Week 8: Do comparative theories of state capacity provide a sound basis for distinguishing between strong and weak states?
Consult the course reading list and
On the general theory you could look at Skocpol, Theda, ‘Bringing the State Back In: Strategies of Analysis in Current Research’, in Peter Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer and Theda Skocpol, Bringing the State Back In, 1985;
for an attempt to apply it see: King, Desmond (1999) ‘The Racial Bureaucracy: African Americans and the Federal Government in the Era of Segregated Race Relations’, Governance, 12 (4), 345-77;
Skocpol, Theda and Kenneth Finegold (1982) ‘State Capacity and Economic Intervention in the Early New Deal,’ Political Science Quarterly, 97 (2), 255-78..