Suffering Spectators of Development

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arjun Chowdhury
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Central Government ◽  
State Capacity ◽  
State Power ◽  
The State ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Alternative View

This chapter offers an alternative view of the incidence and duration of insurgencies in the postcolonial world. Insurgencies and civil wars are seen as the primary symptom of state weakness, the inability of the central government to monopolize violence. Challenging extant explanations that identify poverty and low state capacity as the cause of insurgencies, the chapter shows that colonial insurgencies, also occurring in the context of poverty and state weakness, were shorter and ended in regime victories, while contemporary insurgencies are longer and states are less successful at subduing them. The reason for this is the development of exclusive identities—based on ethnicity, religion, tribe—in the colonial period. These identities serve as bases for mobilization to challenge state power and demand services from the state. Either way, such mobilization means that popular demands for services exceed the willingness to disarm and/or pay taxes, that is, to supply the state.

scholarly journals Why Do Ethnic Groups Rebel? New Data and Analysis

2009 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars-Erik Cederman ◽  
Andreas Wimmer ◽  
Brian Min
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
State Power ◽  
The State ◽  
Central State ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
The Government

Much of the quantitative literature on civil wars and ethnic conflict ignores the role of the state or treats it as a mere arena for political competition among ethnic groups. Other studies analyze how the state grants or withholds minority rights and faces ethnic protest and rebellion accordingly, while largely overlooking the ethnic power configurations at the state's center. Drawing on a new data set on Ethnic Power Relations (EPR) that identifies all politically relevant ethnic groups and their access to central state power around the world from 1946 through 2005, the authors analyze outbreaks of armed conflict as the result of competing ethnonationalist claims to state power. The findings indicate that representatives of ethnic groups are more likely to initiate conflict with the government (1) the more excluded from state power they are, especially if they have recently lost power, (2) the higher their mobilizational capacity, and (3) the more they have experienced conflict in the past.

scholarly journals VERTICAL FISCAL IMBALANCES IN INDIA: CONCEPT AND MEASUREMENT

2019 ◽  
pp. 41-46
Author(s):  
Aditi Agrawal
Keyword(s):  
Public Finance ◽  
Central Government ◽  
The State ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
State Governments ◽  
State And Local Government ◽  
Fiscal Imbalance ◽  
Vertical Fiscal Imbalance ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Different Levels

India is a federation whose roots can be found in the colonial period. Indian federal setup is clearly divided between centre, state and local government and likewise, the sources of revenue and responsibilities are also divided between them. The decentralization process in India is asymmetrical in the sense that decentralization of expenditure has been much more than the revenue decentralization as provided by the Constitution, thereby creating an imbalance in states’ income and spending. When this mismatch between the two is measured at different levels of government, we call it Vertical Fiscal Imbalance. In this paper, I have presented various definitions and measures of VFI given by several economists over the years and tried to measure the extent of VFI that exist in India since 1990-91 to 2014-15. We have used twenty five years data to make an analysis based on the data available in Finance Commission reports and Indian Public Finance Statistics. Our results show that the amount of revenue that has been decentralized over the period of study falls much short of the expenditure requirements that are expected to be met by the state governments. The situation is so intense that the state governments are left with no option other than relying on central transfers for financing their needs and that where the central government enjoys an upper hand and an authoritative power over the internal matters of the states. KEYWORDS: Expenditure, Decentralization, Indian federation, Revenue, Vertical Fiscal Imbalance.

Anthropological Perspectives on the Limits of the State

2018 ◽  
pp. 67-88
Author(s):  
Andrew Brandel ◽  
Shalini Randeria
Keyword(s):  
Political Power ◽  
State Capacity ◽  
State Power ◽  
Global South ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Everyday Experience ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The World ◽  
Social Scientific

This chapter examines how anthropological work on the state and political power not only complements, but also contests the political scientific conception of limited statehood. The two disciplines are no longer distinguished by the methods they employ, or their analytical dispositions, or the regions of the world where they conduct research. Here it is suggested instead that anthropology continues to be defined by its commitment to challenging universalizing social scientific assumptions on the basis of ethnography that theorizes from everyday experience. Drawing on examples both from the global South and North, we delineate how anthropology nuances various conceptions of limits of state power, particularly those that structure the binaries of West and non-West, public and private, state and non-state, formal and informal, national and trans- or supranational, on which much of the discussion of state capacity, or its partial absence, is predicated.

