Angola s Percentile Rank On Each Of The Six Governance...

The line graphs above show Angola’s percentile rank on each of the six governance indicators. Percentile ranks indicate the percentage of countries worldwide rank lower than the indicated country so that higher values indicate better governance scores. Compared to other countries, Angola scores very low on all indicators. In other words, Angola falls into the category of exclusive institution. This finding further confirms conclusions made by political scientists that the quality of institutions matters. Based on qualitative analysis, many scholars believe that the abundance of natural resources can lead to rent-seeking behavior and corruption. It can lead to decreased quality of political institutions thus affect the economic development†¦show more content†¦It means Angola’s scores were more towards least free, and overall Angola has a Not Free status according to Freedom in the World 2014 report. Thus, based on above findings, president has been in power for over 30 years, and the ruling MPLA dominates Angola’s multiparty system, and the Not Free status, Angola is ruled by authoritarian form of government. Why does it matter? The resource-rich countries are more likely to be authoritarian than democracies (Mikesell, 1997). Other scholars present evidence that democratic government, especially parliamentary democratic, help to avoid resource curse (Damania and Bulte 2003). Unfortunately, the Republic of Angola is ruled by a dominant president and the ruling party; the opposition is marginalized, and elections are â€Å"held basically to render legitimacy to the incumbent regime† (Amundsen, 2011). Contrary to popular belief that the dictators are removed by the masses, Svolik presents quantitative data that shows two-third of the dictators were overthrown by the ruling coalition (Svolik, ). Therefore, it is in the dictator s best interest to buy off important inner circle elites known as the ruling coalition to make sure that he continues to stay in power. Svolik s findings explain why authoritarian government fuels corruption and has no accountability to the masses and no transparency of the funds. Thus, corruption in Angola is extreme;