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BREAD-IGC virtual PhD-level course 2026 | Lecture 4 State Capacity — Transcript

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0:00Okay. So, I'm going to talk today uh
0:03about this theme of state capacity,
0:05conflict, and development. Something
0:07I've worked on for for quite a while and
0:09hopefully something I can persuade you
0:11is is an important topic in political
0:13economy. Um and um I'm going to give you
0:18something of an overview of the area.
0:20I'm going to talk occasionally in a bit
0:22more detail about things, but it will be
0:24quite broad. uh and uh I hope we'll will
0:28allow those of you who are interested in
0:30this topic to think about how different
0:34pieces of knowledge fit together in a in
0:36a very uh expansive uh uh area.
0:41Um so I'm just trying to get to the next
0:43slide. There we are. So um I want to
0:46cover three things. Um I want to cover
0:49um the motivation for the agenda. and
0:52why we're we should be interested in
0:53this and what what is the substance. Uh
0:56I want to talk about some core
0:58theoretical ideas and some empirical
1:00findings and as I just said um at some
1:03level this will be quite sketchy uh and
1:06and we'll only uh scratch the surface.
1:09Uh I'm going to go for breadth over
1:11depth. uh but hopefully by the end of
1:14this if you if if if you stay the course
1:16you'll have a a much better feel for
1:18this wider set of issues that that I
1:21want to uh talk about. Uh let me begin
1:24by just asking the question of what is
1:27state capacity if in case any of you are
1:29not familiar with that term. In fact, if
1:32you go back, the term as I I discovered
1:34it and I think probably was where it was
1:36used originally was essentially for the
1:40capacity of the state to tax uh and and
1:43that's what we in the kind of modern
1:46research refer to more as fiscal
1:48capacity than just as state capacity. We
1:51think of there being two other
1:52dimensions of um of of state capacity.
1:56The other two are legal capacity. uh how
1:59does a state build its capability to uh
2:04establish the rule of law to regulate
2:06and to um provide basic marketup
2:09supporting institutions.
2:11And then the third dimension of fisc of
2:14of state capacity is collective
2:16capacity. How do states come to be able
2:19to do things like social provision of
2:22healthcare and education but also build
2:24infrastructure? So in a nutshell, the
2:27idea of state capacity is really that um
2:30states need competence to do what we
2:33want them to do and the study of state
2:36capacity is about those core competences
2:38and how they arise.
2:42I'm going to talk a little bit about
2:43political violence. Um you'll see later
2:46why I think that fits into this bigger
2:49picture. So I called this the the this
2:51lecture state capacity
2:54uh um uh conflict and development
2:57because I want to get into a little bit
2:59how ideas of state competence fit into
3:03our understanding of um of of peace and
3:07the maintenance of peace as a uh a way
3:10of promoting development. Um and I just
3:13want to put before you that when we
3:15think about what the term political
3:17violence means, it has two meanings. One
3:20I think is more common and that's to say
3:23um uh um not in civil war. So there are
3:27not within a territory groups are not
3:30contesting power using violent means. Um
3:34and uh so that's uh the absence of civil
3:37war is of course peace. But the other
3:39and and I think and I'll come to this
3:41later where this fits into the story is
3:44not using repressive means to stay in
3:47power. So no no covert use of violence
3:50to entrench power. Uh and you'll see as
3:53I go where why I think that topics of
3:57state capacity and and the and and
3:59fighting political violence go together.
4:03So why does state capacity matter? it it
4:05matters because the state is so central
4:08in promoting economic development. I
4:10think it would be hard to argue against
4:12that proposition. Even the idea that the
4:14state stays out of the economy requires
4:17state capacity because when I say the
4:19state stays out of the economy then if
4:22you're going to have an effective
4:23functioning market economy which is not
4:26um where the state steps aside you still
4:29need to support markets through legal
4:31systems through contract enforcement and
4:33other such things. Um raising taxes is a
4:38big challenge for states um in order to
4:40be able to spend on stuff like
4:42infrastructure and public programs and
4:45also um providing vital public goods is
4:48a key element of what states do. Um and
4:52I would argue that transformations in
4:54the operation of the state are key to
4:57understanding the process of economic
4:59development. So we are at
5:01[clears throat]
5:03in studying this topic. I think we're in
5:05studying an important topic which allows
5:08us to think about the sources of the
5:10wealth and uh and poverty of nations.
5:14So why am I talking about this in the
5:16context of a course on political
5:18economy? Um because these issues are
5:21inescapably political economy issues.
5:25Why? because we need to put front and
5:28center in this agenda the study of how
5:31states actually make decisions. Um
5:34because unless we can understand how
5:36states make decisions, we can't get it
5:38much insight into how they build state
5:41capacity and how they achieve um uh uh
5:44peace and how they respond to or
5:47orchestrate political violence. So I
5:50would argue these are very central
5:52political economy topics.
5:55Um why does political violence matter?
5:57Well, I think at some level
5:59intrinsically it matters because uh
6:02political violence is a huge source of
6:04human suffering. So right there and
6:06there, right there and directly it
6:08matters but it also matters for
6:09instrumental reasons because it's often
6:12both a symptom and a cause of state
6:14dysfunction. Um so state fragility uh as
6:19we talk about it is often really due to
6:22endemic political violence particularly
6:25conflict
6:26um and that has a direct consequences
6:29for incentives to invest in physical and
6:31human capital. So these are I I would
6:34argue very quite important issues.
6:37There's going to be five main messages
6:40uh in what I want to talk about in this
6:42presentation. Um the first is that we
6:45need to have a a historical perspective
6:48at least what we understand could be
6:50wellinformed. I know in an earlier
6:52lecture you you had some discussion of
6:55critical junctures in historical
6:56perspective. Uh and to some extent this
6:59lecture will feed into that or I think
7:01it'll take a somewhat different view and
7:04not different view not contrary view but
7:06just a complimentary view. Um and uh and
7:11that's because to come to my second
7:13bullet point, state capacities are not
7:16static. Um they evolve. They are still
7:19evolving. Um if I I probably mentioned
7:22this later in the lecture, but if you
7:24think about artificial intelligence and
7:26its consequences, that will require
7:29states to respond and build new
7:31capacities to deal with the consequences
7:33of artificial intelligence. So this is a
7:36this is a dynamic project a project with
7:39ever ongoing challenges.
7:42The third message is that political
7:43violence is indogenous and linked to
7:45state development. So we have to study
7:48those two together. Uh a fourth message
7:51is that culture, norms and values matter
7:54and are part of the dynamics that we
7:56need to study. Um and we need to study
7:59an we need an integrated understanding
8:01of how institutions, culture, norms and
8:03values interact. And then finally that
8:06political economy is key. Uh
8:08understanding state intervention means
8:11studying how governments behave. Let me
8:14begin with a a quote. Uh I I wager given
8:18the ages of pretty much everyone online,
8:21you probably don't even remember who GAL
8:23is or was. uh he was actually a Nobel
8:26laureate who won the Nobel Prize in the
8:29same year as Friedrich Hayek and it was
8:32something of a kind of balanced ticket
8:34since Murdal was more considered a an
8:36economist of the left and Hayek more of
8:38an economist of the right. Um but Murdal
8:42wrote a lot about the processes of
8:44economic development with a political
8:46economy lens. Um and I I often like to
8:49put this quote up. It was actually a
8:51quote from an article he wrote in the
8:52year he won the Nobel Prize. Um, and um,
8:56I I like I like his way of thinking in
9:00part because it's kind of a he he he
9:04created or I don't know if he invented
9:05but he certainly promoted the idea of
9:07what he called causal circular
9:09causation. The idea that there's lots of
9:12important feedback loops in the process
9:15of economic development and and those
9:18feedback loops are often between
9:20politics and economics. Um and that what
9:24we mean by development is not just even
9:27just an economic concept. It's a process
9:29of dynamic evolving processes that if
9:33they work in in in a in a um positive
9:37way are self-reinforcing towards
9:39outcomes that we think are valuable. But
9:42if they work in a negative way, they're
9:44mutually reinforcing
9:46and um spirals downwards or at least
9:49impediments to process. Um so I like to
9:54give him a bit of credit because I think
9:56to to to a significant extent um
9:59Merdall's thinking is what we're
10:01bringing to life in in some of the
10:03discussion I'm talking about today. But
10:05it's also important because I think
10:07quite a lot of economics has become very
10:09kind of in in the way it frames issues
10:12is monocausal. If we can only fix X, we
10:15get Y. Forgetting that perhaps even if
10:19you can get some positive benefit from X
10:22on Y. Uh often the the dynamic benefits
10:26come from putting you on a different
10:27dynamic path rather than just the
10:30immediate benefits that you can get. So
10:32it's I think it's an important antidote
10:35to some ways of thinking uh in in some
10:38of the development debate and
10:40discussions.
10:42Okay. Um what I'm going to talk about
10:45today kind of ties together different
10:46research programs. Um and um uh I'm
10:50going to begin with the idea of
10:52clustering uh as a kind of motivational
10:55device and a way of thinking about um
10:58multi-way causation.
11:01Um so if we look at across the world
11:04what we see and and you'll be familiar
11:06with this are different levels of
11:09effectiveness of states I'll talk about
11:10measurement in a moment. Um we see some
11:14countries that are relatively peaceful
11:16some in conflict some in endemic
11:18repression. Um we also see high and low
11:21income uh and uh those things are
11:24clustered. Um, in other words, there are
11:27countries
11:29um that have uh peace um high levels of
11:33state capacity, high income, and other
11:36countries that have less of all of
11:39those. And this clustering, I think, is
11:41interesting and a challenge, and it's
11:43why I want to link it back to Murdo
11:44because I think he was trying to
11:46articulate that you would expect these
11:48tide of interdependences.
