Environmental regulation and bail outs under weak state capacity: Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

2021 ◽  
Vol 186 ◽  
pp. 107071
Author(s):  
André Albuquerque Sant'Anna ◽  
Lucas Costa
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Regulation ◽  
State Capacity ◽  
Brazilian Amazon ◽  
Weak State

scholarly journals Roads to Rule, Roads to Rebel: Relational State Capacity and Conflict in Africa

2020 ◽  
pp. 002200272096367
Author(s):  
Carl Müller-Crepon ◽  
Philipp Hunziker ◽  
Lars-Erik Cederman
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Variable ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
State Capacity ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
The State ◽  
Weak State ◽  
Road Maps ◽  
State Capital ◽  
Conflict In Africa ◽  
Relational State

Weak state capacity is one of the most important explanations of civil conflict. Yet, current conceptualizations of state capacity typically focus only on the state while ignoring the relational nature of armed conflict. We argue that opportunities for conflict arise where relational state capacity is low, that is, where the state has less control over its subjects than its potential challengers. This occurs in ethnic groups that are poorly accessible from the state capital, but are internally highly interconnected. To test this argument, we digitize detailed African road maps and convert them into a road atlas akin to Google Maps. We measure the accessibility and internal connectedness of groups via travel times obtained from this atlas and simulate road networks for an instrumental variable design. Our findings suggest that low relational state capacity increases the risk of armed conflict in Africa.

State capacity and regime resilience in Putin’s Russia

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
David White
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
State Capacity ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Political Opposition ◽  
Weak State ◽  
Term Survival ◽  
Economic Elites ◽  
Regime Resilience ◽  
Building Project

Vladimir Putin’s state-building project, which has included a ‘war on the oligarchs’, the reining in of regional power, the co-optation or marginalization of civil society and political opposition, and the establishment of a ‘power vertical’, has not been based on state strengthening but has had much more to do with regime consolidation. It is argued that, in the Russian case, the building of state capacity may not be a crucial factor in determining the medium or even the long-term survival of the authoritarian system. Although Russia has relatively weak state capacity, the Putin regime has remained stable. The regime’s resilience is built on the distribution of rents among political and economic elites, the provision of social welfare, the coercion or co-opting of civil society and political opposition, and the mobilization of public support through the provision of economic benefits and national-patriotic appeal.

scholarly journals Gorbachev versus Deng: A Review of Chris Miller’s The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy

2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 120-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergei Guriev
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
State Capacity ◽  
Soviet Economy ◽  
Industrial Enterprise ◽  
The Political ◽  
Weak State ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Vested Interests ◽  
Enterprise Reforms

Chris Miller’s book is a historian’s account of Mikhail Gorbachev’s efforts to save the Soviet economy. Miller focuses on the question of why Gorbachev did not follow Deng Xiaoping and did not manage to reform the economy. Miller argues that it was not for the lack of understanding (Gorbachev did invest in learning China’s approach to reform and did understand it well), nor for the lack of trying. In fact, Gorbachev did try to implement Deng’s agricultural and industrial enterprise reforms. However, Gorbachev’s reforms were blocked by powerful vested interests. An inability to tackle the agricultural and industrial lobbies eventually resulted in the bankruptcy and collapse of the Soviet Union. While I generally agree with the political economy argument, I discuss a number of alternative explanations. I also discuss sources of Gorbachev’s weak state capacity and offer an evaluation of Gorbachev’s and post-Gorbachev reform efforts and mistakes based on the political economy research carried out in the last twenty-five years. ( JEL D72, O57, P21, P23, P24, P26)

scholarly journals The Indian State’s Capacity to Get Things Done

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sumit Ganguly ◽  
William R. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
State Capacity ◽  
Weak State ◽  
Territorial Integrity ◽  
Strong State ◽  
Indian State ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Many

