Download or read book Political Financing in Developing Countries written by Joseph Luna and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-10-30 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that to fully grasp the decision-making of politicians and political actors in developing countries, we must first understand how politicians finance their campaigns for office—and to whom they are indebted and expected to repay. Political Financing in Developing Countries focuses on Ghana in depth, a country often held up as an example of a successful, two-party democracy with regular party changes in government. However, it is unlikely that candidates and political parties are wealthy enough to finance the increasing costs of campaigns and constituent demands, and successful democratic outcomes could be masking a system that actually hinders development progress. Drawing on nearly 200 interviews and extensive fieldwork, this book posits that political funds are extracted by an iron square of politicians, bureaucrats, construction contractors, and political-party chairs which rigs the procurement of local-development projects to generate kickbacks. The iron square remains robust across party changes in government due to reciprocity obligations that minimize contractors’ income risks. Ultimately, this web of kickbacks diminishes the quality of development by reducing the funds available for projects and distorting incentives to monitor projects. To break this iron square, the book recommends replacing sealed-bid procurement—a "best practice" that ignores on-the-ground realities—with a system that accounts for income stabilization and social obligations. Overall, the book argues that scholars of development should advance research on political finance to identify and then alleviate the games that decision makers must play to survive in the political sphere. Political Financing in Developing Countries will be an important and timely resource for scholars across development studies, politics, economics, and African Studies.
Download or read book Government Finance in Developing Countries written by Richard Goode and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2010-12-01 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fiscal systems throughout the world have been severely strained in recent years, as governments have assumed more responsibility for economic management. The developing counties, where needs are greatest and resources scarcest, have found their finances especially hard pressed. This book examines a range of issues in government finance that confront developing countries: the formulation and execution of national budget; the objectives, size, and effects of expenditures; the purposes and results of various ways of taxing income, wealth, consumption, exports, or natural resources; the role of foreign and domestic borrowings; and the consequences of financing by money creation. The book also relates fiscal operations to goals such as growth and development, economic stabilization, equitable distribution, and national self-reliance. The author stresses the need to take account of economic and political conditions and particularly administrative capacity when evaluating the suitability of fiscal measures in developing countries.
Download or read book The Politics of Finance in Developing Countries written by Stephan Haggard and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-15 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ten original essays examine the political and institutional factors that influence the initiation and efficiency of preferential credit policies in Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Chile, Mexico, and Brazil.
Download or read book Making Politics Work for Development written by World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2016-07-14 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Governments fail to provide the public goods needed for development when its leaders knowingly and deliberately ignore sound technical advice or are unable to follow it, despite the best of intentions, because of political constraints. This report focuses on two forces—citizen engagement and transparency—that hold the key to solving government failures by shaping how political markets function. Citizens are not only queueing at voting booths, but are also taking to the streets and using diverse media to pressure, sanction and select the leaders who wield power within government, including by entering as contenders for leadership. This political engagement can function in highly nuanced ways within the same formal institutional context and across the political spectrum, from autocracies to democracies. Unhealthy political engagement, when leaders are selected and sanctioned on the basis of their provision of private benefits rather than public goods, gives rise to government failures. The solutions to these failures lie in fostering healthy political engagement within any institutional context, and not in circumventing or suppressing it. Transparency, which is citizen access to publicly available information about the actions of those in government, and the consequences of these actions, can play a crucial role by nourishing political engagement.
Download or read book OECD Public Governance Reviews Financing Democracy Funding of Political Parties and Election Campaigns and the Risk of Policy Capture written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2016-02-04 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The recent debate on the role of money in politics has shed the light on the challenges of political finance regulations. What are the risks associated with the funding of political parties and election campaigns? Why are existing regulatory models still insufficient to tackle those risks?
Download or read book Costs of Democracy written by Devesh Kapur and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-13 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most troubling critiques of contemporary democracy is the inability of representative governments to regulate the deluge of money in politics. If it is impossible to conceive of democracies without elections, it is equally impractical to imagine elections without money. Costs of Democracy is an exhaustive, ground-breaking study of money in Indian politics that opens readers’ eyes to the opaque and enigmatic ways in which money flows through the political veins of the world’s largest democracy. Through original, in-depth investigation—drawing from extensive fieldwork on political campaigns, pioneering surveys, and innovative data analysis—the contributors in this volume uncover the institutional and regulatory contexts governing the torrent of money in politics; the sources of political finance; the reasons for such large spending; and how money flows, influences, and interacts with different tiers of government. The book raises uncomfortable questions about whether the flood of money risks washing away electoral democracy itself.
Download or read book Distributive Politics in Developing Countries written by Mark Baskin and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the dynamics of distributive politics in developing democracies via a series of case studies of an emerging spending mechanism--constituency development funds (CDFs). It is germane to students of legislative studies, international development, comparative politics, and democratization.
