{"title":"Aid for taxation and representation? The effect of foreign tax assistance on democracy in the Global South","authors":"","doi":"10.1057/s41268-023-00320-3","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Abstract</h3> <p>Can foreign aid foster democracy? This is a foundational question debated in development studies and donor circles. Within this debate, some scholars argue that aid is detrimental to democratic institutions via an aid curse. The foil to this aid curse, namely that taxation fosters representation, inspires much comparative political economy research. We bring these fields together and approach the aid-democratization and taxation-representation questions through a unique lens: how foreign aid given to assist with tax collection (i.e. tax aid) affects representation. Tax aid is a form of technical assistance associated with increased tax capacity that can be leveraged to assess how such a change impacts democracy. Our statistical estimations indicate that countries receiving tax aid see an improvement in democracy. Survey data analyses show tax aid is associated with increased voting, especially among the middle class, but not changes in government satisfaction. A case illustration of Kenya corroborates our results.</p>","PeriodicalId":46698,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Relations and Development","volume":"44 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of International Relations and Development","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41268-023-00320-3","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Can foreign aid foster democracy? This is a foundational question debated in development studies and donor circles. Within this debate, some scholars argue that aid is detrimental to democratic institutions via an aid curse. The foil to this aid curse, namely that taxation fosters representation, inspires much comparative political economy research. We bring these fields together and approach the aid-democratization and taxation-representation questions through a unique lens: how foreign aid given to assist with tax collection (i.e. tax aid) affects representation. Tax aid is a form of technical assistance associated with increased tax capacity that can be leveraged to assess how such a change impacts democracy. Our statistical estimations indicate that countries receiving tax aid see an improvement in democracy. Survey data analyses show tax aid is associated with increased voting, especially among the middle class, but not changes in government satisfaction. A case illustration of Kenya corroborates our results.
期刊介绍:
JIRD is an independent and internationally peer-reviewed journal in international relations and international political economy. It publishes articles on contemporary world politics and the global political economy from a variety of methodologies and approaches.
The journal, whose history goes back to 1984, has been established to encourage scholarly publications by authors coming from Central/Eastern Europe. Open to all scholars since its refoundation in the late 1990s, yet keeping this initial aim, it applied a rigorous peer-review system and became the official journal of the Central and East European International Studies Association (CEEISA).
JIRD seeks original manuscripts that provide theoretically informed empirical analyses of issues in international relations and international political economy, as well as original theoretical or conceptual analyses.