State (polity)

About: State (polity) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 36954 publications have been published within this topic receiving 719822 citations. The topic is also known as: state (polity).

Pillars of Prosperity: The Political Economics of Development Clusters

Abstract: "Little else is required to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things." So wrote Adam Smith a quarter of a millennium ago. Using the tools of modern political economics and combining economic theory with a bird's-eye view of the data, this book reinterprets Smith's pillars of prosperity to explain the existence of development clusters--places that tend to combine effective state institutions, the absence of political violence, and high per-capita incomes. To achieve peace, the authors stress the avoidance of repressive government and civil conflict. Easy taxes, they argue, refers not to low taxes, but a tax system with widespread compliance that collects taxes at a reasonable cost from a broad base, like income. And a tolerable administration of justice is about legal infrastructure that can support the enforcement of contracts and property rights in line with the rule of law. The authors show that countries tend to enjoy all three pillars of prosperity when they have evolved cohesive political institutions that promote common interests, guaranteeing the provision of public goods. In line with much historical research, international conflict has also been an important force behind effective states by fostering common interests. The absence of common interests and/or cohesive political institutions can explain the existence of very different development clusters in fragile states that are plagued by poverty, violence, and weak state capacity.

The Free Economy and the Strong State

Abstract: The slow-down in the pace of accumulation has provided the opportunity for a widespread rejection of Keynesian political economy and an onslaught on the policies, values and organizations of social democracy. There has always been an element among British intellectuals which has never required much inducement to join a collective stampede to the right. We are constantly being told that 'intellectuals' are finally losing faith in socialism (this follows their previous final rejection of it in the early 1950s). They have been converted, even at this late hour, to the need to resist totalitarianism and the British Labour Party, and to reject the beliefs in collectivism and equality that were enshrined in the policies and institutions established in the 1940s. Aside from these 'men who have changed their minds', swayed by the populist clamour of the new right, there has also been in recent years a real intellectual change, a remarkable revival of liberal political economy through the elaboration of the doctrine of the social market economy, a doctrine which, under different labels, has made increasing headway within the Conservative party in the last ten years. The Conservative Government elected in 1979 had a group of ministers in the crucial economic ministries (Treasury, Industry, Trade, Energy), who were all adherents of the doctrine and prepared to govern in accordance with its prescriptions. The term social market economy originated in Germany from the neo-liberal ideas that were current there after 1945. In Britain and America similar ideas have been put forward by a number of theorists including F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman, and popularized in Britain by organizations like the Institute for Economic Affairs and the Centre for Policy Studies, by lead writers in the Times and Daily Telegraph, by economic commentators such as Peter Jay, Samuel Brittan, and Patrick Hutber, and by Conservative politicians (Enoch Powell at first; more recently, Keith Joseph).

Identity, Migration and the New Security Agenda in Europe

Abstract: This book argues that threats to ethno-national identity are replacing military concerns as the central focus of European insecurity. In Western Europe societal insecurity has replaced state sovereignty as the key to success or failure of European integration pushing concerns about identity and migration to the top of the political agenda and profoundly dividing peoples from their leaderships. In the East national identity has become the mainspring of post-Soviet political reorganisation raising a host of boundary and minority problems. The interplay of these societal insecurities in West and East will determine both the political shape and stability of Europe for the next generation as well as the future of Europes relations with its Islamic periphery. (EXCERPT)

Bureaucrats and Politicians in Western Democracies

Abstract: In uneasy partnership at the helm of the modern state stand elected party politicians and professional bureaucrats. This book is the first comprehensive comparison of these two powerful elites. In seven countries--the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Sweden, Italy, and the Netherlands--researchers questioned 700 bureaucrats and 6OO politicians in an effort to understand how their aims, attitudes, and ambitions differ within cultural settings. One of the authors' most significant findings is that the worlds of these two elites overlap much more in the United States than in Europe. But throughout the West bureaucrats and politicians each wear special blinders and each have special virtues. In a well-ordered polity, the authors conclude, politicians articulate society's dreams and bureaucrats bring them gingerly to earth.

The Political Construction of Mass Schooling: European Origins and Worldwide Institutionalization

Abstract: This paper examines the origins of state educational systems in Europe in the nineteenth century and the institutionalization of mass education throughout the world in the twentieth century. We offer a theoretical interpretation of mass state-sponsored schooling that emphasizes the role of education in the nation-building efforts of states competing with one another within the European interstate system. We show that political, economic, and cultural developments in Europe led to a model of the legitimate national society that became highly institutionalized in the European (and later, world) cultural frame. This model made the construction of a mass educational system a major and indispensable component of every modern state's activity. We discuss the usefulness of this perspective for understanding recent cross-national studies of education.