| Member Profile : Robert Boutilier |
|
 | Contact Information | Address: -Map Me-
Robert Boutilier
Simon Fraser University, Centre for Sustainable Community Development
Tecolote 103, Casa #2
Col. Lomas de Atzingo
Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico 62180
Phone : 52-777-317-7949
E-mail : rboutilier@stakeholder360.com
Website : http://www.stakeholder360.com
|
| Bibliographic Information |
|
| | | Software & Data | | Active Calendar Listings |
|
|
|
| | | Network Graduate Programs | | Network Courses |
|
|
|
| | | Jobs Posted | | Sunbelt Submissions |
|
| SunBelt XXX - June 29 to July 04, 2010 - Riva del Garda Fierecongressi | | Abstract : The resource curse, rent-seeking, and eigenvector centrality |
| Social network analysis can help clarify the detailed dynamics that link government oil revenues with corruption and weak democracy. A set of hypotheses labeled “the resource curse” originally speculated that government incomes from oil or minerals (“rents”) lead to various negative effects like slow GDP growth, corruption, political violence, and weaker democratic institutions. Haber and Menaldo (2008) showed that the imputed deterioration of democracy disappeared when the quality of democratic institutions prior to resource income was taken into account. Mehlum et al (2006) used country level data to show how institutions can determine the ratio of rent-seeking to productive-sector entrepreneurs, which in turn can explain when resource incomes will have negative effects. The present study shows how network analysis makes this dynamic observable in specific cases. It tracks the socio-political network on a Papua New Guinean island that benefitted from rents and wages from a gold mine. The case covers the four year period before the mine closed and the royalties declined to zero. A group of non-elected traditional leaders held positions of eigenvector centrality when royalties were still flowing to them, as required by law. As their access to the protection of legal institutions declined, a coalition of rent-seekers took over the hitherto dormant democratic institutions and displaced the traditional leaders in terms of eigenvector centrality. The findings corroborate Mehlum et al’s hypothesis and show how network measures can translate the previously used national measures into local political dynamics with concrete effects. |
|
|
| |
|
