The Micro-level Politics of the Resource Curse

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

What effect do windfall revenues like aid and oil have on citizen-state interaction? When are windfall revenues a blessing, and when are they a curse? How do windfalls affect local politics, including how well elections promote accountability? Are some forms of windfalls “better” than others? The papers on this panel draw on evidence from Latin America and Africa to study how foreign aid and natural resource rents affect micro-level domestic politics, in particular how citizens perceive windfall revenues and how such resources affect the micro-level dynamics of clientelism and electoral politics. Laura Paler and co-authors Jeremy Springman, Guy Grossman, and Jan Pierskalla draw on rich geocoded data from Uganda to examine how the geographic distribution of oil affects the resource curse at the subnational level, including how oil affects levels of incumbent support. Also exploring the resource curse at the subnational level are Rikhil Bhavnani and Noam Lupu, who exploit a natural experiment in Brazil to show that, at the municipal level, natural resources only strengthen incumbents when institutions are weak, shedding light on why the resource curse literature often produces divergent findings. Brandon de la Cuesta, Lucy Martin, Helen Milner, and Dan Nielson use lab and survey data from Uganda and Ghana to examine whether aid and oil have different effects on citizens’ perceptions and their demands for accountability, a key component of the resource curse. Sarah Brooks and Marcus Kurtz leverage subnational data from Brazil to highlight the effects of oil transfers on local officials’ behavior and examine if windfalls lead to poor public goods provision and official malfeasance.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 6: Political Economy

Individual Presentations

• Oil Windfalls and a Conditional Political Resource Curse - Rikhil R. Bhavnani, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Noam Lupu, Vanderbilt University

• Oil Income, Political Incentives, and Public Goods in Brazil - Sarah M. Brooks, Ohio State University; Marcus J. Kurtz, Ohio State University

• Is Aid Oil? - Lucy E. S. Martin, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Brandon de la Cuesta, Princeton University; Helen V. Milner, Princeton University; Daniel L. Nielson, Brigham Young University

• Oil Discoveries and Political Windfalls - Laura B. Paler, University of Pittsburgh; Jeremy Springman, University of Pennsylvania; Guy Grossman, University of Pennsylvania; Jan Henryk Pierskalla, Ohio State University

Chair

• Helen V. Milner Princeton University

Discussant

• Michael L. Ross University of California, Los Angeles