11:51Um so so if we think about just three
11:53concrete examples income uh high income
11:57is both a cause and a consequence
12:03uh that violence and state capacity
12:05cause each otherally
12:09interdependent way and often those
12:13reflect on background variables. So,
12:15it's a bit of a mess, I guess you could
12:18say, in in a sort of negative way that
12:20you've got all of these complex
12:21interdependent factors. And our job as
12:24uh economists uh or political economists
12:27is to try and provide frameworks that
12:29will enable us to think about this
12:31concretely and sort out some of the
12:33complexity. Um we'll never, you know, by
12:36definition a model cannot be uh
12:38something that that that is as complex
12:40as reality, otherwise it's not a useful
12:42model. But the question is what models
12:44and what ideas we can bring to try and
12:46sort out our thinking on this. So here's
12:49one way of looking at clustering. Um we
12:52have a measure and I'll just briefly say
12:54what it is of of state capacity is
12:57essentially an amalgam of the three
12:58dimensions that I mentioned to you. The
13:01capacity of the state to tax some
13:03measures of enforcement effective
13:05enforcement of property rights and
13:07measures of effective delivery of public
13:09services. Okay? I mean you'll have to
13:11take on trust that I've got measures of
13:13th those things. I also have something
13:15we call our peace index which is a
13:18combination of uh absence of repression
13:21and absence of civil conflict. So that's
13:24measured on the proportion of years over
13:26a certain time period for which you've
13:28been in a state of peace or conflict of
13:30different kinds or or repression.
13:33And one piece of clustering, I'm going
13:36to come back to clustering later, but
13:37one piece of clustering that's very
13:38clear is the red dots in the top right
13:41hand corner of this picture, which
13:43suggests there's a bunch of countries
13:45that have high state capacities and high
13:47levels of peace. It's a bit more messy
13:50in the middle ground. The middle inome
13:52countries are a little bit spread out uh
13:54and the low-inccome countries too are a
13:56little bit spread out. But some elements
13:58of clustering are immediately apparent
14:00from this. But I'm going to show you in
14:01a minute a bit more formal definition of
14:03clustering using a machine learning
14:05algorithm to look at clustering rather
14:08than just relying on staring at a
14:10picture and trying to see what it says.
14:12So here's in in a nutshell the view that
14:15I want you to to to put in your head for
14:17what how to think about this and then I
14:19want to put some economic modeling
14:21structure around it. Here's the kind of
14:24um the uh the diagram um that the key to
14:29understanding how a state can build its
14:31state capacities is at least getting to
14:34some state of common interest, some
14:36state of belief that the state has
14:39priorities that are fairly commonly
14:41shared across the polity. Um and uh that
14:46that's a product both of how
14:48institutions work particularly how how
14:50can institutions create that possibility
14:53of common interest but also how things
14:56like norms and values can support that.
14:58Is there a sense of obligation to others
15:01or are people very individualistic in
15:03the way they view their um obligations?
15:07If you have common interests it it
15:09facilitates building state capacities.
15:11If you have state capacities that allows
15:14you to have better economic policies and
15:17they underpin peace and prosperity and
15:20my um paying more than lip service I say
15:23taking inspiration from Murdal I'm
15:26drawing you a kind of picture of
15:28circular causation with feedback effects
15:31onto institutions norms and values and
15:34that you might expect that to be a kind
15:36of process of circular causation across
15:39those things. So that's the basic story
15:41and I want to think about ways to
15:43formalize this in economic terms and and
15:46think about how we can use it to go to
15:48the data uh as well. Um so I'm going to
15:52begin with the historical dimension and
15:54then kind of work forward if you like.
15:56Um I want to ask the question how did we
15:59get to where we are now and how stable
16:01is the pattern that we see? uh and I'm
16:05going to try and u um at least if you
16:08need it and you may not uh convince you
16:10that that the historical perspective
16:13really throws up some important
16:14challenges and questions. Um but of
16:18course the more we go back in history
16:20the harder it is to do measurement. You
16:22know we have much better measurement
16:23frameworks for things that are happening
16:25more recently than we do in the past. So
16:27it's always a challenge to do
16:29measurement in the past. Uh but I'm
16:31going to come up with some a couple of
16:33illustrations to motivate the historical
16:35perspective. And here's two. The left
16:38hand side one um is for uh the 20th
16:41century and for taxation only. And it's
16:44it's a fairly random set of countries.
16:47What gets you into this data set is just
16:49that I have reliable data for most of
16:52the 20th century for this group of
16:54countries. It's not because I believe
16:56this set of countries is a particularly
16:57representative country set of countries
17:00for any particular purpose. But what it
17:03does is to look at the story of taxation
17:05of the 20th century. Um and to motivate
17:09this I want to uh I mention an article
17:12that led us that had a strong impression
17:14on me by Joseph Schumpeter who you'll
17:16have heard of perhaps more because of
17:18his theory of trade of destruction than
17:20his work on taxation. But he wrote an
17:23article in the early 19th c early 20th
17:25century sorry I think it was 1915 called
17:29the crisis of the tax state and what's
17:32significant about that is he this was a
17:35period in which and you can see it from
17:38this chart uh it would it was relatively
17:42common for countries to raise
17:4610 12 15% of GDP in the form of
17:49taxation. Now there are countries today
17:51that are still only raising 10 12 15% of
17:54GDP. But what Shumpeta thought was that
17:57that was a crisis level of taxation. But
18:01then the picture shows you what happened
18:02in the 20th century.
18:05um that effectively that was a century
18:08in which states a number of states moved
18:10from raising only 10 or 12% of taxation
18:13in GDP in some cases to raising 30 and
18:1740% of taxation in GDP a change over a
18:21century. Now a century might seem like a
18:23long time given our lifespans but
18:25actually in the history of of the world
18:28it's a very short period and it really
18:30was a transform transformative period in
18:33the state. How did that happen? That
18:36happened by creating new tax bases
18:39principally things like income taxes and
18:40broad-based property property and um and
18:45consumption taxes. But the state moved
18:47from a position of being effectively
18:50being very ineffective at raising taxes
18:52to in some cases not all cases raising
18:55very significant amounts of tax revenue.
18:58So that transformation is something we
19:00want to understand what how did that
19:02happen? Um was it just a corollery of
19:05economic development? Was it just that
19:07there was technological change in the
19:0920th century and that just meant that
19:11taxes got raised because of
19:13technological change in the economy or
19:15were was this a deeper story about say
19:18the nature of institutions the advent of
19:20democracy
19:22um the creation of other institutions
19:25for tax setting what was going on here's
19:28another picture which is for this this
19:31just uh um looks at the information
19:34capacity of the state now this is kind
19:36interesting. I'm not going to get too
19:38into this now. This is sort of
19:40interesting when we think about the
19:43recent discussions of privacy and the
19:45state and what the state might be doing
19:47in future. But looking in the past,
19:50states used to know very very little
19:52about their citizens. Some states still
19:55know very very little about their
19:57citizens. Um but effectively and this is
20:00a 200-year period not even 100 years we
20:03moved from a situation where states
20:05created censuses, civil registers,
20:08population registers, they created
20:11statistical agencies so that they
20:14developed the capacity to measure stuff
20:17about what was going on there economy
20:19which would have been un uh unimaginable
20:22early on. Um and this shows again it's a
20:27dynamic picture and I mean if you look
20:30at pictures like this and think well
20:31what's going on what were the drivers of
20:33this was it just some crude corollery of
20:35economic development or was something
20:37deeper going on about the way that state
20:40and society were interacting. So this is
20:44kind of uh what I want you to think
20:45about. I'm going to skip that because I
20:47want to kind of move on.
20:49So what do we think are the building
20:51blocks of these changes? There's sort of
20:53two broad candidates apart from just the
20:56pure economics and I will I don't want
20:59to be accused of just putting the
21:00economics too much in the background but
21:02I actually want to focus on what I want
21:04to put in the foreground and the two
21:05things I want to put in the foreground
21:07are changes in political institutions
21:10and shifts in values and norms. Um, so
21:13it's not that I don't believe that, you
21:15know, the fact that we uh created the
21:18internal combustion engine and we did
21:20all these other things that changed the
21:22economy was unimportant.
21:24Uh, I just don't I don't believe well
21:27implicitly by putting it in the
21:28background, I don't believe those that's
21:30the big story. But you can challenge me
21:32in the Q&A if you think I'm just sort of
21:35being uh insufficiently attentive to
21:37those forces. Instead, I want to focus
21:39on these two things, political
21:40institutions. And I'm going to argue
21:43that the key political institutional
21:45change that we should be paying
21:47attention to, and I'm going to give you
21:49the theory behind this a little later,
21:51is fundamentally about changes in
21:54constraints on executive power. What do
21:56I mean by constraints on executive
21:58power? I mean things that constrain what
22:01people who are put in positions of power
22:04are able to do. Um, how do we constrain
22:07them? We constrain them by making them
22:09beholden to legislative
22:12um uh constraints. So that um if you
22:16want to get a particular policy change
22:19through, you have to put that to a vote
22:21of a legislature and the legislature has
22:23to agree to pass that. So that would be
22:25a legislative constraint. The other is
22:27you may have to answer to your public
22:30through public scrutiny say promoted by
22:32free media. And a third is that in many
22:35countries with constitutional
22:37constraints, you have to persuade the
22:39judiciary that that whatever you're
22:41doing is consistent with the
22:43constitution. And that's proven in some
22:46cases and over some points in history to
22:48be a very important force in what people
22:51can do with power. And you you those of
22:53you who've been following the media in
22:55recent times will will know that um
22:58Donald Trump was just dealt a blow to
23:00some of his ambitions by the Supreme
23:02Court which turned back some of his
23:04policies and that's been a a story
23:06throughout his tenure. So so this is not
23:09um this is not a fiction. This is
23:11something that happens in certain kinds
23:13of political systems on a regular basis.
