This book explores the politics of fiscal authority, focusing on the centralization of taxation in Latin America during the twentieth century. The book studies this issue in great detail for the case of Mexico. The political (and fiscal) fragmentation associated with civil war at the beginning of the century was eventually transformed into a highly centralized regime. The analysis shows that fiscal centralization can best be studied as the consequence of a bargain struck between self-interested regional and national politicians. Fiscal centralization was more extreme in Mexico than in most other places in the world, but the challenges and problems tackled by Mexican politicians were not unique. The book thus analyzes fiscal centralization and the origins of intergovernmental financial transfers in the other Latin American federal regimes, Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela. The analysis sheds light on the factors that explain the consolidation of tax authority in developing countries.

In his trenchant analysis, Stephen Biddle ("Seeing Baghdad, Thinking Saigon," March/April 2006) argues that the escalating violence in Iraq is not a nationalist insurgency, as was the Vietnam War, but rather a "communal civil war" and that it must therefore be addressed by pursuing a strategy different from "Vietnamization": if the United States were simply to turn over responsibility for counterinsurgency to the new Iraqi army and police forces, it would risk inflaming the communal conflict, either by empowering the Shiites and the Kurds to slaughter the Sunnis or by enabling a Trojan horse full of Sunni insurgents to penetrate the multiethnic security forces and undermine them.

Biddle is right in many respects. First, Iraq is already in the midst of a very violent civil conflict, which claims 500 to 1,000 lives or more every month. Second, this internal conflict has become primarily communal in nature; as Biddle writes, it is a fight "about group survival." It pits Sunnis against Shiites, in particular, but also Kurds against Sunnis and, more generally, group against group, with smaller minorities coming under attack on multiple fronts. Third, as Biddle warns, the current moderate-intensity communal war could descend into an all-out conflagration, with a high "risk of mass slaughter." Thus the United States cannot in good conscience withdraw from Iraq abruptly -- and doing so would not even be in the United States' national interest -- because that would remove the last significant barrier to a total conflagration.

This paper was discussed at the Global Justice workshop on November 3, 2006.

Abstract of Seema Jayachandran's "Applying the Odious Debts Doctrine while Preserving Legitimate Lending":

Odious debts are debts incurred by the government of a nation without either popular consent or a legitimate public purpose. While there is some debate within academic circles as to whether the successor government to a regime which incurred odious debts has the right to repudiate repayment, in the real world this is currently not an option granted legitimacy either by global capital markets or the legal systems of creditor states. There are compelling reasons to reform the law of odious debts to allow for such a repudiation in citizens of a tyrant to repay their oppressor's personal debts, but the burden of odious-debt servicing can perpetuate the cycle of state failure which has direct national security consequences. In addition, a properly designed odious debt reform could function as an alternative sanctions mechanism to trade sanctions with fewer harmful implications for the general population of the targeted state. Classical proponents of odious debt reform advocate for recognition of a legal rule under which successor governments could challenge the validity of debts incurred by prior regimes against the odious debt legal standard in a judicial-style forum. We make the case for an alternative "Due Diligence" model of reform which provides far greater ex ante certaining for lenders both as to which investments from subsequent invalidation. The Due Diligence Model also solves certain time-consistency problems inherent to the Classical model.

About the Author

Seema Jayachandran is assistant professor of economics at Stanford University. She received her PhD in economics from Harvard University. She specializes in development economics, labor economics, and political economy.

The wave of democratic electoral revolutions in the Eastern Europe and post-Communist Eurasia revived one of the most appealing and at the same time disputable arguments in the theory of democratization: that is, that successful democratic breakthroughs in one of several places help to shape the timing and dynamic of transformation in others, where the regime change has yet to occur. This interconnectivity of transitions in time (and space) is described in terms such as 'contagion,' 'diffusion,' or 'demonstration effect.' Indeed, although hardly a decisive factor, the evidence that contagion played certain important role in transmitting the spirit of democracy and techiques for achieving it from Serbia in 2000 to Georgia in 2003 to Ukraine in 2004 to Kyrgyzstan in 2005 is evident. Needless to say that there is more than enough evidence that a large community of activists, policy advisors, local and international NGOs, and media, were purposefully involved in translating the experience, strategy and tactics of successful revolutions to the new territories. This often led to a feeling of deja vu once an observer saw TV scenes of yet another autocrat being ousted and a new democratic leader being installed by the people's power.

In the broader sence, contagion is definitely facilitated by the proximity of historical experiences and present-day concerns and dilemmas staying for the societies in the region: in other words, as far as they face similar problems, they audiences throughout the post-Communist world may have immediate understanding of what sort of solutions are suggested to them by the roaming revolutionaries.

But democrats and revolutionaries are not the only ones who can learn from the past and apply the knowledge to fulfill their political goals. Indeed, their antagonists appeared to have mastered the science and crafts of democratic transitions in order to stop them at their borders. What is more, they are becoming increasingly aware that, paraphrasing George W Bush's second inaugural address, 'survival of autocracy at home increasingly depends upon the failure of democracy abroad.' The first trend, learning to combat the democratic contagion, is an essential element of the new political trend in post-Communist Eurasia, defined by the author as preemptive authoritarianism. The second trend, joining efforts to combat democratic contagion, is reflected what can be defined as authoritarian international, which is rapidly emerging in the post-Soviet space.

This paper consists of three parts. The first explains the concept of preemptive authoritarianism. The second gives an overview of preemption may be done in a nearly perfect manner in the case study of Belarus, the country where it was used most extensively and proficiently. The third highlights the international dimension of preemptive authoritarianism on the example of Belarus-Russia cooperation, that increasingly spreads into the area of combatting democracy.

This book outlines a new strategy that applies the organizing principles of progressive internationalism--national strength, free enterprise, liberal democracy, U.S. leadership for collective security--to the new challenge of defeating Islamist extremism. Published in cooperation with the Progressive Policy Institute.