IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v63y1989i1p63-72.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Political instability in Africa: A rent-seeking approach

Author

Listed:
  • John Mbaku
  • Chris Paul

Abstract

The foregoing analysis developed the paradigm of self-interest motivated revolutionary activities. In effect, the construct presented differs from the by-product theory developed by Tullock only in its specific modeling of government-created rents as the engine which drives the violent political behavior. The empirical test of the positive relationship between rent creation by the government and the amount of destabilizing political activity yields strong support for the structuring of politically destabilizing activities as rent-seeking in nature. It is the authors' hope that further empirical investigation and a more general and rigorous modeling of revolution as a rent-seeking activity will become an important part of the literature in public choice. Finally, some policy implications should be discussed. The policy emphasis for the governments of Africa countries should be on opening the economy to competition. Instituting programs to make the economic system more accessible to all segments of society would result in reduced opportunities for rent-seeking. Reducing rent-seeking should result in increased political stability. A reduction in government market intervention would also reduce the costs of government regulations on individual entrepreneurs inducing them to increase their participation in economically productive activities. Taken together the result would be increased political stability and higher rates of economic growth. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1989

Suggested Citation

  • John Mbaku & Chris Paul, 1989. "Political instability in Africa: A rent-seeking approach," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 63(1), pages 63-72, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:63:y:1989:i:1:p:63-72
    DOI: 10.1007/BF00223272
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/BF00223272
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/BF00223272?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gordon Tullock, 1971. "The paradox of revolution," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 89-99, September.
    2. Krueger, Anne O, 1974. "The Political Economy of the Rent-Seeking Society," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(3), pages 291-303, June.
    3. Phillip Cartwright & Charles Delorme & Norman Wood, 1985. "The by-product theory of revolution: Some empirical evidence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 46(3), pages 265-274, January.
    4. Sharif Mohammad & John Whalley, 1984. "Rent Seeking in India: Its Costs and Policy Significance," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(3), pages 387-413, August.
    5. Friedman, Milton, 1977. "Nobel Lecture: Inflation and Unemployment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 451-472, June.
    6. Morris Silver, 1974. "Political revolution and repression: An economic approach," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 63-71, March.
    7. repec:bla:kyklos:v:24:y:1971:i:4:p:629-43 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Thomas Ireland, 1967. "The rationale of revolt," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 49-66, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kimenyi, Mwangi S. & Mbaku, John Mukum, 1996. "Rents, military elites, and political democracy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 699-708, April.
    2. Adefeso, Hammed, 2018. "Corruption, Political Instability and Development Nexus in Africa: A Call for Sequential Policies Reforms," MPRA Paper 85277, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. John Mbaku, 1992. "The silent revolution in Africa: Debt, development and democracy," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 20(3), pages 127-133, March.
    4. George Klay Kieh Jr, 2009. "The State and Political Instability in Africa," Journal of Developing Societies, , vol. 25(1), pages 1-25, January.
    5. Zeeshan, Muhammad & han, Jiabin & Rehman, Alam & Ullah, Irfan & Hussain, Arif & Alam Afridi, Fakhr E., 2022. "Exploring symmetric and asymmetric nexus between corruption, political instability, natural resources and economic growth in the context of Pakistan," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    6. Adams, Richard H. Jr., 2000. "The politics of economic policy reform in developing countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2443, The World Bank.
    7. Kevin Williams, 2017. "Foreign Direct Investment, Economic Growth, and Political Instability," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 42(2), pages 17-37, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Phillip Cartwright & Charles Delorme & Norman Wood, 1985. "The by-product theory of revolution: Some empirical evidence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 46(3), pages 265-274, January.
    2. Pierre Courtois & Rabia Nessah & Tarik Tazdaït, 2024. "Revolutions and rational choice: A critical discussion [Révolutions et choix rationnel : une analyse critique]," Post-Print hal-04566834, HAL.
    3. Robert B. Ekelund & Mark Thornton, 2020. "Rent seeking as an evolving process: the case of the Ancien Régime," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 182(1), pages 139-155, January.
    4. Pierre Courtois & Rabia Nessah & Tarik Tazdaït, 2024. "Revolutions and rational choice: A critical discussion," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 200(3), pages 497-529, September.
    5. Shyam Kamath, 1988. "Partially suppressed markets: Controls, rent seeking and the cost of protection in the indian sugar industry," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 124(1), pages 140-160, March.
    6. Arye L. Hillman & Heinrich W. Ursprung, 2016. "Where are the rent seekers?," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 124-141, June.
    7. Alessandro Moro, 2016. "Understanding the Dynamics of Violent Political Revolutions in an Agent-Based Framework," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(4), pages 1-17, April.
    8. Leeson, Peter T., 2010. "Rational choice, Round Robin, and rebellion: An institutional solution to the problems of revolution," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(3), pages 297-307, March.
    9. Jerg Gutmann & Matthias Neuenkirch & Florian Neumeier, 2020. "Precision-guided or blunt? The effects of US economic sanctions on human rights," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 185(1), pages 161-182, October.
    10. Henrik Egbert & Teodor Sedlarski, 2020. "The foundations of contemporary economics: Gordon Tullock and public choice," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 1, pages 107-118.
    11. Mark I. Lichbach, 1994. "Rethinking Rationality and Rebellion," Rationality and Society, , vol. 6(1), pages 8-39, January.
    12. repec:kap:iaecre:v:12:y:2006:i:2:p:241-250 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Simon P. Anderson & Jacob K. Goeree & Charles A. Holt, 1998. "Rent Seeking with Bounded Rationality: An Analysis of the All-Pay Auction," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(4), pages 828-853, August.
    14. Nicolas Olsson-Yaouzis, 2010. "Revolutionaries, despots, and rationality," Rationality and Society, , vol. 22(3), pages 283-299, August.
    15. Alcalde, José & Dahm, Matthias, 2010. "Rent seeking and rent dissipation: A neutrality result," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1-2), pages 1-7, February.
    16. Dennis Mueller, 2012. "Gordon Tullock and Public Choice," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 152(1), pages 47-60, July.
    17. Joshua R. Hendrickson & Alexander William Salter, 2016. "A Theory of Why the Ruthless Revolt," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 295-316, November.
    18. Philip Jones, 2004. "‘All for One and One for All’: Transactions Cost and Collective Action," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 52(3), pages 450-468, October.
    19. K.P. Kannan & N. Vijayamohanan Pillai, 2001. "The political economy of public utilities: A study of the power sector," Centre for Development Studies, Trivendrum Working Papers 316, Centre for Development Studies, Trivendrum, India.
    20. Van Long, Ngo, 2013. "The theory of contests: A unified model and review of the literature," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 161-181.
    21. Roger Congleton, 2004. "The Political Economy of Gordon Tullock," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 121(1), pages 213-238, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:63:y:1989:i:1:p:63-72. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.