State Capacity Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

State capacity concerns the ability of the state to make and implement its decisions. State capacity became more central in social science debates due to recent increases in the incidence of societal conflicts and phenomena relating to state failure and weakness. The concept is also central in the debates on globalization and its impact on the nation-state’s internal capacities to design and effectively implement policies. State capacity appears to be a useful tool in describing the state as worldwide institution, exhibiting significant variations in form and performance.

Historical Evolution Of The State Capacity

State capacity is expanding and transforming as the state diversifies its functions and significantly increases its turnover of personnel, money, and regulation. State transformation has two distinct parallel histories of modernization and diffusion. The modernization of the state had two main directions: cultural homogenization and the containment of resources (capital, labor, and technology) inside well-defined state boundaries. The state gained its core functions and instruments as known today in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The process included the separation of the ruler and traditional elites from the state institutions, bureaucracy, and infrastructure growth; army strengthening; and the establishment of comprehensive internal security and juridical structures (police, courts, and prisons). If under the pressure of major conflicts, the early modern state privileged the security institutions and services, it later extended its role in organizing the majority of societal spheres. The majority of states participated in the twentieth century in two world wars that required a massive mobilization and projection of available resources. During this century the state concluded its control over individuals, groups, and organizations, especially in the totalitarian and authoritarian states. The history of diffusion parallels the modernization process. The ideological and institutional template of the European state provided inspiration for the majority of aspirants to statehood and independence. The historical development of the European state has proven to be very specific and difficult to reproduce in other contexts.

Types Of State Capacity

The dimensions of state capacity largely fall in two distinct categories: constitutive and infrastructural. Constitutive capacity describes the ability of the modern state to mobilize individuals, groups, and social institutions and co-opt them into the governmental process. The variables describing the constitutive capacity are segmental, organizational, identity, and state form and regime.

The segmental variable refers to the extent to which the society is divided along specific lines and the extent to which the segments participate to the organization of the state and the implementation of its policies. The divisions could be ethnic, religious, linguistic, or socioeconomic. Deep segmentation and restriction from participation together can produce open state contestation. The organizational variable refers to the extent to which social institutions cooperate with the state. The societies can have different levels of organizational development. Institutions such as markets, churches, unions, and political parties are indispensable to the functioning of the state. Where the institutions are strong and distinct, state action can be significantly enhanced or inhibited.

The identity variable refers to the extent to which individuals primarily identify themselves through citizenship and nationality. States where the cross-cutting identities were too weak have sometimes experienced political instability. The state form and regime variable refers to the variation in vertical organization of authority and the way the political institutions (constitutions, legislative-executive relations, and party and electoral systems) manage public participation and decision making. Federal and confederal designs and the special representation of minority groups in representative and executive institutions have been used as instruments for mitigating conflicts and preservation of statehood.

The infrastructural capacity describes the ability of the state to expand its institutional network, to penetrate and control territories and organize societal relations. The variables describing infrastructural capacity are territorial, economic, bureaucratic, and functional.

The territorial variable refers to the extent a state effectively controls its entire territory. The lack of control is defined as the permanent absence of state agents and institutions (police, army, courts) in a given area. The effective control is related to the level of contestation and violence and is the precondition for the operation of the other infrastructural variables. The economic variable refers to state’s ability to extract and make use of the resources within a territory. In time this capacity has increased even though significant spheres are escaping state control and monitoring. Most governments struggle to control criminal financial activities such as smuggling, drug trafficking, and other types of transnational crime. The ability to use public resources in a transparent, equitable, and efficient way is also important.

The bureaucratic variable refers to the extent to which the state administratively penetrates its own territory. If for the purpose of controlling the territory and extracting its resources the institutions were of a security and fiscal type, the penetration is carried out by a variety of institutions that support governing and administration at all levels. It includes complex bureaucracies organized vertically (central, regional, local) and horizontally (agencies).The functional variable of state capacity refers to the ability to provide public services such as health, education, social assistance, transport, and environmental protection. This activity places the state in societal context and highly influences the level of support for the state and its political regime.

The two types of capacities are intertwined. High levels of constitutive capacity could reduce the need for infrastructural expansion and help the state better fund and offer public services. High levels of infrastructural capacity could facilitate the development of constitutive capacity through the provision of services such as education or social assistance. By contrast, low levels of constitutive capacity permit infrastructural excess, especially in authoritarian states.

State Weakness And Failure

All types of states have difficulties in performing, given demanding societal and international pressures. While formally protected by international norms and institutions, weak and failed states have experienced serious internal conflict, chronic poverty, and institutional decay. Their profile became especially salient in the early 1990s when countries like Somalia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Liberia, and Afghanistan experienced structural crises. In a capacity-centered definition of state weakness, it is useful to make a distinction between the countries that are lacking a polity and central political authority ( failed states) and those experiencing a serious lack of institutional and economic performance (weak states). The key feature of a failed state is the absence of a functional and recognized political center capable of making and implementing decisions. The political institutions, to the extent that they exist or function, are captured by particular groups and used against competing groups or society in general. Weak states are not contested to the extent of having their existence threatened, yet they have serious difficulties in securing the support of individuals and groups. Their limitations are mainly infrastructural as they usually have to govern large territories and a significant number of individuals.

Globalization And State Capacity

Recent debates question the ability of states to preserve their authority and functions given the increase of global flows of information, resources, and people. It is increasingly difficult for modern states to manage and steer the economic activity or to protect individuals from new threats such as ecological degradation and new forms of terrorism. By managing significant resources and mobilizing significant numbers of individuals, businesses, civil society, and other groups are asserting their increased role in social organization. Even though states are not the only influential social actors, their explicitly assigned tasks—territorial control, monopoly on the use of violence, and enforcement of decisions—remain largely undisputed. However, these tasks are differentially managed depending on their own internal management and available resources and, thus, yield variable levels of effectiveness and legitimacy.

Bibliography:

Badie, Bertrand. The Imported State: The Westernization of the Political Order. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2000.
Huntington, Samuel. Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1968.
Mann, Michael. The Sources of Social Power: The Rise of Classes and Nationstates, 1760–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Migdal, Joel S. State in Society: Studying How States and Societies Transform and Constitute Each Other. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Rotberg, Robert I. When States Fail: Causes and Consequences. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003.
Scott, John. C. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999.
Sorensen, Georg. The Transformation of the State: Beyond the Myth of Retreat. Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
Tilly, Charles. Coercion, Capital, and European States, A.D. 990–1992.
Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1990.
Van Creveld, Martin. The Rise and Decline of the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Weber, Max. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretative Sociology, edited Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.

This example State Capacity Essay is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.