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

题目：博士论文研究：拉丁美洲的国家-社会网络和国家能力[071984373]摘要拉丁美洲民主的命运在很大程度上取决于国家能力，特别是国家收集和重新分配资源以满足公民需求的能力。各国政府这样做的手段差别很大，这对该地区公民的治理和生活质量产生了重要影响。本文试图解释这些“国家能力”的差异，通过税收征收的数量、类型和发生率的差异来表现，这是公民与政府之间关系的结果。在网络理论的基础上，国家和社会行为体之间的互动为政府提供了信息，从而增强了国家履行其职能的能力，促进了公民对政府行为的支持。据预测，与社会联系紧密或丰富的国家能够提取更多的资源，而且比那些联系薄弱的国家更“有效”地提取资源。特别是，将比较阿根廷各省与公民的联系，包括公共服务分配给谁以及如何分配，基础设施的地理分布以及政府参与金融交易的程度。这项工作将为阿根廷的国家、省和一些市政府增加一个关于收入、基础设施、金融和公共服务变量的大型横断面和时间序列数据库。此外，该项目将纳入拉丁美洲其他国家的数据和研究，促进对该区域其他国家的了解。这项研究结合了两种方法工具，即网络理论和地理信息系统，这两种方法工具在政治学中未得到充分利用，并且已经有来自美国、阿根廷和巴西的经济学、计算机和政治学领域的决策者和学者参与其中。由此产生的数据、出版物和分析将广泛分发给感兴趣的学者和决策者。

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.