Wang Shaoguang
State Effectiveness and Democracy
State Effectiveness and Democracy
Wang Shaoguang
“In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the
great difficult lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the
governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
Madison: The Federalist, No. 51
Introduction
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the “third wave” of democratization
(Huntington 1991) began to spread from South Europe and Latin America to East
Asia, Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, sub-Saharan Africa, and elsewhere, many
were very optimistic about the future of the unfolding “worldwide democratic
revolution." Now, a decade later, the optimism has somehow faded away. Although
the U.S. Government continues to claim, "At long last, democracy is triumphant,"1
those who have made efforts to assess the progress of the third wave find that the
reality is not as rosy as people once tended to believe. Among nearly 100 countries
that appeared to be moving away from authoritarian rule in the early 1990s, at present,
only fewer than 20 are “clearly en route to becoming successful, well-functioning
democracies” (Carothers 2002). In addition to over a dozen countries that have
suffered “democratic breakdown” or “democratic reversals” (e.g., Pakistan, Kenya,
Lebanon, Lesotho, Niger, Peru, Sierra Leone, Zambia, and several post-Soviet states),
most transition states seem to have stuck in what Larry Diamond terms "twilight
zone" (Diamond 1999b) or what Thomas Carothers calls “gray zone” (Carothers
2002). Falling in between outright dictatorship and well-established democracy, those
political systems have recently earned new labels, such as “semi-democracy,”
“formal democracy,” “electoral democracy,” “façade democracy,” “pseudodemocracy,” “weak democracy,” “partial democracy,” “virtual democracy” (Collier &
Levitsky 1997), “illiberal democracy,” (Zakaria 1997) and “broken-back democracy”
(Rose & Shin 2001). However, ever adding qualified adjectives to characterize those
systems is still misleading, because most of them are not democratic at all.
Why are so many third wave transition countries in trouble? Or more generally,
what are the conditions under which democracies can survive and function? The
standard answer to this question normally points to three key variables as the
preconditions for a successful venture into stable democracy, namely, a relative high
level of economic development (which is associated with such intervening variables
as a high standard of living, a high level of literacy, a sizable and strong middle class)
(Lipset 1959; Fukuyama 1993, Barro 1999; Przeworski et. Al 2000), a vibrant civil
1
On June 26-27, 2000, at a two-day conference to celebrate the spread of democracy held in Warsaw,
the U.S. State Department, one of the conference sponsors, claimed, "At long last, democracy is
triumphant." Over the last quarter-century, the department says, the world has witnessed "a profound
democratic revolution." Electoral democracies now represent 120 of the 192 existing countries and 58
percent of the world's population.
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State Effectiveness and Democracy
society (Putnam 1993; Linz & Stepan 1996),2 and a strong civic culture (Almond &
Verba 1963; Inglehart 1997; Diamond 1999). There is no doubt that these are in fact
attributes which characterize the old and stable democracies, nor that they are
generally lacking in most of the transition countries. However, they are by no means
the only things that are absent in the majority of third-wave countries. Another things
those countries are commonly wanting seems to be coherent, functioning states.
In most countries that once belonged to the former Soviet Union and former
Yugoslavia, no national state institutions had existed before they began transition.
Thus they had to struggle with difficulties of building states from scratch when they
became independent. They are still struggling. Throughout much of sub-Saharan
Africa, states exist but are largely incoherent, nonfunctional, and instable. Latin
American countries fare not much better. They mostly entered their attempted
democratic transitions with “a deep legacy of persistently poor performance of state
institutions” (Carothers 2002). Elsewhere in the third world, transition away from
authoritarian rule often unfolded in the context of extremely weak state structures,
which are unable to cope with most of the major problems facing these societies, from
crime and corruption control to the provision of basic public services, such as health,
education, and social security. Almost all of countries with non-performing states are
stuck in the “gray zone”, suffering the syndrome of either “feckless pluralism” or
“dominant power politics” (Carothers 2002). Interestingly, it is in those third wave
countries where state building did not appear to be a major challenge that democratic
progress seems to have made much headway. They are primarily countries in
Southern and Central Europe as well as the Baltic region, though there are also a few
in South America and East Asia. Examples include Spain, Portugal, Greece, Poland,
Hungary, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovenia, Uruguay, Chile, Taiwan and South
Korea (Linz & Stepan 1996; Carothers 2002).
This observation sharply contrasts with a misconception about democratic
transition that was prevailing all over the world in the late 1980s and early 1990s. At
that time, people normally thought that democracy was associated with minimal
government, and that democracy and state therefore were antitheses against each other.
