[PDF] The Scarce State eBook

Author : Noah L. Nathan
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 375 pages
File Size : 27,82 MB
Release : 2023-02-28
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1009261142

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States are often minimally present in the rural periphery. Yet a limited presence does not mean a limited impact. Isolated state actions in regions where the state is otherwise scarce can have outsize, long-lasting effects on society. The Scarce State reframes our understanding of the political economy of hinterlands through a multi-method study of Northern Ghana alongside shadow cases from other world regions. Drawing on a historical natural experiment, the book shows how the contemporary economic and political elite emerged in Ghana's hinterland, linking interventions by an ostensibly weak state to new socio-economic inequality and grassroots efforts to reimagine traditional institutions. The book demonstrates how these state-generated societal changes reshaped access to political power, producing dynastic politics, clientelism, and violence. The Scarce State challenges common claims about state-building and state weakness, provides new evidence on the historical origins of inequality, and reconsiders the mechanisms linking historical institutions to contemporary politics.

Author : Noah L. Nathan
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 375 pages
File Size : 41,27 MB
Release : 2023-01-31
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 100926110X

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States are often minimally present in the rural periphery. Yet a limited presence does not mean a limited impact. Isolated state actions in regions where the state is otherwise scarce can have outsize, long-lasting effects on society. The Scarce State reframes our understanding of the political economy of hinterlands through a multi-method study of Northern Ghana alongside shadow cases from other world regions. Drawing on a historical natural experiment, the book shows how the contemporary economic and political elite emerged in Ghana's hinterland, linking interventions by an ostensibly weak state to new socio-economic inequality and grassroots efforts to reimagine traditional institutions. The book demonstrates how these state-generated societal changes reshaped access to political power, producing dynastic politics, clientelism, and violence. The Scarce State challenges common claims about state-building and state weakness, provides new evidence on the historical origins of inequality, and reconsiders the mechanisms linking historical institutions to contemporary politics.

Author : Colin H. Kahl
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 14,74 MB
Release : 2018-06-05
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0691188378

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Over the past several decades, civil and ethnic wars have undermined prospects for economic and political development, destabilized entire regions of the globe, and left millions dead. States, Scarcity, and Civil Strife in the Developing World argues that demographic and environmental stress--the interactions among rapid population growth, environmental degradation, inequality, and emerging scarcities of vital natural resources--represents one important source of turmoil in today's world. Kahl contends that this type of stress places enormous strains on both societies and governments in poor countries, increasing their vulnerability to armed conflict. He identifies two pathways whereby this process unfolds: state failure and state exploitation. State failure conflicts occur when population growth, environmental degradation, and resource inequality weaken the capacity, legitimacy, and cohesion of governments, thereby expanding the opportunities and incentives for rebellion and intergroup violence. State exploitation conflicts, in contrast, occur when political leaders themselves capitalize on the opportunities arising from population pressures, natural resource scarcities, and related social grievances to instigate violence that serves their parochial interests. Drawing on a wide array of social science theory, this book argues that demographically and environmentally induced conflicts are most likely to occur in countries that are deeply split along ethnic, religious, regional, or class lines, and which have highly exclusive and discriminatory political systems. The empirical portion of the book evaluates the theoretical argument through in-depth case studies of civil strife in the Philippines, Kenya, and numerous other countries. The book concludes with an analysis of the challenges demographic and environmental change will pose to international security in the decades ahead.

Author : Sendhil Mullainathan
Publisher : Macmillan
Page : 303 pages
File Size : 13,24 MB
Release : 2013-09-03
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 0805092641

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A surprising and intriguing examination of how scarcity—and our flawed responses to it—shapes our lives, our society, and our culture

Author : Alisha Holland
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 399 pages
File Size : 36,98 MB
Release : 2017-06-16
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1107174074

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The book explains why and when laws go unenforced in developing countries. It argues that the tolerance of street vending and squatting is a form of informal welfare provision and a more effective means to mobilize the poor than conventional state social policies.

Author : Anthony De Jasay
Publisher : Collected Papers of Anthony de
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 28,56 MB
Release : 1998
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780865971714

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The State is a brilliant analysis of some of the fundamental issues of modern political thought from the perspective, not of individuals or subjects, but of the state itself. The author poses the query, "What would you do if you were the state?" The state usually is understood as an instrument, not a personality, and it is presumed to exist so that people can achieve their common ends. However, Jasay asks, what if we suppose the state to have a will and ends of its own? To answer these questions, the author traces the logical and historical progression of the state from a modest-sized protector of life and property through its development into an "agile seducer of democratic majorities, to the welfare-dispensing drudge that it is in many countries today ... Is the rational next step a totalitarian enhancement of its power?" The State presents what has been termed "a disturbingly logical 'agenda' for the state in pursuit of its 'self-fulfillment.'"--Inside jacket flap.

Author : Charles W. Calomiris
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 584 pages
File Size : 27,27 MB
Release : 2015-08-04
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 0691168350

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Why stable banking systems are so rare Why are banking systems unstable in so many countries—but not in others? The United States has had twelve systemic banking crises since 1840, while Canada has had none. The banking systems of Mexico and Brazil have not only been crisis prone but have provided miniscule amounts of credit to business enterprises and households. Analyzing the political and banking history of the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil through several centuries, Fragile by Design demonstrates that chronic banking crises and scarce credit are not accidents. Calomiris and Haber combine political history and economics to examine how coalitions of politicians, bankers, and other interest groups form, why they endure, and how they generate policies that determine who gets to be a banker, who has access to credit, and who pays for bank bailouts and rescues. Fragile by Design is a revealing exploration of the ways that politics inevitably intrudes into bank regulation.

Author : Daron Acemoglu
Publisher : Penguin Books
Page : 594 pages
File Size : 44,91 MB
Release : 2019
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0735224382

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How does history end? -- The Red Queen -- Will to power -- Economics outside the corridor -- Allegory of good government -- The European scissors -- Mandate of Heaven -- Broken Red Queen -- Devil in the details -- What's the matter with Ferguson? -- The paper leviathan -- Wahhab's children -- Red Queen out of control -- Into the corridor -- Living with the leviathan.

Author : Tanja A. Börzel
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 381 pages
File Size : 15,78 MB
Release : 2021-04-08
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1107183693

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Democratic and consolidated states are taken as the model for effective rule-making and service provision. In contrast, this book argues that good governance is possible even without a functioning state.

Author : Ethan B. Kapstein
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 544 pages
File Size : 41,36 MB
Release : 1999
Category : International relations
ISBN : 9780231113083

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This volume analyzes the decisions that major powers have made since the Cold War to adapt to a rapidly changing economic and security environment. The authors acknowledge that, while great power wars are now unlikely, positional conflicts over resources and markets still remain.