KEY ASPECTS OF TRANSFORMATION OF THE STATE AUTHORITIES IN THE WORLD AND TO THE MODERN SOVERUM UKRAINE: A JOINT AND PERSONALITY

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (11) ◽  
pp. 164-174
Author(s):  
Оlena Fedorіvna Caracasidi
Keyword(s):  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Human Life ◽  
State Power ◽  
The State ◽  
Public Power ◽  
The People ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
The World ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
Key Aspects

The article deals with the fundamental, inherent in most of the countries of the world transformation of state power, its formation, functioning and division between the main branches as a result of the decentralization of such power, its subsidiarity. Attention is drawn to the specifics of state power, its func- tional features in the conditions of sovereignty of the states, their interconnec- tion. It is emphasized that the nature of the state power is connected with the nature of the political system of the state, with the form of government and many other aspects of a fundamental nature.It is analyzed that in the middle of national states the questions of legitima- cy, sovereignty of transparency of state power, its formation are acutely raised. Concerning the practical functioning of state power, a deeper study now needs a problem of separation of powers and the distribution of power. The use of this principle, which ensures the real subsidiarity of the authorities, the formation of more effective, responsible democratic relations between state power and civil society, is the first priority of the transformation of state power in the conditions of modern transformations of countries and societies. It is substantiated that the research of these problems will open up much wider opportunities for the provi- sion of state power not as a center authority, but also as a leading political structure but as a power of the people and the community. In the context of global democratization processes, such processes are crucial for a more humanistic and civilized arrangement of human life. It is noted that local self-government, as a specific form of public power, is also characterized by an expressive feature of a special subject of power (territorial community) as a set of large numbers of people; joint communal property; tax system, etc.

Interaction of the State and Business on Indicators of Values and Innovations of Public Health

2019 ◽  
pp. 27-37
Author(s):  
V.A. Morozov
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
State Power ◽  
The State ◽  
Medical Institutions ◽  
Business Structures

The article analyzes the state of public health on the example of domestic and foreign statistics, as well as prospects for its development and improvement. The state of relations and forms of interaction of budgetary medical institutions (state, municipal) with private clinics, as well as directly private clinics with the structures of municipal and state power are considered. The directions and ways of interaction of power and business structures for improvement of methods and forms of service of patients on the basis of indicators of values and innovations are offered.

Rice Production in Punjab: Depletion of Water Resources and Environmental Problems

2020 ◽  
pp. 294-299
Keyword(s):  
State Government ◽  
Agricultural Development ◽  
Fruits And Vegetables ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Geographical Area ◽  
The State ◽  
Rice Production ◽  
Nutrient Loss ◽  
High Rate ◽  
Paddy Straw

Punjab has emerged as an important rice-producing state in the country. The state with 1.53 percent of the geographical area of the country produces more than 11 percent of total rice production in the country. The production of rice in Punjab increased more than 10 times due to an increase in area and yield. The growth of a rice crop at such a high rate over 20 years in Punjab is indeed a rare phenomenon in the history of agricultural development in the world. Due to extensive cultivation of rice in Punjab, the state has been over-exploiting the groundwater, more than its recharge. Most of the tube-well dominated districts of the state, witnessed the fall in water table more than 20 to 30 cm per year. To dispose of the paddy straw, the farmers of Punjab generally opt for burning it. This practice of burning of paddy straw besides nutrient loss is posing a serious problem for the public health and transportation system. Rice has now become a problematic crop for Punjab state due to its ill effects on its natural resources, that is, the water and soil environmental degradation. The Punjab Agricultural University experts and other committees estimated that the total groundwater recharge from all sources can sustain/support only 16-17 lakh ha of paddy in Punjab. The area under the crop increased to 29 lakh ha which was unsustainable in the long run. The area under rice in Punjab should be stabilized at 16-17 lakh ha and the remaining paddy area should be shifted to other crops like pulses, oilseeds, maize, fruits, and vegetables, etc. requiringless water, to achieve proper water balance. Thus diversification of some area from paddy is in the interest of Punjab farmers, State government and the Central government for long term food security on a sustainable basis.