23:16Why is this important? Well, the basic
23:18story I want to tell which has can can
23:21be developed in a theoretical framework
23:23of dynamic investment incentives which
23:25I'll come to is um we the the real
23:30challenge of um of political incentives
23:33is how you can have openness of access
23:35to power. So can you have that people
23:39can contest power without creating just
23:42short-term incentives? That's the big
23:44challenge because if you allow people to
23:47contest power, you won't let them hold
23:49power typically for a very long period
23:52of time. And that sounds like a recipe
23:54for disaster because a lot of times we
23:57really need long-term investment uh
23:59incentives. And so, how do we square
24:03allowing turnover of power with limiting
24:06short- termism? And I'm going to argue
24:07that that the the answer is having
24:09strong executive constraints. That's
24:11going to be my answer to that. and my
24:13answer to why states have managed to
24:16develop strong state capacities
24:19even in the context of relatively open
24:21political systems. Um, and I will argue
24:24that they give the strong incentives to
24:27build common interests. The other is
24:29values and norms creating an environment
24:31in which citizens recognize mutual
24:34obligations and respect things like
24:35democratic norms. And for that again
24:38having executive constraints is sup
24:41super important.
24:43Um the same things if you say what are
24:46the building blocks of political
24:47violence or reducing political violence
24:49they're the same things effectively
24:50they're political institutions that that
24:53that restrain political uh authority of
24:56incumbents uh and also uh values and
24:59norms that citizens accept peaceful
25:01transitions of power.
25:03Okay. So let me before I get into what I
25:06think is the right way to think about
25:08this from a conceptual perspective, let
25:11me talk about um a bit of a global
25:14picture about what what we see. Um and
25:17and the thing uh that one has to bear in
25:20mind and it's kind of obvious but I'll
25:22say it anyway uh is that many states
25:26have not created enabling environments
25:28for building state capacity. It's a very
25:31very mixed picture. some have. So, you
25:34know, let's take everyone's favorite
25:36example like might be Denmark. Denmark
25:38looks to have done pretty well. It's
25:40built one of the most successful states
25:42in the world. Um uh but equally, and I'm
25:46not going to name names here because I
25:48don't want to people to feel that I've
25:50singled out particular states, but you
25:52will when you think about it, you'll
25:54have your own example in mind of
25:56countries that have failed to develop a
25:59Denmark style set of state capacities.
26:02Let me just say it that way. Um, and
26:06equally there are states that have
26:07failed to create uh internal uh uh peace
26:11that rely on state repression and are
26:14susceptible to political violence and
26:16conflict and uh where um institutions
26:20encourage short- termism. Now, some of
26:23those are just historical legacies and
26:24there's a big debate about that. To what
26:27extent has if if if history has dealt
26:30you a kind of bad starting point, could
26:34be postc colonial things, it could be
26:38patterns of conflict, polarizing
26:40cultural and social identities,
26:42inequalities. These are things that may
26:44be historically determined and and and
26:48of course some of those may be
26:50detrimental to building the kind of
26:52effective states that I've talked about.
26:54Uh, but it's not inevitable. I think I I
26:58would I would be really um I would push
27:00against and again feel free we can have
27:02a discussion in the Q&A but I would push
27:05against the idea of some kind of
27:07historical determinism that you can't
27:09overcome constraints and I can cite
27:12examples of countries with um which I
27:15think are counterex examples to the idea
27:17of historical determinism
27:19um uh if if you want. Um the other thing
27:24is say there can be states that subject
27:26more or less subject to what you might
27:27call difficult economics unhelpful
27:30shocks to their economy maybe due to
27:33natural disasters and other things. So
27:35I'm not saying that there are not
27:37exogenous factors that are super
27:40important in potentially affecting the
27:42circumstances in which you can try and
27:44build state capacities.
27:47This is just a a geog [clears throat]
27:50a shading picture. The darker colors are
27:52weaker state capacities, more political
27:55violence, and the lighter colors are
27:57countries with less just to illustrate
27:59the point. There is historical
28:00variation.
28:02Okay. So here's the basic story that I
28:04want to I want to motivate uh and and I
28:07will talk about in the remainder of the
28:08lecture that that in work I've done on
28:11this which I began um how long ago now
28:14almost 20 years ago with Torston Pearson
28:17um we came up with a really quite crazy
28:20idea. So I'm going to try and convince
28:22you that our crazy idea isn't as crazy
28:25as you might think when you first see
28:26it. Um we we and we argued this from
28:30first principles. There was no empirics
28:32in what I'm going to show you so far.
28:34The empirics came way later. We argued
28:37that if you think about the world, there
28:39are essentially three kinds of states
28:41that have emerged in human history. Uh
28:44and this was a purely theoretical
28:46proposition when we thought about
28:48incentives to invest in state capacity
28:50and diminish political violence. One set
28:52of states to which we said there could
28:55be convergence is what we call common
28:57interest states. Common interest states
28:59have two key characteristics. They're
29:02peaceful and they have strong state
29:04capacities in all dimensions. Then we
29:07said there's another set of states which
29:09we called special interest states that
29:12rely on repression of some form to stay
29:15in power but they build state capacities
29:19because that repression enables a more
29:21long-term perspective to be taken. And
29:24then finally there are the weak states.
29:26The weak states are perpetually
29:27conflictual. They never even achieve
29:29political stability of power. Not even
29:32the possibility of repression and they
29:35tend to have weak state capacities
29:36because they create very unprepitious
29:39investment climates for developing the
29:41state. So that was our idea and I'm
29:44going to later give you the the
29:45theoretical underpinnings that led us to
29:47that conclusion.
29:49But sometime later we thought well let's
29:51have a look at the data using machine
29:53learning. So what we asked the computer
29:56to do was to take a set of dimensions
29:59that we thought represented state
30:01capacities, peace and income and to sort
30:05countries
30:06according to a kclustering
30:09um approach. So for those of you who
30:11know I mean this is old hat now nobody
30:14talks about machine learning anymore
30:15because it's all been overtaken. We
30:17haven't yet tried to do this with an LLM
30:20uh in a more sophisticated way, but we
30:22just took a very classical clustering
30:24algorithm and said
30:27here's some dimensions of state
30:29difference across countries and we had
30:3164 countries in our sample and the data
30:34and and and first of all what are the
30:36key dimensions and the the the one thing
30:39you find
30:42if you just do prop analysis of these
30:44indicators is essentially that to two
30:46dimension
30:49across countries. One of those
30:52dimensions see
30:54repression and the other dimension seems
30:56to be state capacity and income. Uh and
31:00and that's something the data come out
31:02with quite clearly. Having got the
31:05principal components, we then designed
31:07an algorithm not very complicated. I
31:09don't want to pretend this is this is
31:11complex stuff to sort countries
31:14according to clusters.
31:16uh and this is what we get. Um uh and um
31:21effectively the data and I promised you
31:23we didn't we didn't force this on the
31:25data. This is the data forced it on us.
31:27Um there are essentially three groups of
31:29countries. And you can guess what I'm
31:32going to call the three groups. I'm
31:33going to call them common interest
31:34states, special interest states, and
31:36weak states. At this point, everybody
31:38strains to spot whichever country they
31:40come from or they care about to see
31:43which of the colors uh blobs they belong
31:46to. Um, one thing you'll notice and this
31:49is again evidence of clustering that
31:51easily the most compact cluster is the
31:53common interest states which have low
31:56levels of political violence and high
31:58levels of of state capacity and income.
32:01the other clusters are are less
32:03distinct, but China in particular in the
32:05blue cluster um makes it much look much
32:09more dispersed because actually it's a
32:11bit of an outlier. What in what sense is
32:13an outlier? It relies on very high
32:15levels of repression and has middling
32:17levels of state capacity um depending on
32:20the on the standard measures and then
32:22you get the weak states up in in the
32:24top. Um and uh one thing we've looked at
32:29and this is hard to do uh over time
32:32because data is just not available is
32:34how stable are these clusters. That's an
32:37interesting question. Um I'll come back
32:41to the previous because I do want to
32:42show that in a minute. But we we
32:44measured these clusters in in 1990 and
32:472016. And as you can see, pretty much
32:50all countries are on the diagonal,
32:53saying that if you were in the common
32:54interest cluster in 1990, you're almost
32:58certainly going to be in the common
33:00interest cluster in uh 2016. Uh over
33:05that 25 years, there's almost no
33:07movement across clusters. So these are
33:10very stable at least over a quarter of a
33:12century. I mean it'd be very interesting
33:14if you could measure it to look over a
33:16longer time horizon. The other
33:18interesting thing that we did was to
33:20look at um we took the Gallup world poll
33:23which some of you will be familiar with
33:25and um looked at the correlation between
33:28which of the clusters you you belong to
33:32and the average level of life
33:33satisfaction. We took 2019. It wouldn't
33:35have made much difference whichever year
33:37we took. So higher levels of life
33:40satisfaction on average among your
33:42citizens and you see although the fit is
33:45you know a bit noisy as you might expect
33:48um there's a very clear positive
33:50correlation between being in the in the
33:53common interest cluster and well-being
33:55of your citizens measured by this life
33:57satisfaction measure. So, you know,
34:00again, this is not causal, and I
34:02wouldn't claim for a minute we've
34:03causally proven that state capacity is a
34:07key element of high levels of life
34:09satisfaction. I think it's all pretty
34:11suggestive. I Yeah, personally, I if we
34:14if we could sit down and have a good
34:16discussion for an hour, I would hope to
34:18persuade you that there are elements of
34:19this that uh although I can't prove it
34:22by standard causal means are likely to
34:24be causal. But that's that that's let me
34:27set that to one side.
