently impacted IDAs allocation decisions, other factors have changed in important ways. For example, IDA disbursements do not follow US aid disbursements in the postCold War period the way they did during the Cold War. And most strikingly, IDAs allocations have become tightly linked to debt owed to IDAs sister organization, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). While IDA used to shy away from countries with higher debt to the IBRD, the last two decades have seen IDA engage in apparently defensive lending for the IBRD, lending more to countries with outstanding balances to that institution. The results suggest greater focus on the internal structures of donors would yield insight into their allocation decisions.