The array of countries examined in this book offers a range of cross-cutting themes and propositions. Indeed, a careful sifting of the chapters suggest important similarities and differences not only in terms of how the twelve states under examination have handled common problems and challenges in their efforts to interact with their national communities abroad but also in the underlying rationale(s) for engaging (or not) in said activities in the first place. This concluding chapter first discusses general insights concerning the motivations of states’ interactions with their national communities abroad and the reasons that explain those interactions. Next, it zooms in on specific themes and trends in some greater detail, including: the contested, and at times highly politicized, nature of defining national communities abroad; the mismatch between states’ material capabilities and their willingness to engage their communities abroad; and acts of “democratic repression” which suggest that the discussion on transnational authoritarianism needs to be complemented by a systematic examination of democratic countries’ repressive actions abroad.

Were nineteenth century war outcomes the main determinant of state trajectories in Latin America? In this chapter I turn from examining whether and to which degree war outcomes affected comparative state capacity levels and try to determining whether war outcomes were the main factor affecting the relative position of Latin American countries in the regional state capacity ranking. Exploring the conditions that predict the rank ordering of Latin American state capacity c. 1900—which has remained virtually the same ever since—has become a standard approach in the literature. In this chapter I explore this comparative historical puzzle by replicating previously used techniques. I use qualitative comparative analysis to show that accumulated victory and defeat throughout the nineteenth century is almost a sufficient condition for states to be in the upper and lower end of a state capacity ranking, respectively. I then use simple correlations to evaluate how war outcomes were related to a broad set of state capacity indicators at the turn of the century. Finally, I discuss case-specific expectations in longitudinal data that will be explored in the case studies.

What was the effect of war outcomes on key indicators of state formation in a post-war phase? In this chapter I demonstrate that victors and losers of war were set into different state capacity trajectories after war outcomes were revealed. I do this using a set of cutting-edge causal inference techniques to analyse the gap in state capacity that was generated between winners and losers in the time-period of most stringent warfare (1865-1913). After substantiating that the outcomes of these wars were determined by exogenous or fortuitous events, I provide a short description of my treatment—i.e., defeat—and outcomes—i.e., total revenues and railroad mileage as key indicators of state infrastructural capacity. My estimator, a difference-in-differences model, shows defeat had a negative long-term impact on state capacity which remains remarkably robust even after relaxing key assumptions. Finally, I use the synthetic control method to estimate how state capacity in Paraguay and Peru would have evolved in a counterfactual world where these countries were spared the most severe defeats in late nineteenth-century Latin America.

The chapter examines the role of forced displacement in increasing the demand for state intervention and expanding the size of the state bureaucracy in West Germany. It discusses the government elites’ strategies for dealing with the needs of expellees and receiving communities and reviews expellees’ ability to influence government policy. Statistical analysis is used to demonstrate that counties with a greater proportion of expellees to population had more civil servants per capita.

The chapter examines how the size and diversity of the migrant population shaped economic outcomes in western Poland using statistical analysis. It shows that when state institutions were extractive, the composition of the migrant population played no role in shaping economic performance. Once institutions became more inclusive, however, municipalities settled by more regionally diverse populations registered higher incomes and entrepreneurship rates. The chapter then rules out a series of alternative explanations for these findings.

This chapter introduces cases motivating the book and presents a three-step argument about the effects of forced migration on societal cooperation, state capacity, and economic development. It reviews evidence from post-WWII displacement in Poland and West Germany, discusses the applicability of the findings to other cases, and highlights the main contributions of the book.

The chapter examines the process of state building in the territory transferred from Germany to Poland in 1945, showing that mass uprooting shored up the demand for state-provided resources and weakened resistance to governance. It exploits the placement of the interwar border between Poland and Germany to estimate the effects of postwar population transfers on the size of the state. It then examines the political legacies of population transfers in post-1989 Poland.

As shown in this chapter, state capacity and security warranties are further key factors in the peace formula. In particular, besides certain institutional features, the overall strength of the state is a major determinant of political stability, as illustrated by examples and recent research on Iraq, Somalia, Niger and the origins of the Mafia in southern Italy. Drawing on cutting-edge studies, it is argued that being feared (by extremist groups) may be more important than being loved (by the population at large). In order to win the hearts and minds of the population, it is essential that first public safety is guaranteed and that basic services are delivered efficiently. This is easier said than done. It is shown that when foreign military aid aims at capacity building, it often backfires. In contrast, UN peacekeeping troops have been demonstrated to play a key role. We end this chapter by emphasizing the several domestic factors that can help the building of lasting state capacity, with a special emphasis on well-designed welfare programs such as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Peripheral-patronage states have several ways in which they can respond to the bind outlined in Chapter 2. These strategies – recruiting, concealing and insulating – are usually selected according to the state’s possession or lack of domestic capacity and autonomy from outside interference. Some states fail to strategize, finding themselves in the unusual position of being granted autonomy, but lacking the capacity to use the space it provides. Concealing, which involves an invitation of outside scrutiny with the intent to manage the process that follows, is the most interesting strategy because, when successful, it can erode the international norms its users invoke. Successful concealing is possible when the concealing state is both illegible to outsiders and capitalizes on an asymmetrically interdependent relationship with its larger partner in which each has the capacity to harm the other’s reputation. As a result, the concealing state receives the larger actor’s seal of approval for conduct that actually undermines the latter’s chosen norm.

