Search results

AbstractBranding of foreign aid may undermine government legitimacy in developing countries when citizens see social services being provided by external actors. We run a survey experiment on a sample of Indian respondents. All subjects learn about an HIV/AIDS program; treated subjects learn that it was foreign-funded. We find null results that, along with existing results in the literature obtained from observational data, call into question the view that foreign-funded service delivery interferes with the development of a fiscal contract between the state and its citizens.

Despite having 40 per cent of the world's potential for geothermal power production, Indonesia exploits less than five per cent of its own geothermal resources. We explore the reasons behind this lagging development of geothermal power and highlight four obstacles: (1) delays caused by the suboptimal decentralisation of permitting procedures to local governments that have few incentives to support geothermal exploitation; (2) rent-seeking behaviour originating in the point-source nature of geothermal resources; (3) the opacity of central government decision making; and (4) a historically deleterious national fuel subsidy policy that disincentivised geothermal investment. We situate our arguments against the existing literature and three shadow case studies from other Pacific countries that have substantial geothermal resources. We conclude by arguing for a more centralised geothermal governance structure. (JCSA/GIGA)

Despite having 40 per cent of the world's potential for geothermal power production, Indonesia exploits less than five per cent of its own geothermal resources. We explore the reasons behind this lagging development of geothermal power and highlight four obstacles: (1) delays caused by the suboptimal decentralisation of permitting procedures to local governments that have few incentives to support geothermal exploitation; (2) rent-seeking behaviour originating in the point-source nature of geothermal resources; (3) the opacity of central government decision making; and (4) a historically deleterious national fuel subsidy policy that disincentivised geothermal investment. We situate our arguments against the existing literature and three shadow case studies from other Pacific countries that have substantial geothermal resources. We conclude by arguing for a more centralised geothermal governance structure. (author's abstract)

This paper applies the insights of obsolescing bargaining theory to a situation in which a host country interacted with both multinational corporations and an international organization, the World Bank. Drawing on resource curse literature and the Rubinstein bargaining model, we demonstrate the continued usefulness of obsolescing bargaining theory by explaining why the World Bank had to renegotiate its initial bargain with Chad in the Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline Project. The paper explores how specific bargaining parameters changed over time in this case and suggests how resource curse dynamics and their impact on domestic politics might be particularly relevant for bargaining between host countries and international actors. The case study serves as a warning to international financial institutions and corporations alike with regard to the ways in which obsolescing bargains can arise in the contemporary global political-economy.