The political economy of sub-national democracy : fiscal rentierism and geography in Argentina
Year: 2013
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This dissertation investigates the causes for the divergent experiences of political and economic development of the provinces in Argentina. Despite the important fiscal and political resources less populated provinces receive, a large group of them are increasingly less dynamic economically and more dependent on fiscal resources coming from the national government. At the same time, local elites have tended to remain in power through patronage and have surpassed the autonomy of other powers, thus stagnating – and sometimes even reversing – the democratization process started in the country three decades ago. It proposes two explanatory variables that help to explain the sub-national democratization process in Argentina: the fiscal rentierism and the geographical distribution of resources within provinces. In the first case, it is used the theoretical framework of the “resource curse” that explain the paradoxical situation of oil exporting countries. Specifically it focuses on the mechanism through which this phenomenon operates looking to specific cases in detail. In trying to explain cases that have managed to escape the “curse”, it shows that in cases in which human and economic resources are dispersed, has helped those provinces to resist the centripetal forces of fiscal rentierism.
Source: SPIRE (Sciences Po)
Author: Matías Bianchi
Language: French
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W771353448