Explaining Peaceful Change in Central and Eastern Europe

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Tabachnik ◽  
Benjamin Miller
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
State Capacity ◽  
The State ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Soviet System ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Independent Variables ◽  
Two Independent Variables

This chapter explains the process of peaceful change in Central and Eastern Europe following the demise of the Soviet system. It also explains the failure of peaceful change in the Balkans and some post-Soviet countries, such as the Ukrainian conflict in 2014. The chapter accounts for the conditions for peaceful change and for the variation between peaceful and violent change by the state-to-nation theory. The two independent variables suggested by the theory are the level of state capacity and congruence—namely the compatibility between state borders and the national identities of the countries at stake. Moreover, according to the theory, great-power engagement serves as an intervening variable and in some conditions, as explained in the chapter, may help with peaceful change.

‘Party in the street’: The partisan politics of space

2021 ◽  
pp. 239965442110338
Author(s):  
David Jenkins ◽  
Lipin Ram
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Space ◽  
State Power ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Partisan Politics ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

Public space is often understood as an important ‘node’ of the public sphere. Typically, theorists of public space argue that it is through the trust, civility and openness to others which citizens cultivate within a democracy’s public spaces, that they learn how to relate to one another as fellow members of a shared polity. However, such theorizing fails to articulate how these democratic comportments learned within public spaces relate to the public sphere’s purported role in holding state power to account. In this paper, we examine the ways in which what we call ‘partisan interventions’ into public space can correct for this gap. Using the example of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPIM), we argue that the ways in which CPIM partisans actively cultivate sites of historical regional importance – such as in the village of Kayyur – should be understood as an aspect of the party’s more general concern to present itself to citizens as an agent both capable and worthy of wielding state power. Drawing on histories of supreme partisan contribution and sacrifice, the party influences the ideational background – in competition with other parties – against which it stakes its claims to democratic legitimacy. In contrast to those theorizations of public space that celebrate its separateness from the institutions of formal democratic politics and the state more broadly, the CPIM’s partisan interventions demonstrate how parties’ locations at the intersections of the state and civil society can connect the public sphere to its task of holding state power to account, thereby bringing the explicitly political questions of democratic legitimacy into the everyday spaces of a political community.

The Political Economy of Post-Independence India—A Review Article

1989 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 787-797 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akhil Gupta
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Newly Industrialized Countries ◽  
The Past ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Balance Of Forces ◽  
The Third World

Economists and political scientists have become increasingly interested in the political economy of India during the past decade and particularly during the past three or four years. The titles under review will be valuable not only to India specialists but also to comparative scholars because of the intriguing mix of conditions found in India. More like a continent than a country in its diversity, India is in some ways very similar to densely populated, predominantly rural and agricultural China, differing most perhaps in the obstinacy and depth of its poverty. In the predominant role played by the state within an essentially capitalist economy, it is closer to the model of Western social democracies than it is to either prominently ideological capitalist or socialist nation-states; like other countries in the “third world,” the state in India plays a highly interventionist developmental role. Finally, since Independence it has pursued, more successfully than most nation-states in Latin America and Asia, policies of importsubstituting industrialization and relative autarchy. In terms of its political structures, India differs from most newly industrialized countries (NICs) in that it generally continues to function as a parliamentary democracy. The federal political system creates an intriguing balance of forces between central and the regional state governments, which are often ruled by opposition parties with agendas, ideologies, and organizational structures quite different from those of the central government.

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