State strength Flashcards
(39 cards)
What is a nation?
An imagined political community. This does not always overlap with the state, particularly in post-colonial countries.
What is a government?
Those who are controlling the levers of power.
What is a regime?
Democracy or authoritarianism. It relates to how the state is formed.
Is there a difference between state strength and state capacity?
No, they are synonyms.
How should the concept be distinguished from the consequences?
The state may have the ability to do something which it does not actually do.
E.g. the UK taxes more heavily than the USA, but this does not suggest that the USA lacks the capacity to tax more heavily.
What are the three ways in which state capacity can vary?
Inter-state variation. Some states are stronger than others.
Intra-state (geographical) variation. E.g. rebel groups may emerge in rural areas.
Inter-institutional variation in state capacity, e.g. Mexico has good educational, electoral, census institutions. But the police is riddled with criminal gangs.
What is Max Weber’s definition of the state?
(remember that Weber was famous for using ‘ideal types’, which were a yardstick that could only be approximated in reality.)
A human community that successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.
Why did the use of ‘legitimate’ trouble some future scholars?
The focus on legitimacy has troubled many scholars, who have argued that many people believe the use of force by the state to be illegitimate in many cases. For example, the use of police on striking miners, the violence perpetrated against civil rights protestors in the 1960s. Most subsequent scholars have dropped any mention of legitimacy from their definition.
Why did the use of ‘monopoly’ trouble some scholars?
The focus on ‘monopoly’ of legitimate force has also troubled many scholars. E.g. violence by Hamas, IRA is legitimate response to oppression. Many believe that the violent resistance by the Islamic mujahideen to Soviet control in Afghanistan in the 1980s was legitimate.
The state does not actually monopolise violence, it just has a comparative advantage in it.
What is a revised definition of the state provided by Charles Tilly?
States are relatively centralised, differentiated organisations, the officials of which, more or less, successfully claim control over the chief concentrated means of violence within a population inhabiting a large contiguous territory.
What is at the core of definitions of states?
The threat of force/violence is implicit. For example, the threat of imprisonment if you do not pay your taxes.
What is an example of a failed state?
Somalia. They fought a war with Ethiopia 1977-8. The loss of this war had a terrible impact on the reputation of their leader Siad Barre. He responded by unleashing a brutal wave of repression on his people. The “July Massacres” in 1989 involved the assassination of a Roman Catholic bishop and 450 Muslims demonstrating against the arrest of their spiritual leaders.
In January 1991, Siad Barre was driven out of Mogadishu by troops. This marked the point at which Somalia became a failed state. They have tried to reestablish an effective central government since, but to no avail.
How did Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau view the state?
Each saw the state emerging from a contract between citizens in the state of nature, in which the state provides security in exchange for obedience from its citizens.
The state can be viewed as enforcing the socially desirable outcome of the prisoner’s dilemma.
How did Hobbes describe the state of nature?
Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.
His view of the state of nature was so stark that he argued individuals would happily surrender their natural rights in exchange for civil rights.
What is the predatory view of the state?
The predatory view of the state holds that states are in a position to threaten the security of citizens. This makes it possible for them to exploit the citizens that, according to the social contract view, they have a duty to protect. The development of the state is a consequence of economies of scale in violence.
What was Charles Tilly’s statement concerning states and war?
‘War made the state, and the state made war’.
What is the argument that war creates states?
A traditional answer to this question (given by Weber, Hintze, Tilly) has focused on war as driving the development of a strong state (Centeno 1997, 1565). This is what Finer (1975) calls the extraction-coercion cycle. At some point, wars require the mobilisation of the entire country and a professional army. This is extremely expensive, and hence institutions are required that can extract resources from the population. However, these institutions are left behind after conflict ends (Centeno 1997, 1566-7). The development of these institutions is the development of the state- a coercive centre of power which extracts resources from its citizens. These arguments are echoed precisely by Tilly, who writes that ‘rules squeezed the means of war from its population… building massive structures of extraction in its place’. He notes Russia and Prussia as particular examples. The evidence of a positive correlation between war and tax revenue is overwhelming. It is evident that war can serve as a catalyst for the development of a strong state. However, this theory has only been shown to hold under certain geographical and temporal conditions. Those who propose it have typically focused on the development of the state in Europe, which occurred gradually over time, but accelerated (due to war) between 1600-1800.
What were two necessary conditions that were not present in Latin America that typically enable war to make states? (Centeno)
First, the relevant states must be forced to turn inward in order to meet the financial challenges of war.
Second, adequate administrative mechanisms must be in place to manage the explosion in both revenues and expenditures.
Why was the first necessary condition not met? (Centeno)
Latin American countries could tap into silver in the region, as well as easy access to loans. They also printed money as a temporary solution.
Why was the second necessary condition not met? (Centeno)
There was not a sophisticated taxation and administrative system in Latin America, governments were more reliant upon custom duties for revenue. In Argentina, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, custom duties represented ninety percent of government income (Centeno 1997, 1588). On average, Latin American countries generated only five percent of domestic revenue through taxation (Centeno 1997, 1578). This absence of administrative mechanisms meant that a large increase in taxation was not feasible (Centeno 1997, 1569-70). This is further underlined by the fact that there were very high rates of tax avoidance in Latin America at the time.
In Argentina, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, what percentage of government income did custom duties represent?
90%
On average, what percentage of domestic revenue was generated through taxation in Latin America (19th century)?
5%
Why was the nature of wars in Latin America not conducive to state building?
Interstate conflicts are far more likely to promote a strong state than intrastate conflicts. A civil war is more likely to weaken the state as it splinters into different factions. Latin America had numerous civil wars in the nineteenth century, which would not have promoted the development of a strong state (Centeno 1997, 1592-3).
Why were Latin American people not ideologically predisposed to support a strong state?
Latin American people, in general, were not ideologically predisposed to support expansion in the state. This was partly due to the unpopular growth of the Spanish state at the end of the 18th century, which meant that tax rises were associated with despotism.
