Domestic institutions, growth and global justice
| Author | Chris Armstrong |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14748851211015328 |
| Published date | 01 January 2023 |
| Date | 01 January 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article EJPT
Domestic institutions,
growth and global justice
Chris Armstrong
University of Southampton, UK
Abstract
According to one prominent theory of development, a country’s wealth is primarily
explained by the quality of its institutions. Leaning on that view, several political the-
orists have defended two normative conclusions. The first is that we have noreason for
concern, from the point of view of justice, if some countries have greater natural
resource endowments than others. The second is that proposals for redistribution
across borders are likely to be superfluous. Advocates of global redistribution have
not yet grappled with these momentous arguments, or shown whether, and how, they
might be rebuffed. This article does just that.
Keywords
Aid, economic growth, global justice, natural resources, poverty
According to one prominent theory of development, a country’s wealth is primar-
ily explained by the quality of its institutions. Leaning on that view, several polit-
ical theorists have defended two normative conclusions. The first is that we have
no reason for concern, from the point of view of justice, if some countries have
greater natural resource endowments than others. The second is that proposals for
redistribution across borders are likely to be superfluous. Advocates of global
Corresponding author:
Chris Armstrong, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Southampton,
Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK.
Email: C.Armstrong@soton.ac.uk
European Journal of Political Theory
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DOI: 10.1177/14748851211015328
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2023, Vol. 22(1) 4–25
redistribution have not yet grappled with these momentous arguments, or shown
whether, and how, they might be rebuffed. This article does just that.
Proposals for cross-border redistribution have proliferated in recent years. The
early days of debates on global justice witnessed well-known calls for global taxes
that would more fairly share the benefits flowing from the world’s natural resour-
ces (Barry, 1982; Beitz, 1979). More recently, tax-and-transfer schemes have been
suggested that would target capital, financial transactions, income, political mem-
bership and much else besides. Though the goals of the proposed taxes vary, many
of them aim to gather funds which would then be remitted to people in the devel-
oping world. The expected impacts include a notable reduction in global poverty
and/or in inequality (e.g. Barry, 1982; Pogge, 2002).
But these ambitious proposals face a serious challenge. Several scholars have
alleged that would-be redistributors of material goods across borders are mistaken
about the role that shares of material goods actually play in stimulating national
economic growth, and hence explaining wealth and poverty in the first place. They
are mistaken, furthermore, about the role that redistribution will play in reducing
the gulf between rich and poor. Even assuming there is a duty to help the world’s
poor attain greater prosperity, our critics argue that any sensible view on the
implications of that duty ‘must be informed by our understanding of the sources
of prosperity’ (Risse, 2005b: 89). But what if our best theory of development
suggests that it is not the availability of resources per se which drives economic
growth? According to the domestic institutional thesis, divergent levels of growth
are actually best explained with reference to the quality of domestic institutions.
If ‘it is the quality of domestic institutions that primarily explains why a country
is rich or poor’ (Risse, 2005a: 351), then two important conclusions might be said
to follow, each of which overturns an orthodoxy within debates on global justice.
First, given that resource endowments do not determine levels of growth, we have
no reason of justice for caring if one country or another possesses more or less
abundant shares of natural resources. Second, our critics have argued that would-
be redistributors have defended redistributive policies which will not advance
the well-being of inhabitants of poor countries. If the ‘state of the art empirical
thinking’ about state development is reliable then, it is alleged, for citizens of rich
countries to give away much of their money would do nothing to remove the
sources of poverty or to reduce inequality (Van der Vossen, 2014: 72). Instead,
our duty to promote the development of poor countries is best enacted by support-
ing domestic institutional reform – and in this respect, there is no reason to
believe that transferring resources will have much of an impact (Rawls, 1999;
Risse, 2005b).
The domestic institutional thesis, if true, has therefore been thought to seriously
embarrass well-known calls for global redistribution. That is the claim which this
article assesses, and ultimately rejects. I will focus on the work of a core set of
theorists: John Rawls, Mathias Risse and Shmuel Nili. While a larger set of schol-
ars has proven sympathetic to one or both of the two conclusions mentioned above
(see e.g. Heath, 2005; Van der Vossen, 2014; Van der Vossen and Brennan, 2018;
Armstrong 5
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