Since the state was viewed as an obstacle to political opening, then democratization
entailed “destatization.” To increase the survival probability of democracy, it was
widely believed, state capacity should be weakened rather than strengthened. As a
result, democratizing initiatives in many parts of the world, driven by both domestic
reformers and international advocates, often focused primary attention on dismantling
the structures of control and reducing the extent of state involvement in the economy
and society. Only after a decade of experimentation with “shrinking the state” did a
growing number of reformers come to realize the critical importance of having a
capable state, not just a minimal one, if democracy were to perform effectively and to
be consolidated (Grindle 1997)
Similarly, transitology has also taken a detour before rediscovering the state.
Initially, studies of third wave democratization largely ignored the role of the state.
The focus then was on such questions as what could be done to foster a strong civil
society, how to institutionalize competitive election, what form of legislativeexecutive relative was more desirable, etc. The existence of an effective state was
either taken for granted or considered inconsequential. As time goes by, however,
students of democratization become increasingly aware that in many third wave
According to Linz and Stepan (1996), in addition to civil society, other four “interconnected and
mutually reinforcing conditions must exist or to be crafted for a democracy to be consolidated,” which
include political society, a rule of law, a state bureaucracy, and a economic society.
2
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countries, something is missing. What is it? “The short answer is: basic institutions of
the modern state” (丁学良 2000; Rose & Shin 2001). O’Donnell’s (1992) was among
the first to remind us that the progress of democratization is contingent on the
institutional viability and the effectiveness of state institutions. Then in the mid-1990s,
Przeworski (1995) as well as Linz & Stepan (1996) arrived at the same conclusion
that, without an effective state, there can be no democracy. Now more and more
scholars agree that the presence of an effective state is a prerequisite for democracy
(Rose & Shin 2001; Carothers 2002). That is true especially among those who study
Africa (du Toit 1995; Mengisterab & Daddieh 1999) and the states of the former
Soviet Union (Holmes 1997; Kuzio, Kravchuk, & D’Anieri 1999; Sperling 2000;
Kopecky & Mudde 2000).
Although a new consensus has begun to emerge about the imperative of
effective state institutions for successful democratic transition and consolidation, the
exact linkages between the two has not yet been systematically explored; and
therefore many crucial questions remain unanswered. This research is designed to fill
out this vacuum. The paper is organized as follows. The Section I tries to reconceptualize democracy. Whiles most define democracy as a type of political regime,
the section emphasizes that it is also a form of public authority. As such, it needs to
acquire what Michael Mann calls “infrastructural power” (Mann 1993: 59-61). The
Section II deals with the concept of state effectiveness. In addition to offer a
definition of the state, it attempts to identify the nuts and bolts of an effective modern
state. By doing so, the section is intended to provide a framework for comparing state
effectiveness across countries. The Section III endeavors to answer the central
question of the paper: why democracy can work and last without an effective state.
Based upon the insight that an effective state is a prerequisite of a high-quality and
sustainable democracy, the Section IV derives six hypotheses concerning conducive
or adverse circumstances for democratic transition and consolidation. The final
section is a brief summary. The upshot of the arguments presented in this paper is that
democracy is unlikely to flourish where it is not based upon a solid infrastructure of
state institutions.3
I. Democracy
Democracy as a Type of Regime
Democracy is one type of political regimes. What distinguishes democracy
from various types of non-democratic regimes lies in that democracy enables people
to manage power relations and thus control rulers, while others do not (Shapiro
2001).4 The most influential twentieth century approach to the democratic
management of power relations is one pioneered by Schumpeter (1942). According to
Schumpeter, democracy is an “institutional arrangement for arriving at political
decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive
struggle for the people’s vote” (1942: 269). In such a political system, rulers are held
accountable for their actions in the public realm by citizens, not by directly involving
in decision-making process, but indirectly through the competition and cooperation of
their elected representatives (Schmitter & Karl 1993).
3
The purpose of this study is very modest. Focusing on the relationship between state effectiveness and
democracy, it attempts neither to explain why state building is more successful in certain countries than
others nor to examine how state capacity can be strengthened.
4
For typology of non-democratic regimes, see Linz & Stepan (1996) and Brooker (2000)
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State Effectiveness and Democracy
As a device for managing power relations, democracy in a minimum must
meet two criteria at once, namely, what Dahl calls “inclusiveness” and “public
contestation.” The former refers to participation, or more precisely, the right for
virtually all adults to vote and contest for office. The latter refers to opposition rights,
or creating institutionalized channels for meaningful opposition by those who are
adversely affected by government policies. A political system cannot be called
democratic unless both inclusive participation and political competition are present.
