Much research has examined the drivers of firms' R&D investments. However, many questions remain with respect to the role of R&D as a learning target and as a means of achieving legitimacy, particularly in the context of imitative R&D strategy. We develop a theory that integrates different...

A vast literature across several academic disciplines studies the impact of colonial rule, but less attention has been paid to the consequences of decolonization. This paper uses a recently-constructed dataset on the fiscal history of African countries from 1900 to 2015 to analyze the impact of...

How do e-government tools that enable direct online communication with the executive affect citizens’ support for autocracy? On the one hand, such centralised digital government tools may sway public opinion in favour of strongman rule at the expense of autocratic institutions; on the other...

The international context is changing profoundly, owing to rising autocratisation and the return of international war. These transformations also impact the long-standing problem of state fragility. The IDOS Constellations of State Fragility (CSF) provides a differentiated model to measure state...

This paper examines the impact of procedural justice and sanctions on police legitimacy in a middle-income context using a between-subjects vignette experiment among civilians and police officers in Honduras. The scenarios involved civilian-police interactions following a minor infraction,...

Organizational structures are an important determinant of individual incentives and thus individual motivation in organizations. We study whether their effects on individual motivation go beyond incentives and how they relate to the perceived legitimacy of organizational structure. To this end,...

Collective bargaining has a marginal and steadily diminishing role in employment regulation in Hungary. Flaws in the legal framework are certainly among the main reasons behind low and decreasing coverage. In the light of ILO standards and comparative national examples, this article analyses the...

We study the political careers of provincial governors in Iran and ask whether competence and loyalty shape the risk of exit from office. Using province-year panel data with province and year fixed effects, we implement two IV strategies to address selection into hard postings and measurement...

This paper explores the role of informal taxation in the Democratic Republic of Congo and aims to shed light on informal fiscal realities and the implications of informal tax institutions for governance and state legitimacy. Relying on mixed-methods data from household surveys, interviews, and...