34:29Okay. In what sense do institutions make
34:32a difference to this story? So some of
34:34you will be familiar with the work of
34:35Esimoglu Johnson and Robinson. Maybe
34:37that's already come up in some of your
34:39lectures which uh really said the big
34:42difference across countries is about the
34:44nature of the institutions that they
34:46have and they um they come up with two
34:49classifications one which they call
34:51inclusive and one which they call
34:52extractive. I want to invite you to
34:54think a slightly different way about it
34:56than than than than Jim and Darren do in
34:59their work. Um, I want you to I want you
35:02to think a little bit about democracy to
35:05begin with. They don't they don't
35:07naturally identify the difference
35:08between the two as about democracy.
35:10That's too narrow a way of thinking. But
35:12I want you to think about the following.
35:14There are essentially two kinds of
35:16institutions that really matter when it
35:18comes to political institutions and the
35:20incentives they create. I've already
35:22talked about one of them which is
35:23constraints on executive authority. To
35:26what extent do people who take power are
35:29they beholden to different constraints
35:31on the way they can use that power
35:33through either um uh the power imposed
35:36on them by the judiciary or the
35:38legislatures or to what extent can they
35:41hold power relatively free from
35:43constraints. That's the that dimension.
35:47uh and it turns out that standard data
35:49sets this is poly 4 but most people use
35:51something called VDM these days but I
35:53can tell you VDM and polity 4 look very
35:55similar on this is there's been much
35:58less progress in human history on that
36:00dimension compared to the other
36:02dimension what's the other dimension
36:04which is openness of access to power so
36:07you know how easily can you contest
36:10power can you stand as a uh as a as a as
36:14a candidate to displace the ruling elite
36:17um through say some open contest like an
36:20election. Uh can people vote for you in
36:23that election? Are the relatively um is
36:25the relatively extensive franchise? And
36:28that's the openness of access to power.
36:30Both of those have gone up. So this
36:32chart goes back 200 years or more and
36:35says one of the big stories of human
36:37history over this period has been
36:39increases in open access to power. In my
36:42country, if you gone back to the the
36:4519th century, aristocrats held a lot of
36:48power. Uh it was very hard to contest
36:50that because you had to be a member of
36:52something called the House of Lords in
36:54order to have political power. Um so it
36:57was largely hereditary power and over
36:59the history of that of my country,
37:02hereditary power has been diminished
37:04relative to electoral power with open
37:06access and contest for power. Um so
37:09that's the story of openness and other
37:11countries have been through their own
37:12paths uh of movement away from systems
37:15that were very closed uh access systems
37:18to more more open access systems.
37:22So if we correlate which of these
37:24dimensions really matters uh and again
37:28this is just correlational evidence what
37:30you see is there's basically no
37:33correlation between being in one of
37:34those clusters that I showed you and
37:38whether you have open access to power.
37:40Essentially it's pretty much flat.
37:43But what you observe is a big difference
37:46between um the the the proportion of
37:49years when you've had strong executive
37:50constraints and being in the common
37:53interest uh states cluster versus the
37:56special interest states versus the weak
37:58states. So our theor theory uh that I'm
38:02going to talk about in a minute is re is
38:04really trying to make sense of why you
38:06would see um these type of empirical
38:09patterns. So in the work I did with
38:12Torston on this, it was a kind of fun
38:14project to do partly because we were
38:16constantly going back and forth between
38:18theory and measurement. Some of what we
38:21did was just entirely first principles.
38:23What would the theory say? And then we
38:26would ask ourselves, okay, if that's
38:27what the theory says, are the things in
38:30in the theory you can measure? Now, we
38:33didn't argue that you could get causal
38:35identification, but that you could look
38:37at patterns in the data for consistency
38:39at least with the theory. And uh part of
38:42what we were doing would be this type of
38:44picture here. Okay. So, I'm going to
38:47talk now and for the remainder of my
38:49time about two different approaches to
38:52understanding state capacity, where it
38:54comes from. And the first approach was
38:57um in some ways the most sort of
38:58boneheadedly economic approach you could
39:01take to this. I would argue um and was
39:04the focus of my early work with Torston.
39:06We published a book called Pillars of
39:08Prosperity. If you're interested, I
39:10think I put it on the reading list if
39:11you want to look at how we developed
39:13this. And that book, by the way, was
39:15mostly thorough. There was empirical
39:17illustration, but it's mostly theory.
39:20But since then, and that book was
39:22published now almost four 15 years ago.
39:25Since then, I got a lot more interested
39:26and I'll spend a bit of time on this uh
39:28in a moment in in a what you might call
39:31a more sort of sociological approach to
39:33these ideas, but I think can be
39:36encompassed within economics of thinking
39:39about this as not just about um kind of
39:42investment in the traditional economic
39:44sense, but also the dynamics of values
39:47and norms. Um and I the paper I put on
39:51the reading list which came out in
39:52economet a journal called econometrica
39:54in 2020 was an attempt to make
39:56theoretical sense of approach to
40:00if you go to if you really want to
40:02impress your friends and tell them how
40:04erodite you are and how much you know
40:05political philosophy there are two
40:07parallel tracks in the polit political
40:09philosophy literature that mirror these
40:11two different views. Um, one view from
40:15political philosophy is in order to
40:16establish social order. And this goes
40:18back to Thomas Hobbes who wrote a famous
40:20book called Leviathan was essentially
40:22the only way the state can function is
40:25by not by not by monopolizing coercion
40:29and developing the power to coers its
40:31citizens. So the basic story is that
40:35state capacity is about stated driven
40:38coercive power. You need a state that
40:41can basically tell people what to do,
40:44pay your taxes, obey the law. Um, uh,
40:48are the key underpinnings of, uh, state
40:51capacity. There's another tradition in
40:54political philosophy which says no, um,
40:57the state evolves like a social contract
41:00with voluntary participation. People
41:02give up things in order to have the
41:04state do them on their behalf. And that
41:07goes back to Rouso and other uh thinkers
41:10who said, "No, it's not about a
41:12leviathan, a coercive state that bosses
41:16people around. It's actually about
41:19developing a mutual uh obligation
41:23between the state and society. So you
41:25could you could ground it in that. I I
41:28will argue these approaches are not
41:30substitutes, but they're actually
41:31compliments. They actually work together
41:33rather than work against each other. So
41:35I don't think we have to choose between
41:37which of those visions uh is the most
41:39relevant vision. I think they actually
41:42give us the same broad picture. But I'll
41:44have to spend a few minutes that I have
41:46trying to persuade you that there really
41:48is no conflict. Okay. Um how do you
41:52think about state capacities as coercive
41:55power? Well, just think of them as like
41:57investments.
41:59The state invests in tangible things
42:01like infrastructure
42:03uh bridges, roads, the kind of stuff
42:05that we would model in standard models
42:07of investment but it also invests in its
42:10own capacities. It invests in
42:14h building regulatory bodies. It built
42:16it invests in courts. I mean not just
42:19the bricks and mortar investments of
42:21courts. You know you have to build
42:22courts which are physical buildings but
42:24you have to train the judiciary. You
42:27have to train people to work within
42:30those courts. You have to pass laws that
42:32will be adjudicated in those courts. Um,
42:36so these things become investments that
42:38the state does and you can think of your
42:40own tangible versions of of those. Um,
42:44I'm going to skip that and and and and
42:47um uh uh and and and and talk about that
42:51investment model. Um so um
42:57if we think about why states don't build
42:59um state capacity then that essentially
43:03that's going to be a story of
43:04unfavorable investment incentives. When
43:08will states create favorable investment
43:10incentives and when will they create
43:11unfavorable investment incentives? So
43:14just as we would might model it even for
43:15a firm, when does a firm have favorable
43:18and unfavorable investment incentives?
43:20And we argue that the things that create
43:23favorable investment incentives are um
43:27um uh actually I've done the the the
43:30unfavorable here. Uh so I'll put flip it
43:33around and say institutions that create
43:36broad-based coalitions of common
43:39interest. and and in if you look at the
43:42historical sociological literature that
43:44started us on this journey the one thing
43:47that comes out of that repeatedly is um
43:50external conflict. So a lot of the
43:53earlier literature on early literature
43:55on state capacity emphasized the
43:57importance of warfare
44:00uh as a driver of state capacity.
44:03Um because they the argument was the
44:06biggest common interest you can face is
44:09a threat from an external enemy such
44:12that if you do not organize your state
44:15effectively you're going to be overrun
44:18by a rival state and uh Charles Tilly
44:22who developed this argument he was a
44:24historical sociologist applied it to
44:27early modern Europe and said the reason
44:30why state development in the modern
44:32sense began began in early modern Europe
44:35with state rivalry. Essentially, states
44:39rivaled each other for control of
44:40territory that put at a premium building
44:44armies, raising tax revenue to support
44:47those armies, building an economy so you
44:50would have tax revenue to support those
44:53armies. That those things were the
44:55ultimate common interest driver that
44:58drove the capacity of the state.
45:01Um so it gave very strong incentives for
45:04states to start building and investing
45:07in themselves to create the forces that
45:10would enable them to defeat com defeat
45:15enemies in particular. Um uh and um
45:21there are two kinds of investments that
45:23that matter. Um one are hard investments
45:26as I said some of these are bricks and
45:27mortar but others are intangible
45:29investments. So I don't know how
45:30familiar you are with the literature on
45:32intangible investment in firms. There's
45:34been a lot written about that recently.
45:36In other words, how do firms invest in
45:38software systems to improve their
45:40operations? Those are often called
45:42intangible investments because they
45:44don't show up in the traditional
45:45measures of capital accumulation. And so
45:48it is with states. What do states
45:50actually do to become more efficient and
45:52more effective? They're very often just
45:55how do we organize
45:57the state? How do we build um a system?
