Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: State-Society Networks and State Capacity in Latin America

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PI and Co-PI: Paul W. Drake and Melissa ZieglerTitle: Doctoral Dissertation Research: State-Society Networks and State Capacity in Latin America0719843AbstractThe fate of democracy in Latin America depends greatly on state capacity, particularly on the ability of states to collect and redistribute resources to meet citizens' demands. The means of governments to do so varies quite widely, with important consequences for governance and quality of life for citizens in the region. This dissertation seeks to explain these differences in "state capacity," shown through the variance in the amount, type and incidence of tax collection, as a result of relationships between citizens and the governments. Building on network theory, the interactions between state and societal actors are shown to provide information to governments that enhance the state's ability to perform its functions and promote citizen support for government action. States with strong or abundant links to society are predicted to be able to extract more resources and do so more "efficiently" than those weakly connected. In particular, the provinces of Argentina will be compared for their connections to citizens, including to whom and how public services are distributed, the geographical spread of infrastructure, and the extent of government involvement in financial transactions. This work will add a large cross-sectional and time series database of revenue, infrastructure, financial and public services variables for the national, provincial and some municipal governments of Argentina. Additionally, the project will incorporate data and research from other countries of Latin America, promoting understanding of other countries in the region. This research incorporates two methodological tools, network theory and GIS, that are underutilized in political science and has already involved policymakers and scholars from the fields of economics, computing, and political science from the United States, Argentina and Brazil. The resultant data, publications and analyses will be broadly disseminated to interested scholars and policymakers.