By the end of the eighteenth century, for instance, Britain has already had a highly
developed system of public contestation, but only a very small proportion of its
population were permitted to take part in political competition. Thus, despite the
existence of competitive pluralism, one cannot call the Britain of the nineteenth
century a democracy, because one-person-one-vote, which is widely seen as a nonnegotiable requirement of democracy, was absent. Britain did not become a modern
political democracy until the early twentieth century when all adult citizens were
franchised and “entitled to participated on a more or less equal plane in controlling
and contesting the conduct of the government” (Dahl 1971: 4). Almost all the Western
democracies have followed this public-contestation-first-and-popular- participationlater path to democracy. Conversely, in some political systems, people are allowed
and sometimes required to participate in politics, but are stripped the right to oppose
government policies. Such systems are not democratic either, for without meaningful
opposition, it is not possible for people to control and contest government behavior.
Only when contestation and participation are combined, it is realistic for people to
curtail domination. Then the system is qualified to be called democratic.
Democracy as a Form of Governance
Most scholars define democracy only as a type of regime. We think it is
necessary to emphasize that democracy is also a form of governance of a state.
Democracy differs from other forms of regimes in its distinctive way of governance,
but, as Bagehot (1949:3-4) pointed out, every political system must gain authority and
then use authority. In other words, “authority has to exist before it can be limited”
(Huntington 1968: 8). If a government cannot perform basic state functions, no matter
how democratic its form is, the people of the country would not be able to benefit
from it. In this sense, “the issues pertaining to the state are logically prior to those
concerning the political regime” (Przeworski 1995: 13). Without an effective state, no
democracy is meaningful. (Linz & Stepan 1996: 17).
The separation between regime type and state allows us to conceptualize
democracy as a compound of democratic institutions and state institutions (Rose &
Shin 2001). The former refers to institutions that revolve around four stages of
democratic representation: pre-voting, voting, post-voting and inter-election period
(Shapiro 2001). More specifically, democratic institutions include bundles of rights
and obligations associated with citizenship, methods of organizing interests, electoral
system, arrangements of dividing and supervising powers, and so on. The central
distinctive task of democratic institutions is to limit power (Przeworski 1995). As for
state institutions, we will deal with them in the following section. Suffice it to say
here that the main purpose of state institutions is to furnish the government with
authority and thereby enable it to govern.
In the literature, democratization has often been defined as the process of
regime change, which involves the emergence of institutionalized contestation and the
expansion of participation in the contestation to groups that have been excluded from
political life. The conceptualization of democracy as both a type of regime and a form
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of governance sheds new light on the real meaning of democratization. From this
perspective, democratization consists of two separate processes: a process of
transition from a non-democratic regime to a more or less democratic one as well as a
process of state building or re-building (Rose, 333). Similarly, the concept of
consolidation of democracy needs to be reconsidered. In addition to “routinizing”
democratic practice and internalizing democratic values (Linz & Stepan 1996: 5), a
consolidated democracy must also be able to effectively govern the full territory over
which it claims sovereignty. Thus, state-(re)building should be an indispensable
undertaking throughout democratization and consolidation. It is ill advised for third
wave countries to damage or weaken essential state capacities during their transition.
Wherever and whenever the efficacy of the state is in doubt, a crisis of governance is
likely to emerge; if unsettled in due course, the crisis of governance may eventually
give rise to the crisis of democracy.
II. State Effectiveness
Because state effectiveness is so vital to democratic transition and
consolidation, we devote the section to examining this topic.
What is the state? The state may be defined, in the Weberian sense, as a set of
institutions that monopolize the legitimate use of force and rule-making within a
given territory. The monopolization of physical force is the very foundation the state’s
existence rests, which endows the state with power to make authoritative binding
decisions and to perform its other functions.5 Without power, a state cannot be
effective.
Power, of course, has many faces. Following Mann (1993), we believe it
useful to distinguish two types of state power: despotic and infrastructural powers.
The former refers to the power state elites can exercise “without routine negotiation
with civil society groups” (Mann 1993: 59). State despotic power is measured by its
intrusiveness or extensiveness. While such power is broad and sometimes unlimited in
non-democratic settings, it is more constrained, albeit in varying degrees, in
democratic systems. Infrastructural power, on the other hand, is measured by its
effectiveness. According to Mann’s definition, “infrastructural power refers to the
capacity of the state actually to penetrate civil society, and to implement logistically
political decisions throughout the realm.” (Mann 1986: 114). Infrastructurally most
powerful states are found in today’s Western democracies, where the state’s capacity
to penetrate everyday life surpass that of any historical or contemporary third world
state. States in other times and other places may be intrusive and ruthless, but they
often encounter enormous difficulties in penetrating people’s social and economic life.
State infrastructural power in Western democracies, however, is so pervasive that
their citizens cannot even find “hiding place from the infrastructural reach of the
modern state” (Mann 1986: 114).