How does environmental displacement fuel violent conflict? Worldwide environmental violence uproots more people every year than war, and the alarming acceleration of environmental displacement has generated significant speculation about its security consequences. This chapter undertakes a review of the literature linking environmental migration and violent conflict to: (1) map the complex causal pathways linking environmental migration to the onset and dynamics of political violence; (2) evaluate the “state of the evidence” or available empirical support underlying claims of an environment-migration-conflict link; and (3) identify gaps in existing literature. By systematizing existing research, this chapter seeks to clarify the state of knowledge on the environment-migration-conflict nexus, identify points of consensus and debate, and chart a path forward for future research. The review finds that while existing research suggests environmental displacement fuels civil war and communal conflict, there is a dearth of research addressing how environmental migrants may experience violence at the hands of the state. In addition, more comparative research is needed to gain deeper insights into the conditions under which environmental displacement impacts political violence.

This chapter analyses the institutional architecture and political reforms of the Iberian monarchies from the sixteenth century to the end of the eighteenth century, underlining two main ideas. First, the persistence of an institutional model based upon jurisdictional autonomies until the end of the seventeenth century. This political framework was based on cooperation and negotiation allowing the participation of the different institutional and social bodies in the political decision-making process. Iberian monarchs and their ministers were able to establish alliances with local oligarchies, important noble houses, guilds and, of course, the Church. This system was partly disrupted by a movement of political reforms that reinforced State interventionism in the economy during the eighteenth century. Second, the limited economic impact of such reforms prevented an economic growth similar to other Western European territories. They faced resistance of the kingdoms and territories, which aimed to preserve their customs and the resistance of the privileged groups who struggle to maintain their properties and fiscal privileges. Both factors detained the attempts of centralizing reforms and undermined the process of increasing state capacity.

This chapter underscores the importance for obtaining a proper understanding of the outcomes primary education system in Bangladesh produces. It also emphasises that the provision of primary education is an important institutional issue as it requires effective mechanisms for the recruitment, training, and retention of teachers; the construction and maintenance of schools and other infrastructure; the design and implementation of the curriculum; the monitoring of progress, through inspections and examinations; and the creation of a learning environment. This chapter analyses the challenges related to the coexistence of various actors in the primary education system, the inadequate allocation of resources, the lack of incentives to attract high-quality teachers, the shortage of trained teachers, the low quality of the educational infrastructure, the poor curriculum design, and the flawed examination system. This chapter relates some of these challenges to the public sector in general in Bangladesh. Finally, it recommends relevant measures to overcome the institutional challenges of public spending in primary education and to improve the quality of services.

In this chapter, the key findings and arguments of the previous chapters are combined into a synthesis. This ‘institutional diagnostic’ not only provides an account of the most important institutional issues facing Bangladesh but also seeks to identify the complex chains of causality which relate them both to the economic outcomes that they generate and to the proximate causes and deep factors from which they derive. It begins with a summary – firstly of the historical and political context and then of the more specific findings that have emerged from the thematic studies. From this, three basic institutional weaknesses are identified, each of which recur multiple times in the thematic studies – the supremacy of the ‘deals environment’, ineffective regulation, and weak state capacity. In each case, it is explained both how these institutional factors constrain economic development and how they derive from and indeed maintain the political economy context and other deep factors. Some key directions for reform are identified together with a discussion of where the political barriers to implementing them may lie. Some further reflections are made on impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This chapter identifies and evaluates the institutional causes of the failures of the tax system in Bangladesh. At less than 9%, Bangladesh is among the countries with the lowest overall average ratio of tax revenue to GDP. It follows that its fiscal space, that is the capacity to spend on public goods and correct rising income inequality, is extremely limited. The low average tax ratio results from both low nominal tax rates and a low rate of tax collection, itself due to pervasive tax evasion (often with the paid support of tax collection personnel) or to tax exemptions generously granted by the Government to its supporters. In addition, albeit in a limited way, taxation distorts economic incentives, either directly through non-uniform tax rates that favour some sectors or firms and penalise others, or indirectly through exemptions and evasion. This chapter also explores the reasons behind the difficulties that have surrounded previous attempts at tax reforms, and the underlying political economy factors. It, finally, lists the most attractive reforms in terms of increasing tax revenues, the effectiveness of tax collection, and the redistributive impact of the tax system.