The Self-Undermining State

Author(s):  
Arjun Chowdhury

This chapter provides an informal rationalist model of state formation as an exchange between a central authority and a population. In the model, the central authority protects the population against external threats and the population disarms and pays taxes. The model specifies the conditions under which the exchange is self-enforcing, meaning that the parties prefer the exchange to alternative courses of action. These conditions—costly but winnable interstate war—are historically rare, and the cost of such wars can rise beyond the population’s willingness to sacrifice. At this point, the population prefers to avoid war rather than fight it and may prefer an alternative institution to the state if that institution can prevent war and reduce the level of extraction. Thus the modern centralized state is self-undermining rather than self-enforcing. A final section addresses alternative explanations for state formation.

Author(s):  
Arjun Chowdhury

This chapter lays out the effects of the nuclear revolution for the process of state formation. With nuclear weapons, the costs of interstate war became unacceptably high, and policymakers preferred bargains to war. This initially led to calls that the state was obsolete and demands for alternatives to the state, like a world government. But these alternatives could not give credible guarantees that war would be avoided, and instead, intellectuals and policymakers advocated a different role for the state: rather than waging war, the state was to stockpile weapons in order to deter it. This role for the state would require less popular sacrifice over time, as war became less likely. Yet deterrence also meant an expanded role for the state, as it required greater centralization to prevent war. The state thus became more central to world order yet less capable of compelling sacrifice.


2021 ◽  
pp. 003232172198916
Author(s):  
Katy Wells

Gentrification is a global and highly controversial issue. This article develops an account of what can be troubling, specifically, about state support for gentrification processes. Recent research points to the fact that gentrification processes are being used by policy-makers in many parts of the world as tools for urban ‘renewal’ or transformation. However, it is claimed that this is often at the cost of badly off residents of these areas. I argue that where the state supports or encourages gentrification processes that either (a) impose non-trivial costs on badly off residents of gentrifying areas or (b) fail to benefit these residents in certain ways, the state disrespects these residents by failing to show due regard for their interests. In doing so, it threatens their self-respect. Having made this argument, I also consider how certain kinds of state investment once gentrification processes have occurred can threaten the self-respect of original residents.


Author(s):  
Vitaly Lobas ◽  
◽  
Elena Petryaeva ◽  

The article deals with modern mechanisms for managing social protection of the population by the state and the private sector. From the point of view of forms of state regulation of the sphere of social protection, system indicators usually include the state and dynamics of growth in the standard of living of the population, material goods, services and social guarantees for the poorly provided segments of the population. The main indicator among the above is the state of the consumer market, as one of the main factors in the development of the state. Priority areas of public administration with the use of various forms of social security have been identified. It should be emphasized that, despite the legislative conflicts that exist today in Ukraine, mandatory indexation of the cost of living is established, which is associated with inflation. Various scientists note that although the definition of the cost of living index has a well-established methodology, there are quite a lot of regional features in the structure of consumption. All this is due to restrictions that are included in the consumer basket of goods and different levels of socio-economic development of regions. The analysis of the establishment and periodic review of the minimum consumer budgets of the subsistence minimum and wages of the working population and the need to form state insurance funds for unforeseen circumstances is carried out. Considering in this context the levers of state management of social guarantees of the population, we drew attention to the crisis periods that are associated with the market transformation of the regional economy. In these conditions, there is a need to develop and implement new mechanisms and clusters in the system of socio-economic relations. The components of the mechanisms ofstate regulation ofsocial guarantees of the population are proposed. The deepening of market relations in the process of reforming the system of social protection of the population should be aimed at social well-being.


Author(s):  
S.S. Hasanova ◽  
R.R. Hatueva ◽  
A.L. Arsaev

This article discusses the pros and cons of applying professional income tax. Professional income tax is not mandatory, but an alternative way to pay 2 taxes on self-employment or part-time work. The introduction of this tax can mediate an increase in revenues to the state budget, which is of particular importance for the country in post-crisis conditions.


Author(s):  
Philipp Zehmisch

This chapter considers the history of Andaman migration from the institutionalization of a penal colony in 1858 to the present. It unpicks the dynamic relationship between the state and the population by investigating genealogies of power and knowledge. Apart from elaborating on subaltern domination, the chapter also reconstructs subaltern agency in historical processes by re-reading scholarly literature, administrative publications, and media reports as well as by interpreting fieldwork data and oral history accounts. The first part of the chapter defines migration and shows how it applies to the Andamans. The second part concentrates on colonial policies of subaltern population transfer to the islands and on the effects of social engineering processes. The third part analyses the institutionalization of the postcolonial regime in the islands and elaborates on the various types of migration since Indian Independence. The final section considers contemporary political negotiations of migration in the islands.


Author(s):  
Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock

This chapter addresses Edgar Allan Poe’s relation to postmodernism in three parts. It first considers the postmodern elements of Poe’s writing with an emphasis on hoaxes, metafictional self-referentiality, fragmentation, and an overall postmodern suspicion of metanarratives. Next it offers an overview of how Poe’s fiction has been used by poststructuralist theorists—notably, Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida, and Barbara Johnson—as well as critics including Dennis Pahl, Michael J. S. Williams, J. Gerald Kennedy, and Louis A. Renza, to illustrate poststructuralist claims about the nature of the self and language. Finally, it explores how the postmodern elements present in Poe’s fiction make him attractive to modern sensibilities. This final section considers the commodification not just of Poe’s writing but of Poe himself—how his biography and image themselves become postmodern narratives available for appropriation and exploitation in the contemporary culture of the Gothic.


Author(s):  
Giacomo Benati ◽  
Carmine Guerriero

Abstract We develop a theory of state formation shedding light on the rise of the first stable state institutions in Bronze Age Mesopotamia. Our analysis suggests that the mix of adverse production conditions and unforeseen innovations pushed groups favored by old technologies to establish the state by granting political and property rights to powerless individuals endowed with new and complementary skills. Through these reforms, the elite convinced the nonelite that a sufficient part of the returns on joint investments would be shared via public spending and, thus, to cooperate and accumulate a culture of cooperation. Different from the main alternative theories, we stress that: (1) group formation is heavily shaped by unforeseen shocks to the returns on both risk-sharing and innovation; (2) complementarity in group-specific skills, and not violence, is key determinant of state formation; (3) military, merchant and, especially, religious ranks favored state formation and culture accumulation.


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