Despotic power and infrastructural power are analytically two independent
dimensions of state power. While the former defines the nature of the state (or regime
type), the latter conditions state capacity and effectiveness. Democratization by
definition will weaken state despotic power, but it would be unwise to bring collateral
damage to the infrastructural power of the state in the process. A less intrusive state
does not entail a less effective state. One can even argue that democracy probably
5
The monopolization of physical force is of course an ideal assumption. In no country does the state
has complete monopoly of the use of force in practice. However, all but a few states have a legitimate
monopoly in the sense that most people believe that the state should have a monopoly.
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needs more infrastructural power to function effectively, efficiently and sustainably
than other forms of government.
Where state infrastructural power is deficient, efforts must be made to build
essential state institutions and capabilities. In the literature about the state, “statebuilding” is often vaguely defined as a process in which the state accumulates power.
In our understanding, state building involves accumulating only infrastructural power,
not despotic power.
The above discussion leads to two fundamental questions of this paper: What
specific infrastructural power does a state have to possess to be effective? Why is an
effective state a prerequisite of sustainable democracy? Despite growing evidence that
state effectiveness underpins democracy, to our knowledge, these questions have not
been systematically examined. The rest of this section tries to answer the first
question and leaves the second to the next section.
Given the broad and growing scope of state activities, state effectiveness
obviously is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon. No single index seems
able to capture all aspects of state effectiveness. Thus, we need to identity some key
state functions and use the state’s capability to perform them to gauge the
effectiveness of various states. There are six most critical functions we believe
effective states should have capacities to perform (Pye 1966; Binder et al 1971; Grew
1978):
1. To monopolize the legitimate use of violence
2. To extract resources
3. To shape national identity and mobilize consent
4. To regulate the society and economy
5. To maintain internal coherence of state institutions
6. To redistribute resources
The first two sets of functions are those that define any state, including premodern states. According to Weber, as long as there were people or groups that used
or threatened to use physical force to pursue their interests, political power existed.
But the state did not emerge until there was a political organization that was able to
monopolize the legitimate use of physical force in the enforcement of its order in a
given territory Even pre-modern states were characterized by the creation of regular
armies and a taxation system (Weber 1978 I: 54-6). The other four functions are the
features of modern nation-state, which add “routine, formalized, rationalized
institutions” of wider scope not only over its citizens but also to a very large extent
over all actions taking place in the areas of its jurisdiction (Mann 1993: 56).
If a state is capable of performing all of those functions well, we call it an
effective state. If a state is only capable of performing some of the functions, we call
it less effective. When a state is unable to perform any of those functions, it can
legitimately be called a failed state. By contrast the distinctive attributes of effective
states with those of less effective or totally failed ones, we should be able to identify
the essential infrastructural power an effective state must possess. While the particular
manifestations of effective states may vary from country to country, they all may
share certain basic ingredients.
Let’s examine those six state capacities one by one in little detail.
The capacity to monopolize the legitimate use of violence
By Weber’s definition, the basic test of the existence of a state is whether or
not its national government can lay claim to a monopoly of force in the territory under
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its jurisdiction. Obviously, the monopoly of force is a “means” rather than an “end”
for the state. Its end is to encounter external threat to the sovereignty and internal
threat to social order. To achieve this goal, all states must build up and deploy armed
forces and police forces, with the former primarily to defend against possible foreign
invasion and the latter to prevent and punish deviant conduct and repress social unrest.
Such institutions are vital to state power. Here we want to emphasize the importance
of developing a professional, resourceful, dedicated, disciplined, and uniformed
police. Repressive regimes are often called “police states”. This is actually a wrong
label. In fact, the ratio of policemen to population is highly correlated with the degree
of freedom. Put differently, the ratio tends to be low in so-called “police states,” while
it is much high in so-called “free countries” (史天健 2001).
Clearly, if the territory of a country is carved up by foreign forces, its
government cannot claim to be an effective state (e.g., Palestine). Similarly, if several
internal rival groups coexist in a country and all of them possess organized violence,
none would be in a position to establish permanent control of the contested territory.
Wherever such a situation is present, we may call it “statelessness” (e.g., Afghanistan,
and many African countries such as Angola).
The capacity to extract resources
State monopoly of physical force did not come cheap. In order to do so, states
needed to “extract from the population a share of the yearly product of its economic
activities” (Poggi 1990: 66). Thus, as early as in the sixteenth century, when the
modern nation-state just began to emerge, Jean Bodin already realized, "Financial
means are the nerves of the state" (Cited from Kugler & Domke 1986: 45). Not long
after, Esmund Burke came to the same conclusion: “The revenue of the state is the
state. In effect all depends upon it…” (Cited from Levi 1988: 122).