46:01Let me give you an example of tax
46:02collection. In tax collection, it's
46:05about how do we build a monitoring and
46:08compliance system such that our citizens
46:11actually pay the taxes that they're
46:13owed. Uh and that's an organizational
46:15problem as much as it is a bricks and
46:17mortar problem. It's not building more
46:20buildings. It's employing staff with a
46:22plan to actually go out there and uh
46:25engage in monitoring compliance. And you
46:27can write this down in a standard Oiler
46:29equation style uh model uh and and and
46:33look at the marginal costs and benefits
46:36with a forward-looking government
46:38thinking about if I invest in improving
46:40state capacities, will I reap the
46:43benefits of those investments? Well, if
46:45I know that there there's common
46:47interest that I'm doing it for the
46:49greater good, I will do it because I
46:52don't worry about if if I'm not in
46:54power, I'm not going to be take
46:55advantage of the investments that I
46:57made.
46:58But if I think I'm going to be out of
47:00power and someone else is going to
47:02either abuse those state capacities or
47:05not use them for common interests, then
47:08I'm not going to be as keen as built as
47:10as investing in those. So an an
47:12investment model can be created that
47:15that that's that studies this.
47:18Okay. So that's kind of one view that
47:20you can view this as an investment model
47:22which is what I did in my work with
47:24Torston in the book that I cited where
47:26we we just wrote down in a very
47:28boneheaded way and uh I could have spent
47:30this entire lecture going through that
47:33formal structure uh and I'd love to do
47:36that but I don't have time because I
47:37want to give you this overview but I'd
47:39be uh very happy to uh to point you in
47:41the direction of where you can see that
47:43and just build a dynamic investment
47:45model of how the state improve itself.
47:48uh and then think about the factors that
47:50would go into that. So I'm unfortunately
47:52I'm not doing that today, but I you know
47:55that that's what we do. But what I want
47:57to talk about now is this alternative
48:00view that that that I to kind of left
48:03out completely from our early work but
48:05now I believe is pretty important and I
48:07think the evidence and I'll talk towards
48:09the end about why I'm convinced by some
48:11of the more recent evidence that this is
48:12an important way of thinking.
48:17But what I want to talk about is is
48:19getting away from thinking of state
48:21compliance purely as coercion.
48:25So in our implicit view, we didn't we
48:28weren't as explicit because we weren't
48:29quite thinking about it, right? I think
48:31in our early work, but we were we we
48:33were implicitly thinking of the state
48:35getting the power to coers. So you pay
48:37your taxes because I will figure out if
48:40you haven't and I will punish you if you
48:42don't pay your taxes.
48:44um and uh equally if you don't obey the
48:46law I'm going to send a police force in
48:49to first of all find out who you are,
48:51what you're doing and so forth. So we
48:53had in mind I think a very a notion of a
48:56very coercive structure for the state
48:58through the investments that we were
49:00modeling [sighs]
49:02and that's kind of I would say the
49:03classic economic view. If you look at
49:05our models of principal agents, there is
49:08some stuff on incentives, which is more
49:10monetary incentives, but there's also
49:11stuff on carrots as well as sticks as
49:13well as carrots. But the classical
49:15economic view is you incentivize people.
49:18And incentivize people means material
49:20payoffs for doing things that are either
49:23right or wrong.
49:25But there's a very different view or not
49:27very different view but certainly a
49:29distinct view at least um that actually
49:32what what a better way to run an
49:35organization and actually if you talk to
49:37management consultants who would apply
49:38this in firms I'm going to apply it to
49:40states they would say build trust build
49:43people who see the world the same way
49:46and actually want to act in the interest
49:48of building the state don't coers them
49:51into do it but build a trust
49:52relationship
49:54Um, and I I'm going to call that term
49:57civic culture and I'm going to use the
49:59term norm of reciprocity to describe the
50:02relationship
50:06between and then this is something I'
50:08I've been developing in some more recent
50:10way actually
50:12develop in relation to looking at um
50:17policy but I'm going to just talk about
50:19capacity in this context now um and so
50:22on this you um compliance with the state
50:26is a kind of social norm. Um social
50:29norms can be belief based or
50:31values-based. It could be because
50:33because you believe that you you'll be
50:35the only person cheating and therefore
50:37you'll get punished informally or it
50:40could just be because you believe it's
50:41wrong to cheat because you've
50:42internalized values. It doesn't much
50:44matter. Again, I could do a whole
50:46lecture on social norms. You may have
50:48one as part of this course. I don't
50:50know.
50:52um reciprocity turns out to be a very
50:54powerful norm. Um even arguably um there
50:59are latent biological instincts. So
51:02Robert Trivvers, I don't know if you've
51:03ever read any of his work, he was an
51:05evolutionary biologist who studied bird
51:08populations and found very strong norms
51:11of reciprocity in bird populations that
51:14you know birds would punish other birds
51:16for not doing stuff in the greater good
51:19of the bird population.
51:21Um, but what I'm interested in is the
51:24possibility these are culturally learned
51:26uh things that we learn to be
51:28reciprocators or not reciprocators.
51:30We're probably born maybe with some
51:32latent biological instinct, but more
51:34likely than not, these are things that
51:36become culturally learned in different
51:38societies through our experiences,
51:40either interacting with the state or
51:42interacting with each other. And out of
51:46this
51:48this work and and it relates to a lot of
51:50other work that's been done now you can
51:52you can build models of cultural
51:54evolution
51:55um based on evolving social norms as the
51:59dynamics of the state basically the
52:01dynamics of the state so the idea and
52:05sorry and I should mention also I've got
52:06a bullet point on this here that I don't
52:08want to pass on is that people have
52:11found these things to be very powerful
52:13in lab experiments. So one thing you
52:15find in lab experiments is people are
52:17willing to punish others for violating a
52:20social norm even if it's costly to
52:23themselves. So there's no direct
52:25financial gain. They just get very upset
52:27with other people who break the norm.
52:29And even if you make it costly for them
52:31to punish, they often punish in the lab.
52:34Um and equally people will give rewards
52:37to others even if they don't have to.
52:39It's materially costly to themselves
52:41because they obey the law. So I want to
52:43apply this idea in the last 3 minutes
52:46that I have to how we think about the
52:48dynamics of state capacity in this in
52:50this world. I've got a random stray
52:53equation here which will mean nothing to
52:55you and but but basically what I what
52:58you what you can do I'll say no more
53:00than that is to write down a model of
53:03evolutionary change for reciprocity or
53:07values and norms
53:09um based on what I what what we call in
53:13that literature cultural fitness. So
53:15what's cultural fitness? Cultural
53:18fitness is that if I behave according to
53:21a particular cultural norm, to what
53:23extent will I get positive benefits
53:26either psychological or material by
53:28obeying that norm? And if I get
53:30psychological or material benefits, that
53:34will mean that norm becomes more
53:36attractive. And therefore, using a kind
53:39of model of cultural evolution, you can
53:41look at the dynamics of norms. And the
53:43bottom line is, and I'm going to I'm
53:45afraid go very fast on this, that you
53:46can create strate kind of feedback loops
53:49between strategic design and
53:51socialization that can give you kind of
53:55state dynamics that mirror the kinds of
53:57patterns we see in in in the data.
54:00Um, I'll end with one thing. Um, and by
54:04the way, I I should mention because she
54:07was so influential in my own research
54:08agenda, the work of Margaret Levy, whose
54:11book I put on the reading list, she's a
54:13political scientist and she wrote the
54:15book 35 maybe even 40 years ago. But uh
54:19when I discovered it, which was quite a
54:22lot later, I realized she'd been
54:24thinking about state development in a
54:26very different way where she said the
54:29the the very essence of state
54:30development is getting people to um uh
54:35to to to
54:37comply with the state as an act which
54:39she calls quai voluntary. So it's not
54:42fully voluntary. I have to have some
54:44sanctions that might emerge if I don't
54:47um cooperate with the state, but that um
54:51uh a lot of behavior is voluntary. So I
54:53went after I discovered Margaret's book,
54:55I went to the World Value Survey and
54:58discovered they have a question in the
54:59data which is is it justifiable to cheat
55:02on your taxes if you have a chance? Uh
55:06and and you can answer that on a
55:0710-point scale. you can introspect what
55:09your answer would be if uh if you were
55:11asked that question. But it turns out
55:14that about and this has been now
55:16answered over a large range of people
55:19across a range of countries. And what
55:21you find is about 63% of the population
55:25do not think that cheating on your taxes
55:27is justifiable. Now we can make of that
55:30what we will. Um but Margaret would say,
55:33"No, this is very good evidence that
55:35people see taxpaying as a as a um civic
55:40duty, not as something which requires
55:42entirely coercion." Uh and I always like
55:45at this point to point out some of the
55:47empirical patterns. It's increasing in
55:49income. You're more likely to think
55:50taxation is cheating is okay if you're
55:53high income, which kind of makes sense
55:55to an economist. It's decreasing in
55:57education age. But the one thing that
56:00comes out really strikingly, so all the
56:01all the all the men on the call should
56:03hang their heads in shame. It's much
56:05more likely that men are going to say
56:07it's okay to cheat on your taxes than
56:09women. Don't tell me why. Don't ask me
56:11why, but I'm just telling you an
56:12empirical fact. Uh but also
56:15interestingly, it's high it's correlated
56:17with lack of confidence in in
56:19government. Anyway, I'm I'm running out
56:21of time, so I'm going to kind of skip a
56:24bit of stuff I wanted to talk about,
56:26including some of the generational
56:28dynamics. Unfortunately, I prepared too
56:31much stuff. Um,
56:34okay. So, where I see so, a lot of the I
56:39hope you're going to get some of this in
56:41a later part of this course. um people
56:44are now going out. I'm kind of going a
56:46little off road here and away from the
56:48slides because I want to say a few
56:49things before I finish. Um that uh a lot
56:53of people now are going out and doing
56:54really creative field experiments in the
56:57area of understanding state capacity.
