The Political Economy of State Failure.

Rapid decolonization created many arbitrary countries. In contrast to those states which had emerged through a quasi-Darwinian process of selection, some of these new countries had structural characteristics which gravely impeded the provision of public goods. Their lack of a unifying sense of share...

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Main Author: Collier, P
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: Oxford University Press 2009
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author Collier, P
author_facet Collier, P
author_sort Collier, P
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description Rapid decolonization created many arbitrary countries. In contrast to those states which had emerged through a quasi-Darwinian process of selection, some of these new countries had structural characteristics which gravely impeded the provision of public goods. Their lack of a unifying sense of shared identity made cooperation difficult, and their tiny economic size left them unable to reap scale economies. Two public goods, security and accountability, are particularly important for development and so, where they could not be provided, states failed. The cause of a problem is not necessarily a guide to its solution: Darwinian struggle among failing states is not something to be encouraged. Solutions lie partly in a phase of international provision of the key public goods, partly in enhanced regional pooling of sovereignty, and partly in institutional innovation to make the domestic provision of public goods less demanding of the state.
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spelling oxford-uuid:4da44bc5-546b-4d4d-9af3-99047390e2b02022-03-26T15:56:33ZThe Political Economy of State Failure.Journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:4da44bc5-546b-4d4d-9af3-99047390e2b0EnglishDepartment of Economics - ePrintsOxford University Press2009Collier, PRapid decolonization created many arbitrary countries. In contrast to those states which had emerged through a quasi-Darwinian process of selection, some of these new countries had structural characteristics which gravely impeded the provision of public goods. Their lack of a unifying sense of shared identity made cooperation difficult, and their tiny economic size left them unable to reap scale economies. Two public goods, security and accountability, are particularly important for development and so, where they could not be provided, states failed. The cause of a problem is not necessarily a guide to its solution: Darwinian struggle among failing states is not something to be encouraged. Solutions lie partly in a phase of international provision of the key public goods, partly in enhanced regional pooling of sovereignty, and partly in institutional innovation to make the domestic provision of public goods less demanding of the state.
spellingShingle Collier, P
The Political Economy of State Failure.
title The Political Economy of State Failure.
title_full The Political Economy of State Failure.
title_fullStr The Political Economy of State Failure.
title_full_unstemmed The Political Economy of State Failure.
title_short The Political Economy of State Failure.
title_sort political economy of state failure
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