Indeed, just like a human being cannot be alive without blood, a state cannot
function without revenue. It is the availability of resources that permits the state to
carry out its other tasks. In this sense, an effective government has to be fiscally
viable. More specifically, a state that is unable to generate sufficient resources for
realizing its policy goals cannot be effective. In contrast, a political system must be
effective if it can extract sufficient resources from the society, aggregate those
resources into a national pool, and use them for national purposes.
In the last century or so, the scope of state operation has expanded
considerably. To finance bigger governments, states need to explore more productive
extractive devices. In the past, states raised revenue mainly through such mechanisms
as military or colonial ventures, the sale of offices, tax farming, monopolies,
donations, and even drawing on state elites’ private wealth (Poggi 1978, 97). Now,
“the regular, unobtrusive levying of taxes on various phases and aspects of the
modernized economic process” has largely replaced those less efficient instruments
(Poggi 1990, 66). As a result, in Western democracies, government spending typically
increased by three- to five-fold, if not more, in the twentieth century (Poggi 1990:
109-110). At present, it commonly accounts for one-third to a half of the gross
domestic products (GDP) in those countries. And people in the West have become
more or less used to a strong extractive state.
Elsewhere, state extractive capacity varies greatly from country to country and
generally is much weaker. In the 1950s, after conducting several case studies in the
third world, Nicholas Kaldor, a British economist, came to the conclusion that there
were no inherent obstacles to raising the rate of government financial extraction. For a
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variety of reasons, however, few developing countries followed his prescriptions
(Waldner 1999: 45). What started in the West centuries ago thus has barely been
underway in much of the third world.
The capacity to shape national identity and mobilize consent
Backed by extractive capacity, coercive capacity is the most basic aspect of
state power. But it would be extremely costly to maintain domestic peace by coercion
alone. For any political system to operate effectively, there must exist some shared
identities and shared values. This is especially true in diverse societies. Let’s first deal
with the necessity of national identity.
In the early phases of state development in the West, and in the third world
today, the state is one among many autonomous power centers (families, villages,
localities, ethnic groups, religious organizations, and governments) that compete for
people’s loyalty. Thus, the construction of state coercive and extractive capacities
must be followed by rationalization of authority and nation building. The former
refers to the centralization of political power, involving the replacement of traditional
familial, local, religious, and ethnic authorities by a single, secular, national authority
(Huntington 1966). The latter means “internal homogenization” (Tilly 1975: 661),
involving the transformation of “peoples’ commitment and loyalty from smaller tribes,
villages, or petty principalities to the larger central political system, creating a
common national culture of loyalty and commitment” (Almond & Powell 1966: 36).
The formation of national identity is very important. The breakup of the Soviet
Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia and ethnic conflicts in Indonesia, Sri Lanka,
and many African countries vividly demonstrate that the absence of national identity
could be a powerful centrifugal force. When a significant proportion of the population
perceive themselves distinct ethnically, culturally, linguistically, or religiously from
other people who live within the same boundaries, they may be motivated to create
their independent states or join other states.
It is true that multiethnic and multicultural states normally have greater
difficulties in winning and maintaining the allegiance of diverse population. But this
observation should not lead us to the conclusion that ethnic, cultural, religious or
linguistic identity is primordially given and thereby any effort to shape a national
identity in such diverse societies is doomed to failure. In fact, almost all nations
started out as very diverse culturally, linguistically, religiously or ethnically. The
presence of a strong national identity in some but not all countries implies that
identity is amendable. All states have a tendency to assimilate populations within a
given territory into a single nation through education and other socialization
channels.6 Thus the formation of national identity is best understood as an outcome of
purposeful state efforts to overcome heterogeneity in the society, although some
exogenous historical accidents may also affect the outcome. If a society is fragmented
where opportunistic politicians can use the strategy of exacerbating minuscule
differences to pursue their personal interests, “it is more likely a consequence of
institutional failure rather than a cause of it” (Przeworski et al 1995: 21).
In addition to shaping national identity, the state also endeavors to shape its
citizens’ values and beliefs. By doing this, it hopes to further reduce the costs of
ruling. Emile Durkheim put a great deal of emphasis on the existence of a common set
of values and beliefs in any society. He contends that only when most members of a
6
For the example of France, see Weber (1976).
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society share such a set of core values, moral unity could be retained. Without moral
unity, any system would degenerate sooner or later (Durkheim 1951). (Ritzen)
This goal of anchoring people in a common set of core values can be achieved
through a range of strategies. Where people’s values and beliefs happen to be
congruent or consonant with the state’s preferences, the state is inclined to reinforce
societal convergence, deference, and indifference to forestall the emergence of values
and attitudes that diverge from the state’s. Where state and societal preferences do
diverge, the state may use various tactics to change societal values and beliefs to
make them congruent or consonant with its own (Nordlinger 1981: 74-117). Moreover,
every state strives to inculcate certain values and beliefs upon children so as to make
these future citizens more obedient and more disciplined (Creveld 1999: 210-17)
Once state instilled values and symbols become widely shared, largely
unquestioned values and symbols in a society, it is easy for the state to wrap up
authoritative actions with these values and symbols. Then citizens may feel obligated
to comply with state policies (Poggi 1978: 101).
