GV 337week 5

1
GV 337-week 5

• Modern state and its functions
• Colonial institutions and state formation
• State building and capacity

2

• Are differences between government and a state?
• Do we need governments and states?
• Do developing states differ from developed ones?

3
Modern state as an institution

• State as political institution
• Differences between state and other forms of
  polity
• State as a Western creation
• Legitimacy
• Sovereignty
• Formal monopoly of violence
• Impartial bureaucracy

4
State in developing countries

• External provenance
• External design and imposed borders
• Colonial legacies
• Clientelism
• Public institutions
• The problem of sovereignty and hegemony within
  the state

5
Building states

• Varieties of state structures
• Weak or soft state
• Developmental state
• Predatory state
• Neo-patrimonial state
• Failed states
• Quasi-states
• Can a developmental state be democratic?

6
Questions to consider

• What is the link between institutions and state
  building?
• Why do states that have elaborate constitutions
  fail to evolve efficient institutions?
• What should be the primary goal of a new state?
• Development
• Democracy
• Stability
• Is sovereignty critical for a new state?
• Can we teach other countries how to be developed?