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The Perils of International Capital. By Ahmed Faisal Z.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. 198 p. $99.99 cloth, $29.99 paper.
Cross-border flows of capital are an integral component of contemporary globalization, and scholarship on the economic effects of international capital movements is extensive. But the question of whether and how international capital flows influence national politics has received much less attention. Faisal Z. Ahmed’s new book, The Perils of International Capital, goes a long way to filling in this gap. Ahmed convincingly shows that inflows of international capital have an important impact on a range of political outcomes, from the tenure of national leaders to the degree of political freedom.
The book’s central argument is that international capital enhances authoritarian rule in developing countries. Increased inflows of foreign capital increase the resources available to governments, which helps dictators (and would-be dictators) repress their opponents and channel rents to potential supporters. Increases in autocrats’ ability to repress and distribute pork, in turn, help them extend their tenures in office.
The book begins with an introductory chapter that provides an overview of the book and its contributions. The second chapter presents a variety of descriptive statistics that demonstrate the growing importance of international capital flows and help establish the plausibility of the book’s main arguments. Chapter 3 then develops the theoretical argument about how international capital influences domestic politics.
One of the book’s unique strengths is that it considers three different types of international capital flows: foreign aid, remittances, and foreign direct investment (FDI). Most scholarly works focus on just one type of capital flow; I am not aware of any earlier books that tackled all three. But Ahmed presents a strong case that research considering just one type of capital flow potentially suffers from...