Wherever states are unable to mold national identity and to implant in the
masses official value systems, they are unlikely to be effective, because a great deal
more resources and energy would have to be diverted to fighting against centrifugal
forces, subduing nonconforming ideas, and cracking down defiant behaviors.
The capacity to regulate the society and economy
The regulative capacity is defined as the ability of the state to change and
subordinate behavior of individuals and groups away from their own inclination and
in favor of the behavior prescribed by the state. While the capacity to mobilize
consent concerns people’s internal convictions, the regulative capacity deals with
people’s external behavior.
Regulations are necessary because modern societies are full of hazards
engendered from industrialization, commercialization, urbanization, and asymmetrical
distribution of power and information. To protect people and the nature, the state
needs to regulate not only such clearly deviant social activities as murder and assault,
but also many aspects of economic and social life, including, among other things,
weights and measures, contract, industrial R&D, road construction, public utility
services, food and drug quality, garbage collection, mail delivery, labor-management
relations, working conditions, safety standards, the relief of destitution, consumer
protection, the protection of the environment and natural resources, health, education,
sports, marriage, the promotion of the arts, and even parental responsibility.
It is by no means easy for the state to regulate the society and economy. To
facilitate effective regulation, for instance, the state must collect and store a massive
amount of information about everyone living and working in the country.7 In
developed countries, this is not a problem. Birth, schooling, marriage, divorce,
occupation, income, ownership of house and automobile, honor, misconduct, exit
from and entry into the country, and death are all constantly under state watch.
Nothing seems to be able to escape state screening. In the developing world, however,
even statistics on such basic items as population size and distribution are often
deficient, not to mention information about mobile tax bases or practices of food
handling. For countries that are not capable of monitoring the whereabouts and
Emerged just before 1800 in English and all European languages, the word “statistics” means data
pertaining to the state (Mann 1993: 361).
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behaviors of their populations, it is unrealistic to expect their states to possess much
regulative capacity.
Since the rise of “regulatory state” in the West in the first half of the twentieth
century, there have been complaints about the growing power of the state. The
complaint is mainly leveled against the state’s regulatory encroachment into “a much
expanded and differentiated range of social [and economic] activities” (Poggi 1990:
109). However, no one can deny a simple fact that, in today’s world, all those wellordered societies, whether democratic (e.g., Norway) or not (e.g., Singapore), are
highly regulated. Where governments lack adequate regulative capacity, again
whether democratic (e.g., India) or not (e.g., Egypt), people there typically have to put
up with frequent industrial accidents and environmental disasters, untreated water,
broken draining system, chaotic traffic, appalling work conditions, tense labormanagement relations, shoddy consumer products, horrendous medical services, and
the like. The contrast between the two types of countries clearly points to the
significance of regulative capacity for any modern state.
The capacity to maintain internal coherence of state institutions
To modernize and broaden the collection of taxes, to shape national identity,
to inculcate official ideology into citizens, to control for negative externalities of the
market, to coordinate economic actors’ behavior, to improve people’s quality of life,
to structure social conflicts, and to maintain order and a rule of law, the state must be
backed up by a an effective bureaucracy. “The vast bureaucratic structure of modern
states with their tens of thousands of officials make them the core of modern
government” (Friedrich 1963: 464). As an instrument of execution of the authoritative
decisions of the government, the bureaucracy must be professionalized and
meritocratic so that its recruits have technical talent and requisite training to be
competent for tasks assigned to them. But, just as important from the perspective of
the state is an ability for it to maintain internal coherence of bureaucratic institutions.
The modern bureaucracy is a complex and sophisticated organization made up
of multiple, minute organs. Though all the activities of the bureaucracy are supposed
to be ultimately sanctioned by and directed from a single center, there is a danger of
the coherence of the system being undercut by the inertia and departmentism of
bureaucratic agencies and the particularism and corruption of individual bureaucrats.
It is often the case that political executives’ policy-making efforts are thwarted
by the bureaucracy not so much because it intends deliberately to sabotage those
political leaders as because large organizations tend to proceed from inertia and to
persist in their routine unless stopped. In addition, bureaucrats and their organizations
tend to believe that they understand the policy area in question better than the political
executives (Peters 1987).
