Original
The economic foundations of powersharing: Evidence from Africa
Abstract
Abstract How—and with whom—do rulers share power? Existing research focuses on the strategic logic of powersharing. In this paper, we analyze its economic foundations. Powersharing is modeled as a subnational fiscal contract, in which rulers allocate political representation based on constituencies’ revenue potential. Empirically, we combine historical geospatial data on different types of primary commodity production—mineral point resources and diffuse smallholder cash crop agriculture—with the ethnic affiliation of cabinet ministers across 15 African countries. We find that cash crop groups are overrepresented in post‐independence cabinets, while mining or food crop production does not translate into higher shares of power. Consistent with a revenue bargaining framework, we find that rulers traded political representation and targeted public services for indirect taxation of cash crops. Overall, this suggests powersharing serves not only as a means to distribute resources and co‐opt potential challengers but also to expand the pie and the rents at the ruler's disposal.
中文
权力分享的经济基础：来自非洲的证据
摘要
摘要 统治者如何——以及与谁——分享权力？现有研究聚焦于权力分享的战略逻辑。本文分析其经济基础。我们将权力分享建模为一种次国家财政契约，其中统治者根据选区的收入潜力来分配政治代表权。在实证上，我们将关于不同类型初级商品生产——矿物点状资源和分散的小农经济作物农业——的历史地理空间数据，与15个非洲国家内阁部长的族群归属相结合。我们发现，经济作物群体在独立后内阁中代表性过高，而采矿或粮食作物生产并未转化为更高的权力份额。与收入议价框架一致，我们发现统治者以政治代表权和定向公共服务来换取对经济作物的间接征税。总体而言，这表明权力分享不仅是分配资源和收编潜在挑战者的手段，也是扩大蛋糕以及统治者可支配租金的手段。
关键词
权力分享、经济基础、财政契约、收入议价、非洲、族群政治、初级商品、内阁代表