Download or read book Checkbook Elections written by Pippa Norris and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-06-01 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Money is essential to the functioning of electoral politics, yet regulating its appropriate use raises complex and controversial challenges in countries around the world. Both long-established democracies and emerging economies have been continually plagued by problems of financial malfeasance, graft, corruption, and cronyism. To throw new light on these important challenges, this book addresses three related questions: (1) what types of public policies are commonly used in attempts to regulate the role of money in politics?, (2) what triggers landmark finance reforms? and, (3) above all, what works, what fails, and why - when countries implement reforms? Checkbook Elections? presents an original theory for understanding policies regulating political finance, reflecting the degree to which laws are laissez-faire or guided by state intervention. Each chapter is written by an area specialist and collectively cover long-established democracies as well as hybrid regimes, affluent post-industrial societies (Sweden, the United States, Britain, and Japan), major emerging economies (Russia, Brazil, and South Africa) and developing societies (India and Indonesia).
Download or read book Functionalism and World Politics written by James Patrick Sewell and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-12-08 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Finance Corporation, the International Development Association, and the United Nations Special Fund are considered. Originally published in 1966. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Download or read book Review of Risk Mitigation Instruments for Infrastructure Financing and Recent Trends and Developments written by Tomoko Matsukawa and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although the importance of infrastructure sectors in achieving economic growth and poverty reduction is well established, raising debt and equity capital for infrastructure development and service provision has been a challenge for developing countries. Risk mitigation instruments facilitate the mobilization of commercial debt and equity capital by transferring risks that private financiers would not be willing to take to third-party official and private institutions that are capable of taking such risks. There has been increasing interest and discussion on risk mitigation instruments in the context of infrastructure financing among developing country governments, multi- and bilateral donors, and the private sector. However, due to the complex and diverse nature of risk mitigation instruments, what they can and cannot offer and how they can best be utilized for infrastructure financing are not well understood. This book summarizes existing risk mitigation instruments - primarily focusing on those offered by multilateral and bilateral official agencies - and presents recent trends and developments that make these guarantee and insurance products valuable in securing financing for infrastructure projects in developing countries. Topics covered include: Descriptions of different types of risk mitigation instruments characteristics of multilateral, bilateral, and private providers of risk mitigation instruments and compatability of instruments Recent developments and innovative applications of risk mitigation instruments through case transactions areas that pose challenges to the use of risk mitigation instruments as catalysts of infrastructure development.ucture projects and finance.
Download or read book Dance of the Trillions written by David Lubin and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2018-08-14 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Dance of the Trillions, David Lubin tells the story of what makes money flow from high-income countries to lower-income ones; what makes it flow out again; and how developing countries have sought protection against the volatility of international capital flows. The book traces an arc from the 1970s, when developing countries first gained access to international financial markets, to the present day. Underlying this story is a discussion of how the relationship between developing countries and global finance appears to be moving from one governed by the “Washington Consensus” to one more likely to be shaped by Beijing.
Download or read book The Price of Democracy written by Julia Cagé and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why and how systems of political financing and representation in Europe and North America give outsized influence to the wealthy and undermine democracy, and what we can do about it. One person, one vote. In theory, everyone in a democracy has equal power to decide elections. But it’s hardly news that, in reality, political outcomes are heavily determined by the logic of one dollar, one vote. We take the political power of money for granted. But does it have to be this way? In The Price of Democracy, Julia Cagé combines economic and historical analysis with political theory to show how profoundly our systems in North America and Europe, from think tanks and the media to election campaigns, are shaped by money. She proposes fundamental reforms to bring democracy back into line with its egalitarian promise. Cagé shows how different countries have tried to develop legislation to curb the power of private money and to develop public systems to fund campaigns and parties. But these attempts have been incoherent and unsystematic. She demonstrates that it is possible to learn from these experiments in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere to design a better system that would increase political participation and trust. This would involve setting a strict cap on private donations and creating a public voucher system to give each voter an equal amount to spend in support of political parties. More radically, Cagé argues that a significant fraction of seats in parliamentary assemblies should be set aside for representatives from disadvantaged socioeconomic groups. At a time of widespread political disenchantment, The Price of Democracy is a bracing reminder of the problems we face and an inspirational guide to the potential for reform.
Download or read book Freedom and Finance written by M. Haley and published by Springer. This book was released on 2001-06-26 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Within a decade, private capital surpassed aid as the primary capital source for developing countries. This book explores how the increase of private funds, in particular portfolio capital, effects democratization in developing countries. A probe into institutional investors' coordination, asset concentration, political preferences, and activism, provides a framework for understanding the politics of international financial constraints. Highlighting the dilemma presented by international finance's simultaneous emphasis on austerity and stability, the question of whether this public-to-private shift might facilitate an anti-democratic strain is examined.