A more acute problem with bureaucracy, however, is that each agency “seeks
to maximize the state resources it commands, and to assign priority to its own
concerns over all others” (Poggi 1990: 30-1). This kind of desire may motivate
bureaucratic agencies intentionally to hinder or block the collection of vital
information for centralized decision making and to involve in pointless competition
against each other. As a result, the ultimate authority of the state may find it difficult,
if not impossible, to enforce its policy agenda and to prevent its agents from deserting
their strictly implementary role. The corporate coherence of the state then becomes
the casualty of “bureaucratic free enterprise” (Tullock 1965)
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The most detrimental problem with the bureaucracy, especially among third
world countries, is particularism and corruption, namely, officials using their offices
to favors their relatives and friends or to maximize their personal wealth, power, and
status. Rather than dehumanize administrative process as expected by Max Weber
(1946: 215-16), officials who practice particularism allow love, hatred, and other
personal elements to affect their decisions made in the name of the state. Corrupt
officials also give preferentiality to people related to them in the execution of state
directives, but not out of emotion, but out of careful calculation of potential gains and
risks (Ackerman 1999). Despite the difference in motive, both particularism and
corruption impair the impartiality of public administration, breed a distrust of public
authorities, set off political alienation, and, in extreme case, may even lead to system
breakdowns (Klitgaard 1988).
An well-functioning state is supposed to operate as a machine in which the
wheels and gears are precisely adjusted to one another, a machine “propelled by
energy and directed by information flowing from a single center in the service of a
plurality of coordinated tasks”(Poggi 1978: 98). In large part, the ability of a state to
accomplish its goals is a function of the coherence of its political institutions. Where
government institutions do not mesh with each other and particularism and corruption
are rampant, intrastate and state-society conflicts are bound to increase, thus
undercutting the ability of the whole system to control the flow of tax resources and to
achieve other policy goals.
The capacity to distribute resources
The distributive capacity refers to the authoritative redistribution of scarce
resources between difference social groups. This is a relative new measure of state
effectiveness that did not take form until the advent of the welfare state in the West in
the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. The purpose of redistribution
is to provide the least fortunate members of the society with economic security as well
as to reduce inequality in income and wealth distribution. Urbanization, higher
literacy levels, the demonstration effect of the Western welfare states have all
increased the volume and intensity of pressures for the state to use its coercive power
to redistribute income, wealth and opportunity worldwide. Even in many developing
countries, people now expect their governments to mitigate social risks and narrow
the gaps between the “haves” and “have not” through some forms of redistribution.
Some contends that since the welfare state is primarily a Western luxury that only rich
countries can afford, the effectiveness of a state should not be measured by its
distributive capacity (Gros 1996). To the extent that inequality often increases the
probability of political instability (Alesina, Ozler, Roubini & Swagel 1996; Alesina &
Perotti 1996), the distributive capacity in effect is one that helps to maintain domestic
public order and enhance its legitimacy. Given the importance of public order and
legitimacy for any regime, the instrumental value of redistribution should not be
underestimated.
In summary, an effective state is defined by its ability to defend its sovereignty
and territory, to exert coercive control over the population, to tax compulsorily, to
inculcate a sense of common identity, to regulate human activities in economic and
social realms, and last but not least, to centrally coordinate its agencies and agents so
as to interlock them into a unitary whole. Clearly, these state capacities are
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interdependent to each other. Developing and integrating these capacities is essential
for any state to become effective. 8
Why is an Effective State a Prerequisite of Sustainable Democracy?
Having defined both “democracy” and “state effectiveness,” we now turn to
the relationship between the two. There may be a wide range of necessary conditions
for democracy to work and last. We argue that the existence of an effective state is
one of those necessary conditions, and probably the most important one. Without an
effective state, there can be no democracy. This point, of course, is by no means novel.
Several scholars have called attention to the role of the state in recent years
(O’Donnell 1992; Przeworski 1995; Linz & Stepan 1996, Rose & Shin 2001). What
we would like to add to the literature is to provide theoretic explanations about how
the operation of democracy is contingent on the viability and the effectiveness of state
institutions.
For a democracy to work and last, there must exist an effective state that is
capable of performing the following tasks.
To define the political community within which democracy operates
Democracy can be simply defined as rule by the people. But, who are the
people? Obviously, the concept of the people does not mean everyone in the world.
No country, no matter how democratic it is, allows foreigners, including those who
obtain legal residence, to vote. Rather, only adult citizens have the right to do so.
Then, who are citizens? Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary defines
“citizen” as “a native or naturalized member of a state or nation who owns allegiance
to its government and is entitled to its protection.” Thus, “without a state, there can be
no citizenship; without citizenship, there can be no democracy” (Linz & Stepan 1996:
28).
