Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Tables
- Figures
- Maps
- 1 Rethinking the Resource Curse
- 2 Why Fiscal Regimes
- 3 State Ownership with Control versus Private Domestic Ownership
- 4 Two Versions of Rentierism
- 5 Petroleum Rents without Rentierism
- 6 State Ownership without Control versus Private Foreign Ownership
- 7 Eluding the Obsolescing Bargain
- 8 Revisiting the Obsolescing Bargain
- 9 Taking Domestic Politics Seriously
- 10 The Myth of the Resource Curse
- Appendix A List of Authors’ Interviews
- Appendix B Variation in Ownership Structure in Developing Countries
- Appendix C Responses to Select Life in Transition Survey (LiTS) Questions by Age Group
- Appendix D Ranking Basis for Determining which Countries are Included in Our Database
- Works Cited
- Index
2 - Why Fiscal Regimes
Taxation and Expenditure in Mineral-Rich States
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Tables
- Figures
- Maps
- 1 Rethinking the Resource Curse
- 2 Why Fiscal Regimes
- 3 State Ownership with Control versus Private Domestic Ownership
- 4 Two Versions of Rentierism
- 5 Petroleum Rents without Rentierism
- 6 State Ownership without Control versus Private Foreign Ownership
- 7 Eluding the Obsolescing Bargain
- 8 Revisiting the Obsolescing Bargain
- 9 Taking Domestic Politics Seriously
- 10 The Myth of the Resource Curse
- Appendix A List of Authors’ Interviews
- Appendix B Variation in Ownership Structure in Developing Countries
- Appendix C Responses to Select Life in Transition Survey (LiTS) Questions by Age Group
- Appendix D Ranking Basis for Determining which Countries are Included in Our Database
- Works Cited
- Index
Summary
The history of state revenue production is the history of the evolution of the state.
– Margaret Levi (1988, 1)All mineral states … are rentier or distributive states.
– Terry Lynn Karl (1997, 49)The conventional literature on the resource curse defines the problem of mineral-rich states as essentially a fiscal one. In short, because they can derive income exclusively from external rents, such states have no need to develop a viable tax system to tap into domestic sources of revenue. Fiscal independence from the domestic population, in turn, affords governing elites the freedom to distribute the state’s income as they please. Mineral-rich states, therefore, are often classified as both rentier states and distributive states.
This focus on fiscal regimes, particularly the extractive side, is understandable considering the overwhelming emphasis on taxation in the general political economy literature. Beginning with Max Weber, it is widely recognized that the ability to generate revenue is a minimal requirement for modern statehood. Simply put: without revenue, state leaders would be unable to perform the basic tasks of staffing the bureaucracy, maintaining social order, and securing their borders (see Levi 1988, Tilly 1975), let alone to fulfill the broader goal of promoting societal welfare (see Skocpol and Amenta 1986). Not surprisingly, then, some have defined the state solely “in terms of [its] taxation powers” (Lieberman 2002, 92 referring to North 1981, 21).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Oil Is Not a CurseOwnership Structure and Institutions in Soviet Successor States, pp. 31 - 44Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010