This introductory chapter assesses state capacity in India. There is little question, as many boosters of India's rise have argued, that the Indian state has exhibited considerable ability to tackle diverse challenges since its emergence from the collapse of the British Indian Empire. It has, for the most part, successfully fended off external challenges to its territorial integrity; it has worn down a series of secessionist insurgencies and has managed to cope with the many fissiparous tendencies of ethnic, class, and religious cleavages that some analysts thought would tear the country apart in the 1960s. However, state capacity remains paradoxical in India. India does not possess a weak state, but neither does it have a strong state. Its state capacity falls in between the conventional weak-strong continuum. As a consequence, the Indian state manifests both strengths and weakness, sometimes simultaneously, sometimes intermittently.

scholarly journals State Capacity and Tolerance towards Tax Evasion: First Evidence from Romania

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Călin Vâlsan ◽  
Elena Druică ◽  
Rodica Ianole-Călin
Keyword(s):  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Least Squares ◽  
Partial Least Squares ◽  
Informal Economy ◽  
Tax Evasion ◽  
Latent Variables ◽  
State Capacity ◽  
Path Modeling ◽  
Weak State ◽  
Media Reports

We investigate the level of tolerance towards tax non-compliance and the informal economy in Romania, using a sample of 250 respondents. This variable is determined by a complex set of latent variables that include, but is not limited to, state capacity, social and business norms, the perception of non-compliance, and the perception of distributive justice. We find that our respondents are intolerant towards tax evasion and the informal economy, but the level of intolerance is relatively mild. Using a partial least squares—path modeling approach, we also find that a weak state capacity and the perception of lack of distributive justice increases the level of tolerance. The perception of tax evasion stemming from media reports, and the respondents’ own self-enhancement bias, combine to push the level of tolerance lower.

Exploring the determinants of regional health governance modes in the Global South: A comparative analysis of Central and South America

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Giovanni Agostinis ◽  
Kevin Parthenay
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
State Capacity ◽  
Global South ◽  
Central American ◽  
Regional Health ◽  
Health Governance ◽  
Weak State ◽  
Regional Leadership ◽  
External Actors ◽  
Governance Modes

Abstract What explains the variation in how states collectively deal with public health challenges across different regions? We tackle this puzzle by comparing the regional health governance efforts pursued within the Central American Integration System (SICA) and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR). We show that Central America's health governance has been driven by external actors, whereas South America's was driven by states within the region, and remained insulated from external actors’ influence. We argue that the explanation for such variation lies in the interplay of state capacity and regional leadership. In Central America, weak state capacity combined with the absence of a regional leader willing to provide governance resources. This opened up space for external actors to contribute actively to regional health governance, complementing the governance of Central American governments. In South America, Brazil's regional leadership mobilised neighbouring states’ capacities by promoting a South-South cooperation agenda based on intra-regional exchanges among national health bureaucracies, which, however, proved vulnerable to intergovernmental conflicts. Through the comparison of Central and South America, the article bridges the gap between global health governance scholarship and comparative regionalism, providing new insights on the determinants and effects of regional health governance modes in the Global South.

scholarly journals Conclusions

2020 ◽  
pp. 171-179
Author(s):  
Manuel Perez-Garcia
Keyword(s):  
Market Integration ◽  
State Capacity ◽  
Han Dynasty ◽  
Spanish Empire ◽  
Middle Kingdom ◽  
Weak State ◽  
Trade Networks ◽  
Trade Routes

Abstract The Spanish and Qing empires were connected through the agency of merchants, the trade networks they created, and the circulation of goods which fostered local demand. Trade routes, mainly the maritime economic arteries such as the Manila galleons, connected and integrated Western markets and polities, in this case the Spanish empire with the Middle Kingdom. The constant inflow of American silver into China and the outflow of highly prized Chinese goods (i.e. silk, tea, porcelain) into European and American markets were the main features for such market integration between the Bourbon (French) Spanish empire and the Qing (Manchu, non-Han) dynasty. This surpassed the realm of official institutions of both empires along with their concomitant weak state capacity.

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