56:59It's where the current literature really
57:00is. I've given you an overview of some
57:03theory, some theory on social contracts,
57:06some theory on coercive investments and
57:08so forth. But what people are doing now
57:10and I think this is is pretty exciting
57:13and would be worthy of a lecture in its
57:15own right is thinking about how to test
57:17these ideas in field experiments.
57:21What are the kinds of things that you
57:22can do? Some are clearly you can imagine
57:24doing understanding the role of the
57:27coercive side of the state. Suppose you
57:29just make monitoring and compliance
57:31better. what are the returns to making
57:33monitoring and com monitoring compliance
57:35better in terms of raising tax revenue.
57:38So that would be you know just improving
57:41investments in the state in an
57:43organizational sense and there's work on
57:45that and of course there are returns to
57:46that so it won't surprise you but the
57:49other interesting thing turning to the
57:51more social contractarium view is people
57:54are also doing things that are about
57:55norms and values suppose I I can
57:59convince you that more of the money that
58:01the state raises is going to be spent on
58:04worthwhile public programs or that I can
58:06improve the honesty of people who manage
58:09public money reduce corruption is that a
58:12way of building state capacity because
58:14it invokes better and stronger social
58:16norms of reciprocity between state and
58:19citizen. So both of the two agendas I've
58:22in a rather breathless way gone through
58:24today have become the underpinnings of
58:26that really interesting micro focused
58:30field experiment literature. Um and so
58:34in a sense what I brought you to I've
58:36talked about history I've talked about
58:38two different ideas and some of the
58:40bigger picture but actually now this is
58:42fueling I think a much more exciting
58:45empirical research agenda which is
58:48saying well if this these ideas for
58:49building state capacity are right let's
58:51go out and test them and so far you know
58:54I can think of uh the work of Jonathan
58:56Wel for example which has been very
58:58influential on me which is work in the
59:01DRC in the democratic republic of Congo
59:03which he's got a whole series of
59:05projects on a kind of micro state
59:07capacity but he's not the only one there
59:09are a whole number of younger people who
59:11are doing that and I think it's very
59:12exciting but what I've tried to give you
59:15is why people have been led to that
59:17agenda kind of what was the thinking
59:20both theoretical and big picture
59:22empirical that has I think fueled that
59:25very very interesting agenda um what's
59:28hard to do um even if you do really
59:32creative ative experiments is to get
59:34into the real dynamics. That's a big
59:37challenge for us because you can study
59:39things that you can do across an
59:41experimental time period. Of course, you
59:43can study you can take a community, you
59:46can do a field experiment, you can look
59:47at its consequences, but whether you
59:50could do the Murdal style circular
59:53causation and say a series of
59:55interventions could put you on a
59:57different dynamic path, that's really
59:59super hard to do. uh but it doesn't mean
1:00:02that the the stuff we can do over a
1:00:04reasonable time horizon of looking at
1:00:06the impact of different attempts to
1:00:08either influence coercion or norms isn't
1:00:11important. Okay. Well, I think I've
1:00:14probably uh said enough. Uh I hope I've
1:00:17convinced you there's some uh
1:00:20interesting topics here that are worthy
1:00:23of investigation that that that have
1:00:25become quite central in political
1:00:26economy to a whole agenda of how we
1:00:28understand the dynamics of the state
1:00:31which I think is a very important uh
1:00:34research program. Uh I haven't said so
1:00:36much on political violence and how that
1:00:38fits into the story rather because I
1:00:40haven't had too much time but I've
1:00:42really concentrated on state capacity
1:00:44and and and try to introduce you to
1:00:46studying norms and values.
1:00:49You're young which is great. Uh and so
1:00:52but the only advantage I have on you
1:00:54with age is I I know where we've come
1:00:56from as well whereas we might you know
1:00:58where we're going too. And let me tell
1:01:00you something that if I go back there's
1:01:02two things and I'm sure other lecturers
1:01:04have enforced on this but they're
1:01:06probably not as old as me so they can't
1:01:07speak with quite such authenticity.
1:01:10When I started out um as a young
1:01:12economist people were barely talking
1:01:15about political economy at all. And when
1:01:17I did my first ever development course
1:01:19there was virtually no political economy
1:01:21in that. When I took my first public
1:01:22finance course there was no political
1:01:24economy to speak of in that. What I
1:01:27think uh political economy has had a a
1:01:29transformative effect on our discipline
1:01:33is that it's allowed us to open up all
1:01:36of these super interesting questions and
1:01:38make them part of economics, a
1:01:40legitimate part of economics because
1:01:42they're too too important to leave to
1:01:44one side. But in the more recent years
1:01:46too and there are pioneers of of of this
1:01:48in our in our discipline bringing in
1:01:51things like culture norms and values has
1:01:53been another wing of this realizing that
1:01:56we can study political economy as
1:01:59incentives but we can in we can also
1:02:02think about the dynamic implications of
1:02:04political economy for dynamics of norms
1:02:06and culture and that's another big part
1:02:08I think of where we're headed. um it
1:02:12makes it a challenging agenda and and
1:02:14one where although you can do causal
1:02:16identification and empirics it's it's
1:02:19hard to do but all I'll leave you with
1:02:21is the thought that the prize of doing
1:02:23this I think is super high because I
1:02:26haven't really stressed how how much
1:02:29what I've talked about is also a
1:02:31dialogue with policy makers but I can
1:02:33reassure you that when you sit down and
1:02:35you you talk to people who do policy
1:02:38many of these ideas become come quite
1:02:41useful points of dialogue with people
1:02:43who make real decisions and is a place
1:02:46where you can get a good contact between
1:02:49what we do as academic economists and
1:02:52changing the world which again you're
1:02:54all young and I hope you're going to
1:02:56change the world for the better uh with
1:02:58whatever you do next. So with that I
1:03:01shall uh I shall um wrap up. I'm sorry
1:03:04I've run over a bit and uh I look
1:03:07forward to your contestations and
1:03:09questions.
1:03:13>> Thank you very much, Tim. I that was an
1:03:16incredible range of of uh topics within
1:03:21state capacity and development and I I'm
1:03:23sure that we've all learned quite a bit.
1:03:26Uh we're gonna kind of transition now to
1:03:28the Q&A portion of the lecture. So, um,
1:03:32as always, I'll I'll kind of oscillate
1:03:34between the live panelists and the Q&A,
1:03:38uh, questions that have been submitted.
1:03:41Uh, if there's anyone that's that would
1:03:44like to ask a question live, you can
1:03:45raise your hand and I can, uh, kind of
1:03:48put you on and, uh, we'll just kind of
1:03:50go from there. So, uh, do you want to go
1:03:53first?
1:03:55>> Yes. Thank you so much. And thank you so
1:03:58much professor for uh such a informative
1:04:00lecture. So basically my name is Aram
1:04:03and I'm a PhD economics candidate at
1:04:04Kard Business School. Uh my question
1:04:07relates to your concluding remark causal
1:04:10identification and empirics are hard.
1:04:13Yeah. So basically I'm also studying
1:04:15state capacity institutions and economic
1:04:18per uh performance uh particularly the
1:04:20interaction between state capacity and
1:04:22property rights and using a panel data
1:04:25VDM. Uh the problem what I'm uh facing
1:04:28is that state capacity and institutional
1:04:30variables are such as property rights
1:04:32are highly persistent and slow uh moving
1:04:35variables. So there's very limited
1:04:37within country variation. So my uh
1:04:40particular question is what empirical
1:04:42strategy would you recommend and would
1:04:44you still uh recommend to rely on fax
1:04:47effects or would you recommend a
1:04:48different identification strategy? Thank
1:04:50you.
1:04:52>> Okay, great great question and and um
1:04:56I'd love to see what you're doing
1:04:58because I it's hard for me to give you a
1:04:59really definitive answer without
1:05:00actually the concrete example. But um
1:05:04let me first let me say something that I
1:05:06I I I many I I I risk having many people
1:05:10disagree with me among among my
1:05:12colleagues. At some level I think cause
1:05:14identification is overrated.
1:05:17Uh uh it's not that you know we would
1:05:19all like to have it. I'm not saying we
1:05:21wouldn't all like to have it and you
1:05:22know we will get berated by journal
1:05:25referees and colleagues in seminars and
1:05:27all that stuff when when we don't have
1:05:29it. I'm not I'm not trying to suggest
1:05:31otherwise. But um you know at the end of
1:05:34the day I think honest empirical work
1:05:38that describes as best as possible with
1:05:42interesting data what you can say with
1:05:44those data still has to be possible
1:05:47without being constantly shot down
1:05:50because you haven't got a pristine
1:05:52source of exogenous variation. what you
1:05:55have to do if you haven't you know
1:05:59if you have an experimental variation
1:06:01then clearly you should exploit it and
1:06:02if and and and moreover um it will um it
1:06:07will it will help you say something but
1:06:11um I think just exploring what's in in
1:06:14in the data and what it says and the
1:06:17robustness of it to including fixed
1:06:20effects other things you might do and
1:06:22just bringing out those empirical
1:06:24patterns
1:06:25still has value if the data and the
1:06:27context are interesting. Um I I I just
1:06:31published a paper in the quarterly
1:06:33journal in the in February that has no
1:06:36causal identification in it but I'd
1:06:37still like to believe it was an
1:06:39interesting paper and it's an empirical
1:06:40paper entirely empirical paper. So I'd
1:06:43like to believe that it's still possible
1:06:45to publish such papers.
1:06:47>> Can you please uh name the paper or
1:06:49year?
