The+Role+of+the+State+in+Development

Robert H. Bates, “The Role of the State in Development” Summarized by Sonja Kelly Thesis: “No state, no development.” I. Intro a. Douglass North (1973): key to development is the creation of institutions b/c institutions deter people from making a profit if it harms others. i. Critic: Weingast (1995): North doesn’t have a theory as to why political agents use power to elicit creation of wealth II. Argument against thesis I: Anthropologists a. Almond and Coleman (1960): societies can offer security even if they lack states. i. Gluckman (1955): peace happens in the shadow of the feud. b. Bates counters that anthropologists ignore poverty, in that poverty can result from statelessness. III. Argument against thesis II: International Relations a. Keohane and Nye (1989): There may be no state at the global level, but there is order and sometimes even peace. b. Folk theorem (Fudenberg and Maskin 1986): people can play trigger strategies in repeated games even without social cohesion. c. Bates counters that this doesn’t offer the same assurance to development as it does to IR. IV. Stateless Societies a. Stateless society is one that has a decentralized control of the means of coercion. b. Anarchists (Taylor 1987) and libertarians (Buchanan and Tullock 1962) capitalize on the fact that people who do not possess states can be orderly. c. Bates: but people live at a lower level of security, have to provide for their own protection, and have a decline in welfare. d. There is great poverty: the price for disarmament in a family is having nothing worth stealing. V. Societies with States a. An equilibrium arises when the government can gain a higher income by protection the creation of wealth rather than engaging in its predation (see scenario on 714). b. Without future wealth, those with military capacity cannot count on future income, so they would rather protect creation of income c. Bottom line: people can enjoy both security and prosperity. VI. State Failure a. Political costs of democratization i. Snyder (2000): when authoritarian regimes face the prospect of being overthrown, they turn predatory. Democracy can produce state failure. 1. As the future becomes uncertain, the possibility of the state declines b. Resource curse i. With opportunity for wealth, public servants “turn from providers of services to consumers of public revenues” (716). ii. Non-resource economy withers because of inefficiency, corruption, and macroeconomic distortion. c. Political impact of economic decay i. Drop in income ii. Decline in public revenue VII. Development of the state a. Demand-driven b. Conquest c. Competition (evolutionary account) Conclusion: Government can either extract wealth (no state) or protect its creation (state). For further study, look deeper into the different models of the development of the state.