Strong Societies and Weak States

Module 1: Reading 2

The resources and capacities a state possesses to implement policies, extract resources, regulate social relations, and achieve specific goals; include capabilities for planning, regulation, resource extraction, and appropriation.

State Capabilities

A state that effectively controls its territory, resources, and population; it has the ability to reshape its society by promoting certain groups while suppressing others, simultaneously maintaining autonomy.

Strong State

A state with limited capacity to penetrate society, implement policies, or control resources and population; its authority is often challenged by other social actors and its influence is often limited.

Weak State

The extent to which the state can act independently from specific societal interests and pressures, with the power to resist or circumvent external influence.

State Autonomy

A societal structure characterized by multiple, overlapping social organizations and actors, with varying degrees of influence, no central authority, and with no single part essential to the whole.

Web like society

The means by which states and other organizations seek to shape behavior and establish norms; this includes compliance, participation, and legitimation.

Social Control

The extent to which a population conforms to the rules and expectations established by the state or other authority; can be achieved through rewards and punishments.

Compliance

The active engagement of a population in state-sponsored or other organizational activities and initiatives; indicating a degree of societal buy-in to governing systems.

Participation

The acceptance of a state's rules and authority as justified and proper by the population; this is often based on shared beliefs, symbols, and values.

Legitimation

The underlying systems of meaning, including shared beliefs, myths, ideologies, and cultures, that guide behavior and create a sense of purpose and order within a society, influencing the state's capacity to exercise social control.

Symbolic Configurations

A perspective that posits that all societies will progress along similar paths from traditional to modern forms, focusing on the development of institutions, industrialization, and individualism.

Modernization Theory

A historical term referring to countries that were largely decolonized after World War II and characterized by lower levels of industrial development, weaker state capacities, and significant social and political challenges.

Third World

Societies that are characterized by a diversity of social groups (ethnic, religious, linguistic, etc.) with various levels of conflict and cooperation that result in a lack of a singular, unified social structure or set of values.

Fragmented Societies

As opposed to despotic power, the means by which the state can penetrate and centrally coordinate the activities of civil society.

Infra-structural power

Groups that range from small families to large and formal organizations that impact individuals and their actions; includes families, clans, tribes, religious organizations, corporations, etc.

Social organization

Key Attributes for a State

1. monopoly of coercion to enforce rules

2. act autonomously

3. differentiation among state components (agencies, bureaucracy)

to achieve the kinds of changes in society that their leaders have sought through state planning, policies, and actions

capabilities of state

State Capabilities

1. The capacity to plan effectively.

2. To regulate social relations.

3. To extract resources.

involves a range of actions to direct behavior and attitudes according to “rules of the game”

Social control

Requirement for a successful social control

1. compliance

2. participation

3. legitimation

lies in its relationship with the diverse and complex web of social organizations that make up its society

State’s capabilities according to Migdal

What are some of the key capabilities that states in the Third World sought to develop following decolonization?

capacities

• ability to plan new policies and actions

• regulate social relations

• extract resources & use resources in specific ways.

Why did the goals of many Third World states become difficult to achieve?

• depth of problems they tried to solve becoming more intricate

• existing society proved more resistant to change than anticipated

How does Migdal characterize "strong states" in terms of their relationship with society?

• reshape societies by promoting groups and classes

• suppressing others

• maintain autonomy from any single group or class

What is the concept of "state autonomy" as discussed in the text?

ability of the state to:

• act on its own preferences

• resisting influence of social actors

• to shape society according to goals

what is a key feature of "web-like societies," particularly in the context of the Third World?

groups of social organizations with varied and sometimes overlapping rules, where connections and influence may be concentrated in particular areas, and no single part is essential to the whole

What are some examples of the types of social organizations that Migdal identifies as being important alongside the state?

• families

• clans

• tribes

• religious groups

• social and political organizations

What does Migdal mean when he suggests that "social control" is the "currency" of state-society interactions?

compliance, participation, and legitimation, is the currency of state-society relations, which is exchanged as states attempt to establish predominance in a contested environment

What are the three indicators Migdal uses to evaluate the strength of social control?

• compliance

• participation

• legitimation

What does the term "symbolic configurations" mean, as used in state-society relations?

underlying systems of meaning which guide behavior, create order, influence

• beliefs

• myths

• ideologies

• cultures

how does the model of state-society relations he presents challenge the traditional "modernization" theories?

multiplicity of actors in the struggle for social control rather than state naturally dominant force

theorist studying state-society relations and corporatism, mentioned here in the context of his work on Latin America

James Malloy

Leader of the Indian independence movement

Mohandas Gandhi

Sociologist whose theory on the nature of the state and its role in society provides a baseline against which state actions are measured

Max Webber

Philosophers mentioned to highlight the changing nature of state control over the long run, and the need to recognize the separation between the state and society.

Thomas Hobbes

John Locke