Taxes in a Time of Revolution: A Rentier State Experiment during Algeria's Hirak

• In Event: Pushing the Boundaries of the Resource Curse: New Directions in Oil and Politics

Abstract

We examine the rentier thesis that a government's control over oil resources should
help it resist pressures for democratization. Our online survey experiment, implemented
during a nation-wide mobilization for regime change in Algeria known as the Hirak,
used interactive experimental treatments to provide information about the Algerian
government's subsidies for fuel resources and low value-added taxes. Based on a sam-
ple of 5,968 Algerians, we _nd that when Algerians learn about their country's relatively
high level of fuel subsidies and low level of taxes, their assessments of the government's
performance improves. However, results for outcomes involving demands for represen-
tation, such as joining the protest movement, reveal that wealthier respondents became
less willing to protest following treatment whereas poorer respondents became more
willing to protest. As a result, we believe that the rentier state may be capable of
encouraging support from wealthier citizens, yet still permit mass mobilization if re-
distribution is perceived as being co-opted by the wealthy.

Authors

• Robert Kubinec, University of South Carolina

• Helen V. Milner, Princeton University