1:06:50>> It's it's February 2026. It's called um
1:06:54growth experiences and trust in
1:06:55government. Uh and it's purely an
1:06:58exploration of data. Uh and I believe so
1:07:02I you know I hope I hope I'd like to
1:07:04think that your paper which I haven't
1:07:06seen obviously if you're exploring the
1:07:08data intelligently then that's valuable
1:07:12as long as you say as much as you can
1:07:14honestly with the data that you have and
1:07:17and you don't just abandon it if you
1:07:19haven't got some pristine
1:07:20identification. that worries me
1:07:21sometimes that people are too hard on
1:07:24themselves. Uh, of course getting stuff
1:07:27into journals with people complaining
1:07:28about identification is forever an issue
1:07:32but you know we have you have to get
1:07:34things in perspective but
1:07:35>> there is there is overlap between state
1:07:38capacity and institutions especially the
1:07:40rule of law.
1:07:41>> Yeah. So how can
1:07:43>> yeah absolutely yeah it makes the ident
1:07:45it makes the identification challenge
1:07:47even bigger that you know something you
1:07:49you have various emitted variables
1:07:51various measurement issues it's really
1:07:53tough and uh anyway I wish you best with
1:07:55your with your paper and uh and
1:07:57hopefully you'll you'll you'll find a
1:07:59very convincing way through it so we
1:08:02have two more questions up here but but
1:08:04I'm jumping in I'm not I'm not uh I'm
1:08:07not the arbiter of who asked the next
1:08:09question.
1:08:09>> No that's absolutely fine. Uh we can do
1:08:12one more from here before we go to the
1:08:13chat. Sanjanna, do you want to go?
1:08:18>> Thanks professor. Um thank you for a
1:08:21wonderful lecture. I am a PhD candidate
1:08:24at Duke in the public policy school in
1:08:26the economics concentration and I'm
1:08:28studying bureaucrats as a individualized
1:08:32dimension of uh state capacity and um I
1:08:36think my question is about understanding
1:08:40state capacity for policy design versus
1:08:43state capacity for policy implementation
1:08:46which is where this actor is which like
1:08:50that's the stage that I'm studying.
1:08:52which is policy implementation. So
1:08:53that's one question. How how do you
1:08:56think about that in terms of the models
1:08:57that you have built? Uh and the second
1:09:00is about state capacity for the
1:09:02environment in terms of like climate
1:09:04change and environmental degradation
1:09:06versus state capacity for like public
1:09:08provision which was like your third
1:09:10bullet of collective provision. So how
1:09:13would you how would you because these
1:09:15ideas would be relevant for my I'm doing
1:09:18emperics but I think thinking about
1:09:19these theoretical ideas is is important
1:09:22to build that uh theory of change.
1:09:30>> Okay, great. Um I I mean I think I I I
1:09:33have to digest your distinction between
1:09:35design and implementation. That's an
1:09:37interesting one. But I will say that I
1:09:40think one of the promising areas and
1:09:42there's a number of papers now as you
1:09:44know on things like varying recruitment
1:09:47strategies as a way of looking at
1:09:50improving state capacity. I think that's
1:09:52an exciting literature thinking of the
1:09:55extent to which uh different modes of
1:09:57selection of bureaucrats and different
1:10:00modes of selection of politicians can
1:10:02have an impact on on these things. uh
1:10:05and sometimes you can get nice sources
1:10:07of exogenous variation or you can do a
1:10:10field experiment. I think that that
1:10:12there was an early paper on this I think
1:10:14it was in Mexico by Fred Finn and others
1:10:17which was one of the first to do
1:10:19literally a randomized
1:10:21uh uh recruitment strategy for
1:10:23bureaucrats to look at different ways of
1:10:25doing it to see whether it made an
1:10:26impact. So I think it's a super
1:10:28interesting area. I think the
1:10:29environment is very interesting. In
1:10:31fact, I um I wrote a
1:10:34something um for the Asia Infrastructure
1:10:38Investment Bank about three or four
1:10:40years ago on state capacity and climate
1:10:43change. Uh and and one of the
1:10:46interesting discussions is well is is
1:10:50climate does climate require what you
1:10:52might call bespoke forms of state
1:10:54capacity or can you just deal with it
1:10:56with standard things like a better tax
1:10:58system, a better legal system, a better
1:11:01regulatory system or do you need sort of
1:11:04bespoke kinds of um measures or bespoke
1:11:08kinds of state capacity
1:11:10um because there are certain things
1:11:12which are uniquely about the
1:11:14environment. And I and I don't really
1:11:16have a firm answer on that. But one
1:11:19certainly for things like the transition
1:11:21towards more renewable energy, you
1:11:24certainly need the competence within the
1:11:27state to be able to manage that. I mean
1:11:29one of the things that a number of
1:11:31countries are facing is
1:11:34it did there was not sufficient
1:11:35recognition of the fact that it's not
1:11:38just about um energy generation but it's
1:11:41also about transmission. So you you need
1:11:45some coordination mechanism between
1:11:46transmission and generation that um that
1:11:50hasn't been done well in some places. My
1:11:52country being an example where
1:11:54transmission is becoming a big holdup
1:11:56and you we we are creating all this
1:11:58power that goes to waste because we
1:12:00haven't got either storage or
1:12:02transmission capacity. And that does
1:12:04speak for having some kind of bespoke um
1:12:08bespoke skill set across a range of
1:12:11activities that need coordinating. Um
1:12:14but the for those who are interested the
1:12:16AIB report which I only contribute a
1:12:18little bit to it's called moonshots for
1:12:20climate change or something like that
1:12:22and it had quite a lot of discussion of
1:12:23some of the issues I talked about today.
1:12:25The other area I'll just flag up and I
1:12:27won't answer this but that there's been
1:12:29a lot of debate about is AI. Does the AI
1:12:33require new forms of state capacity to
1:12:35manage the uh incorporation of AI into
1:12:38the economy or is it just sufficient to
1:12:41have effective tax systems, effective
1:12:44legal and regulatory systems and um uh
1:12:48and effective collective provision or do
1:12:50we need something bespoke? So I think
1:12:52it's one of the interesting challenges
1:12:54the extent to which generalized versus
1:12:56bespoke forms of state capacity are
1:12:58needed and I think the jury is out. We
1:13:01know we need to manage this. Which way
1:13:03to manage it is is there's no very
1:13:06obvious answer in most cases.
1:13:10>> Thank you.
1:13:12>> Thanks Anjanna. Uh Tim, there's there's
1:13:15a couple questions in the chat as well
1:13:18kind of related to causality and
1:13:20identification. Uh and I'll just share
1:13:23one from Diego. He asked, "How can we
1:13:28empirically separate that conflict
1:13:31affects state capacity and state
1:13:32capacity affects conflict?"
1:13:37>> Uh the answer is it's really hard.
1:13:40That's not a good answer, is it? But
1:13:42it's true. Um, I mean, what would people
1:13:45rely on or hopefully rely on is some
1:13:47form of natural experiment to try and
1:13:50break that. What does worry me about
1:13:52some of the conflict literature is they
1:13:54want to run the causality in the study
1:13:57one way or the other when I think we
1:13:59know that it's two-way causality. So
1:14:02there are papers that put conflict on
1:14:04the right hand side and say if you're
1:14:07living in a world of more conflict you
1:14:08have less economic growth you have less
1:14:10of this less of that less schooling etc
1:14:13etc and then there are others that put
1:14:15conflict on the left hand side and then
1:14:17look at a load of coralates on the right
1:14:19hand side putting the viewing those it
1:14:23is both an exogenous and endogenous
1:14:26variable you really need a dynamic model
1:14:29and and having a dynamic model. It's
1:14:31properly identified in this context. I
1:14:33maybe someone's done it by now. I've
1:14:35never seen something that allows you to
1:14:37to think of that what what Murdal called
1:14:40circular causation that maybe if you can
1:14:43end a conflict, you can improve
1:14:45investment in the economy which gives
1:14:48you um u a fe a positive feedback onto
1:14:52reduced conflict etc to get you onto a
1:14:55better dynamic path. That's really
1:14:57really hard to do. Um, so I'm I'm not
1:15:00I'm I you know, by all means someone on
1:15:03this call can send me a a great paper
1:15:06that's tried to cut through that very um
1:15:08difficult problem, but I I've not seen
1:15:10something that does. Um, and it's very
1:15:14hard to talk in totally in the abstract
1:15:16because obviously it depends on exactly,
1:15:18you know, what what is the nature of the
1:15:20project you're trying to get lift off
1:15:22with um in terms of the data and the
1:15:24design. So it's a little bit hard to to
1:15:27to talk about it in the abstract but but
1:15:29what is true is I think I remember when
1:15:32I came into the conflict literature I
1:15:34sort of fell into it through my interest
1:15:35in state capacity I was very struck by
1:15:38the with these two literatures one where
1:15:40conflict's on the right and one where
1:15:41conflict is on the left uh and they
1:15:44weren't even speaking to each other they
1:15:46were just asking different questions and
1:15:48that seems very odd in in in a way
1:15:52>> that is really interesting I I hadn't
1:15:54observed Uh, but I'm going to go back
1:15:56and look a little a little more closely
1:15:58now.
1:15:59>> Um,
1:16:01Chzi, do you want to briefly ask your
1:16:03question?
1:16:10>> Okay. Thank you for the beautiful
1:16:12lectures. I think I I learned some
1:16:14certain things. I mean, I'm obvious from
1:16:17Nigeria. So my question is looking at
1:16:20Nigeria along other African West African
1:16:23countries where you have conflict and
1:16:25insecurity problem
1:16:28what stops or what makes some states or
1:16:31let's say some countries have more
1:16:33development than others but they
1:16:36experience uh the same conflict.
