The impacts of civil society and inequality on the extractive capacity of authoritarian regimes: a conceptual model and the case study of Vietnam

Thai Q. Nguyen () and Giang K. Nguyen ()
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Thai Q. Nguyen: Oxfam in Vietnam
Giang K. Nguyen: Victoria University of Wellington

Constitutional Political Economy, 2020, vol. 31, issue 4, No 4, 489-508

Abstract: Abstract This paper analyses the impacts of civil society and inequality on the extractive capacity of authoritarian regimes and undertakes a case study of Vietnam. The paper argues that civic groups tend to reduce the extractive capacity of such states, defined as the sum of taxation and rent extraction. This induces the government to substitute rent-extraction for taxation. This hypothesis is tested using fixed-effects regression techniques with panel data of 63 provinces for 2009–2014. Our estimates imply that increases in non-profit institutions reduce the regime’s extraction in terms of both budget revenue and informal charges paid by registered firms. Other results are also consistent with our conceptual model. Provinces with larger income gaps exhibit lower extraction, proxied by government expenditures.

Keywords: Extractive capacity; Rent extraction; Leviathan model; Civil society; Inequality; High-performing autocracy; Vietnam (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C79 H39 P45 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1007/s10602-020-09311-9

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