Repression and Monarchical Resilience in the Arab Gulf States

Why the uprisings that broke out across the Middle East and North Africa in 2010-11 ousted the leaders of republics but left monarchies largely intact remains puzzling. One promising explanation for the resilience of monarchical regimes argues that monarchs exercise repression in a comparatively restrained and largely effective fashion. Proponents of this theory tend to conflate two crucial causal factors: the level of state coercion exercised against opposition activists and the degree of indiscriminateness with which coercion is deployed. By treating these variables as analytically distinct, a more compelling explanation for monarchical resilience can be advanced. The advantages of the revised argument are illustrated by revisiting the divergent trajectories of the uprisings in Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.     

The Displacement Effect in the Growth of Governments

We analyze the displacement effect within a multivariaterevenue-expenditure model of government growth, based on along historical dataset, for Italy. Our long-run analysisshows a permanent influence of domestic product on the growthof governments, supporting Wagner's law. The short-rundynamics are more complex and provide some evidence for thedisplacement effect, in terms of a lower resistance againsttax-financing of government spending in the post-war. Inaddition, government spending adjusts faster when deviationsfrom its equilibrium get larger.