1:16:41>> Um
1:16:44I'm not sure I have a very
1:16:46straightforward answer to that. I mean
1:16:47it sounds it's a very short
1:16:48straightforward question a very good
1:16:50question don't get me wrong but um
1:16:54I mean there's there's again coming to a
1:16:56little bit related to my pre answer to
1:16:58previous question there are some studies
1:17:02that think of there being fundamentals
1:17:05um things that that are fundamental
1:17:07drivers so one example there's a
1:17:09literature on um ethnol linguistic
1:17:12fractionalization and its consequences
1:17:14so and and for sure if If you run a if
1:17:17you run a correlation between those type
1:17:21of measures of polarization and
1:17:24propensity to conflict, you find um that
1:17:27more fragmented societies, however you
1:17:30choose to measure it, are more
1:17:31susceptible to violence and conflict.
1:17:34And that you might say is a relatively
1:17:37exogenous and historically determined
1:17:39factor. At least the people who do this
1:17:41want to argue that. Um and then uh but
1:17:45but that sort of the risk is you become
1:17:48a kind of prisoner to some kind of
1:17:49historical determinism. Then you say
1:17:51well certain societies
1:17:53have features in their past in their
1:17:56histories that will make them
1:17:58fundamentally um uh prone to conflict.
1:18:02But I think on the but but but when
1:18:05people raise that in particular in
1:18:07relation to conflict which often does
1:18:09have these strong correlations
1:18:10associated with it there are interesting
1:18:12counter examples the one I like to throw
1:18:14at people uh is Malaysia Malaysia is an
1:18:18interesting country because by according
1:18:20to those measures it's an outlier
1:18:22because it has very high
1:18:24fractionalization
1:18:26has three competing I say competing in
1:18:28the weakest sense uh um e ethnicity it
1:18:32is and yet has not been a conflictual.
1:18:35It's found a way of operating in spite
1:18:37of that and not had any material
1:18:40internal conflict. So it's not it's not
1:18:43a deterministic relationship. Maybe true
1:18:45on average that there is this
1:18:48relationship but and and and how do they
1:18:50do it? Well, that's a very you know
1:18:52debatable thing. Uh I'm not an expert on
1:18:54Malaysia, so I wouldn't care to give a
1:18:57very persuasive account. But but um it's
1:19:01interesting because when Malaysian
1:19:04democracy was set up and actually when
1:19:06Singapore broke off there was a similar
1:19:07thing in Singapore um they were very
1:19:10conscious of the need to build cohes to
1:19:12cohesion across these groups
1:19:15that was very much part of the initial
1:19:17agenda uh and still is actually if you
1:19:19if you if you go to Singapore I know
1:19:21Singapore is effectively a city state so
1:19:23it may not be an example that can speak
1:19:26to Nigeria which is a much more complex
1:19:28environment
1:19:29But you know they're very conscious in
1:19:31all policym of the need to build
1:19:34cohesion whether it be in housing policy
1:19:37or in other forms of policym and I think
1:19:42um so states that have these history
1:19:45historical or difficult factors in their
1:19:47histories it's not I'm not saying they
1:19:50aren't they aren't there and they aren't
1:19:52things we need to work around but but I
1:19:54think they're not things which are
1:19:57going to mean you cannot not transcend
1:19:59them but they have much harder work to
1:20:00transcend them. I mean if you go back in
1:20:02the history of a lot of countries there
1:20:05there there have been fractional
1:20:08identities that needed to be um knitted
1:20:11together to create the notion of a
1:20:13nation state that operated. It's not
1:20:15it's not an unusual circumstance as a as
1:20:18a starting point. Um, I know that's not
1:20:21a fully satisfactory answer to your
1:20:23question, but that it's a very a very
1:20:26tricky question, very difficult question
1:20:27you've asked.
1:20:31>> It is. Uh, thank you, Jesi. Uh this is
1:20:35switching gears a little bit but there's
1:20:37a cluster of questions around executive
1:20:40constraints that you referenced earlier
1:20:42in the lecture and with new
1:20:47I'll use their question
1:20:50how far should constraints on ex
1:20:52executive power go before they create
1:20:55state paralysis or or gridlock kind of
1:20:58you know there's obviously pros that
1:21:01that you've outlined to to to these
1:21:04constraints and and kind of checks and
1:21:06balances, but what's what's the optimal
1:21:08level and can it go too far?
1:21:12I I mean the answer is I think it can go
1:21:14too far. In fact, one of the central
1:21:17debates uh actually I'm writing a paper
1:21:19with one of my colleagues at the LSC on
1:21:20exactly this topic is what's now
1:21:23sometimes called demosclerosis
1:21:26uh which is that dem democracies not
1:21:28being able to deliver anymore because
1:21:30effectively people use the legal system
1:21:34to block reform and change. So a good
1:21:37example is in relation to um major
1:21:40infrastructure projects. So I don't know
1:21:43some of you on on the on on on online
1:21:45may be familiar with this book by Klein
1:21:47and Thompson that's doing the rounds in
1:21:49the US called um abundance uh which is
1:21:53essentially about why the state in in
1:21:55the US but the similar arguments
1:21:57throughout Europe has lost its capacity
1:22:00to deliver and in a way you can think of
1:22:02that as a kind of overreach of checks
1:22:04and balances it's outsourcing too much
1:22:07to courts that would traditionally been
1:22:09part of what politics and policym does
1:22:14and the problem is it slows down the
1:22:16state it makes it less effective it can
1:22:19lead to contesting more policies that
1:22:22previously maybe there was more attempt
1:22:25to to overcome so it's a very good
1:22:27question I don't think I you know it' be
1:22:29nice to think that we could sort of
1:22:31define an optimum um and say oh this is
1:22:35just the right amount of judicial
1:22:36independence you know we appoint our
1:22:39judges independently but then we don't
1:22:41let them overrule politicians when
1:22:42they're trying to get something done.
1:22:44That's important. I mean, that would be
1:22:46an impossible thing to think how to get
1:22:48that right. Um, but but there is there
1:22:52is a a genuine concern in in a number of
1:22:55countries uh that that actually we you
1:22:59we may have got the wrong side of the
1:23:01curve in particular in relation to
1:23:03judicial oversight.
1:23:05um and that that the balance between
1:23:08elected politics and judicial oversight
1:23:10isn't right. But that and I think it's a
1:23:13very it's an interesting topic. I think
1:23:15for there are many countries though
1:23:17where I would argue we're we're very
1:23:19clearly on the wrong side of the curve.
1:23:20There's too little of executive
1:23:22constraints.
1:23:23Then it's a more debatable thing which
1:23:25countries are on the other side of the
1:23:27curve with too many. Uh and is there a
1:23:30country that's just in the right place?
1:23:32I don't think we would ever be able to
1:23:34know what that curve looked like and who
1:23:36was exactly where on that curve. We'd
1:23:38have to think about that case by case.
1:23:39But it's a great question and I think
1:23:41actually a topic that's on the minds of
1:23:43a number of people uh particularly in
1:23:46the more advanced economies about how we
1:23:49cope with
1:23:51climate and how we cope with AI and can
1:23:54we rely on the state to carry on being
1:23:56able to get things done um in a way
1:23:58that's needed to to to deliver on those
1:24:02agendas.
1:24:04>> Thank you. Uh there were a couple other
1:24:07questions kind of asking something
1:24:09related around the US and other advanced
1:24:13economies that perhaps um don't have
1:24:17conflict within the country but
1:24:20externalize violence generate violence
1:24:23abroad and uh kind of how that might fit
1:24:28into into this model.
1:24:32>> Yeah. So this this is something I've
1:24:34always want to look at. I I haven't
1:24:35looked at I know one or two people have
1:24:37thought about this but um I I've often
1:24:40wondered how to even broaden that out
1:24:43kind of colonialism fits into this story
1:24:45I've been telling because over a lot of
1:24:47the period that I was looking at in the
1:24:49data one thing not every state but a lot
1:24:52of states were developing by um
1:24:55developing colonial uh strategies I
1:24:58think there's there's some interesting
1:25:00um analysis to be done more I mean a lot
1:25:02of people work on colon I'm not claiming
1:25:04that it's it would be totally novel. But
1:25:07I don't I don't have a you know in the
1:25:10work I've done and I can only speak to
1:25:11the competence of the work I've done
1:25:13plus work I know of that others have
1:25:15done. I've not really seen anything that
1:25:17that thinks about the extension of state
1:25:20power externally.
1:25:22Um I mean there is work on external
1:25:25conflict but that's normally in the
1:25:26literature taken as kind of exogenous.
1:25:29Um whereas we know state we know in
1:25:32interstate conflict is not exogenous.
1:25:35It's often one state has designs on
1:25:38something that motivate their conflict.
1:25:40It's not exogenous.
1:25:42Bringing that in as an endogenous comp
1:25:45component of this um seems to me to be
1:25:49quite interesting but not something I've
1:25:51actually seen done in the state capacity
1:25:53literature.
1:25:56Well, there's always uh more more topics
1:25:59to do research on. Uh so that could be
1:26:03something for some of our participants
1:26:05or whoever to to take forward. Um I'm
1:26:09afraid we are out of time now. So I'll
1:26:12I'll have to to end the Q&A. There are
1:26:16probably hundred more questions that uh
1:26:19have been submitted that that we could
1:26:20ask. But just want to extend a warm
1:26:24thank you to to you Tim for for coming.
1:26:27I know you mentioned earlier that you've
1:26:29been asked on a couple occasions and
1:26:32we're grateful that the the stars align
1:26:34and we could have you on the the lecture
1:26:36series here.
1:26:38Um
1:26:39>> thank you very much.
1:26:40>> Yeah, absolutely. For everyone else, the
1:26:43lectures will continue next week with
1:26:46our fifth lecture on politicians and
1:26:48political agency. Fred Fenan and
1:26:50Clauddio Ferras will be um lecturing on
1:26:53that. The reading list is already up on
1:26:55the website, so please take a look if
1:26:57you can. Um and we'll see you next week.
1:27:02Thanks everyone.
1:27:03>> Thank you. Thank you Tim.

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