Robert H. Bates

Ethnic Competition and Modernization in Contemporary Africa

It has been argued that modernization promotes potentially disintegrative forces in developing areas, and in particular, often gives rise to powerful ethnic groupings (for example, see Geertz, 1963; Melson and Wolpe, 1970; Huntington, 1968). In this article, we elaborate this hypothesis in the context of the developing nations of black Africa. We note that important competition can and do covary in contemporary Africa (Morrison and Stevenson, 1972). And we attempt to explain why this should be so.

Cooperation by Design: Leadership, Structure, and Collective Dilemmas

We return to the analysis of cooperation among interdependent rational individuals. We emphasize the limited impact of iteration (or repeated play) and explore the possibility of an alternative: intervention by rational agents, whom we call leaders. We show that leadership is more significant for initiating cooperation than for sustaining it. In addition, we identify two features of organizations that are critical in determining a leaders ability to initiate and sustain cooperation by structuring the incentives of his followers: the leaders capabilities (information and strategy sets) and reward structure (payoff function).

Area Studies and the Discipline: A Useful Controversy?.

ies and the discipline? There are strong reasons for endorsing both. In this essay, I sketch the current debate and explore the ways in local knowledge can and is being incorporated into general analytic frameworks. I conclude by stressing the work that lies ahead. In doing so, it should be stressed, I deal only with political science. The dynamics in other disciplines, I have found, differ greatly from those within our own (Bates et al. 1993).

The Analytic Narrative Project

In Analytic Narratives, we attempt to address several issues. First, many of us are engaged in in-depth case studies, but we also seek to contribute to, and to make use of, theory. How might we best proceed? Second, the historian, the anthropologist, and the area specialist possess knowledge of a place and time. They have an understanding of the particular. How might they best employ such data to create and test theories that may apply more generally? Third, what is the contribution of formal theory? What benefits are, or can be, secured by formalizing verbal accounts? In recent years, King, Keohane, and Verba (1994) and Green and Shapiro (1994) have provoked debate over these and related issues. In Analytic Narratives, we join in the methodological discussions spawned by their contributions.

Risk and trade regimes: another exploration

An analysis of a small sample of countries shows that the higher the level of termsof-trade risk that a nation faces in international markets, the more likely it is to increase barriers. The analysis also shows that the greater the availability of social insurance programs mounted by a nations government, the less likely it is to block free trade. In comparison with the small open economies of Western Europe, therefore, developing countries may remain protectionist because they lack the resources to mount internal programs of transfer payments as a means of coping with risk from international markets.

Political Institutions and Economic Policies: Lessons from Africa

Scholars, activists, and policy makers have argued that the route to economic growth in Africa runs through political reform. In particular, they prescribe electoral accountability as a step toward economic reform, seeing it as inducing the choice of publicly beneficial as opposed to privately profitable economic policies. To assess the validity of such arguments, we first characterize a set of political institutions that render political elites accountable and derive their expected impact on the policy choices of governments. Using ratings of macro-economic policy produced by the World Bank and ratings of corrupt practices produced for private investors, we explore the relationship between institutional forms and policy choices on both an African and global sample. While key elements of the model find empirical support, the central argument receives mixed support in the data. Political institutions have a stronger influence on policy making in Africa than elsewhere and variation in African institutions and in the structure of African economies account for differences between policy choices in Africa and those made in the rest of the world. Political accountability however does not influence the choice of macro-economic policies in the manner suggested by reformist arguments; although it does appear to lead to less political predation.

Lost Decades: Postindependence Performance in Latin America and Africa

Africa and Latin America secured independence from European colonial rule a century and half apart: most of Latin America by the 1820s and most of Africa by 1960. Despite the distance in time and space, they share important similarities. In each case independence was followed by political instability, violent conflict, and economic stagnation lasting for about a half-century. The parallels suggest that Africa might be exiting from a period of postimperial collapse and entering one of relative political stability and economic growth, as did Latin America almost two centuries ago.

Revisiting African Agriculture: Institutional Change and Productivity Growth

Building on a recent analysis of total factor productivity growth in African agriculture, this paper revisits the political economy underpinnings of policies affecting agriculture. We examine the effect of institutional change on the productivity performance of African agriculture. Our central finding is that institutional change in the form of competitive presidential elections has played an important role in driving a resurgence of productivity growth. The emergence of electoral competition in Africa changed policymakers’ incentives, resulting in both sectoral and macroeconomic policy reforms favorable to agriculture, following decade of policy discrimination against agriculture. These reforms, to varying degrees, contributed to an acceleration of productivity growth in African agriculture.

Political Competition in Weak States

In the developing areas, politics is often undemocratic, states lack a monopoly over violence, and politicians play upon cultural identities. To analyze politics in such settings, we develop a model in which politicians compete to build a revenue yielding constituency. Citizens occupy fixed locations and politicians seek to maximize rents. To secure revenues, politicians must incur the costs of providing local public goods and mobilizing security services. Citizens must participate, i.e. pay taxes; but can choose which leader to support. The model enables us to explore the impact of cultural identities and varying notions of military power. Copyright 2001 Royal Statistical Society.

Institutions as Investments

In the 1980s, international capital markets nearly collapsed. In an effort to revive international lending, bankers and diplomats created new institutions and reformed old ones. And in an effort to become creditworthy, developing countries altered their economic policies and their structures of government.