Download or read book Raise the Debt written by Jonas B. Bunte and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-29 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Credit is the lifeblood of capitalism and development. Brazil, Russia, India, and China-also called BRICs-have become important creditors to developing countries. However, how will their loans affect economic development and democracy in recipient countries? We need to understand why governments accept Chinese over Western loan offers before we can predict their likely consequences. In Raise the Debt, Jonas B. Bunte systematically explains how governments choose among competing loan offers. Using statistical analyses and extensive interview data, he shows that the strings attached to loans vary across creditors. Consequently, one domestic interest group may benefit from Chinese credit but not U.S. loans, while the opposite is the case for other groups. Bunte provides evidence that governments cater to whichever domestic interest group is politically dominant when deciding between competing loan offers. Combining a comparative politics approach with international political economy methods, Raise the Debt shows how a deeper understanding of governments' borrowing decisions is critical for gaining insights into how these loans could impact growth and democracy on a global scale.
Download or read book Urban Public Finance in Developing Countries written by Roy W. Bahl and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1992 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: And Evaluation of Local Automotive Taxation. 8. Other Urban Taxes. Policy Objectives. Local Income Taxes. General Sales Taxes. Local Taxes on Industry, Commerce, and Professions. "Terminal" Taxes. Local Sumptuary Taxes. Entertainment Taxes. Minor Local Taxes, Licenses, and Fees. Summary and Evaluation -- Pt. III. User Charges for Urban Services. 9. Issues in Pricing Urban Services. The Efficiency Argument for User Charges. Fiscal Considerations and Full Cost Pricing. Income Distribution Considerations. The Politics and Institutions of Public Service Pricing. 10. Charging for Urban Water Services. Pricing Water Supply Services. Sewerage and Drainage. Summary. 11. Charging for Other Urban Services. Electricity and Telephone Services. Collecting and Disposing of Solid Waste. Mass Transit. Housing. Development Charges -- Pt. IV. Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations. 12. The Structure of Urban Governance. Fiscal Decentralization. The National Structure of Urban Government.
Download or read book Political Parties Business Groups and Corruption in Developing Countries written by Vineeta Yadav and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-04-13 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Political corruption is one of the globe's most pressing yet seemingly permanent problems. It is a root cause of low growth and inequality, and plagues numerous nations throughout the world in varying degrees. In Political Parties, Business Groups, and Corruption in Developing Countries, Vineeta Yadav tackles the puzzle of corruption by analyzing the role that business lobbying plays in it. She shows that the structure of a developing nation's legislative institutions frequently determines whether such institutions promote or restrain corruption. Combining focused studies of legislative institutions and business groups in India and Brazil with a broader survey of corruption in sixty four developing democracies, Yadav shows how systems with powerful parties rather than ones with powerful individual legislators encourage the most corruption. A rigorous comparative examination of the connections between political institutions, lobbying, and corruption, this work will reshape our understanding of how developing country democracies can both discourage and encourage bribery, vote buying, and influence peddling.
Download or read book Financing Metropolitan Governments in Developing Countries written by Roy W. Bahl and published by Lincoln Inst of Land Policy. This book was released on 2013 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The economic activity that drives growth in developing countries is heavily concentrated in cities. Catchphrases such as “metropolitan areas are the engines that pull the national economy” turn out to be fairly accurate. But the same advantages of metropolitan areas that draw investment also draw migrants who need jobs and housing, lead to demands for better infrastructure and social services, and result in increased congestion, environmental harm, and social problems. The challenges for metropolitan public finance are to capture a share of the economic growth to adequately finance new and growing expenditures and to organize governance so that services can be delivered in a cost-effective way, giving the local population a voice in fiscal decision making. At the same time, care must be taken to avoid overregulation and overtaxation, which will hamper the now quite mobile economic engine of private investment and entrepreneurial initiative. Metropolitan planning has become a reality in most large urban areas, even though the planning agencies are often ineffective in moving things forward and in linking their plans with the fiscal and financial realities of metropolitan government. A growing number of success stories in metropolitan finance and management, together with accumulated experience and proper efforts and support, could be extended to a broader array of forward-looking programs to address the growing public service needs of metropolitan-area populations. Nevertheless, sweeping metropolitan-area fiscal reforms have been few and far between; the urban policy reform agenda is still a long one; and there is a reasonable prospect that closing the gaps between what we know how to do and what is actually being done will continue to be difficult and slow. This book identifies the most important issues in metropolitan governance and finance in developing countries, describes the practice, explores the gap between practice and what theory suggests should be done, and lays out the reform paths that might be considered. Part of the solution will rest in rethinking expenditure assignments and instruments of finance. The “right” approach also will depend on the flexibility of political leaders to relinquish some control in order to find a better solution to the metropolitan finance problem.