Indeed, a democracy presupposes a well-defined territorial-social unit, for, as
pointed out by Robert Dahl, democratic methods “cannot solve the problem of the
proper scope and domain of democratic units” (Dahl 1989: 207). The majority
principle, for instance, would not work unless we know exactly the boundary of the
whole political community. We call such community a “territorial-social unit,”
because it is not purely territorial; its rightfulness has to be accepted by the people.
Perhaps, the word “accepted” is not strong enough. Dankwart Rustow is more to the
point when he argues that what is actually required is a “prior sense of community,
preferably a sense of community quietly taken for granted that is above mere opinion
and mere agreement” (1970: 350). Only when the vast majority of citizens “have no
doubt or mental reservations as to which political community they belong to” (Rustow
1970: 351) then it is possible for them to organize their life in a democratic fashion.
Conversely, if large segments of the population in a territorial-social unit
refuse to accept the unit as an appropriate entity to make legitimate decisions, and
desire to create their independent states or to merge with other states, then unit faces a
serious “stateness” problem (Linz and Stepan 1996). Under such a circumstance,
democratic procedure can neither work nor solve the problem of identity. Here the
key challenge is to cultivate a strong identification with the territorial-social unit. In
8
There are many reasons why in many territories of the world no such state exists. But it is an issue
that we cannot cover in this short essay. The focus of this paper, as stated before, is on the relationship
between state effectiveness and democracy.
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Western Europe, the process of nation building was generally guided by coercive
governments, which used a wide range of instruments to repress and eliminate
multilingualism and multiculturalism in their territories. Those methods are not
acceptable by today’s moral standards. Nevertheless the resultant nation-states had
defined the political communities within which democratization could take place later
(Linz & Stepan 1996: 33-33). The lesson from the first wave of democratization is
that state and nation building should precede democratization and that the existence of
a viable nation-state is a prerequisite for a modern democracy.
To protect citizens’ basic rights
For democracy to exist, all full citizens must enjoy such basic civil rights as
freedom to form and join organizations, freedom of expression, right to vote, the right
to a fair trial, etc. But, “the conditions necessary to exercise them are not
automatically generated by the mere existence of democratic institutions; a viable
state is necessary to make their exercise possible” (Przeworski 1995: 12).
During the Cold War era and soon after, when all political evils seemed to
stem from "too much government," the state was often regarded as the biggest threat
to civil liberty. Political rights then were primarily understood as “negative rights,” as
"walls" erected against state power, or as shields used to protect vulnerable
individuals from abusive governments. It was widely believed that only by limiting
the power of the state could personal liberties be secured.
By now, however, the inadequacy of this notion of rights has become evident,
because people in Russia and many other transition countries still cannot enjoy much
real liberties even after dictatorship ended, official indoctrination disappeared, new
political parties sprung up like mushrooms, dissidents were released from jails, and
censorship was removed. The governments in those countries were simply too
disorganized and too week to enforce their own laws. What happen in those countries
makes excruciatingly clear that liberties could be threatened just as thoroughly by
state incapacity as by repressive state apparatus. This observation leads Stephen
Holmes (1997) to conclude, “liberal rights depend essentially on the competent
exercise of a certain kind of legitimate public power.”
Why individual liberty depends on some sort of state power? The reason
behind this is that only in a society composed of angels where power resources were
equally distributed could its member enjoy liberties without the presence of public
authorities. The problem is that this kind of society exists only in our dream. In the
real world, “individuals are partial to themselves and, left to their own devices, the
strong and the deceitful have an irresistible proclivity to exempt themselves from
generally valid laws.” Therefore, “without a well-functioning public power of a
certain kind there will be no prevention of mutual harm, no personal security…”
(Holmes 1997). In this sense, the distinction between “negative” and “positive” rights
is a false dichotomy. No right is simply a right to be left alone by public authorities.
Defined by law, all rights amount to entitlements that require governmental
authorities to deliver rather than merely to forbear (Holmes 1999). State power is
needed to guard property rights, to prevent harm, to repress force, to contain fraud,
and above all, to extend its protection to the vulnerable. Viewed from this angle,
rather than a threat to personal freedoms, a liberal state is “the largest and most
reliable human rights organization” (Holmes 1997). A liberal state, of course, must be
limited in many ways, but to enforce and protect citizens’ rights, a liberal state must
be able to exercise effectively its claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of force
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in the territory and to mobilize sufficient resources (Holmes 1999). “For this reason, a
non-performing state cannot be a liberal state” (Holmes 1997).
To create and maintain a rule-based polity
“Rule of law” means the predominance of law over discretionary authority. A
state based on the rule of law is not necessarily democratic (e.g., Singapore), but a
high-quality democracy must be ruled by law rather than by arbitrary decisions of a
ruler or his agents (Rose & Shin 2001). In a democracy, laws constitute not only a
tool to control the masses but also an instrument to constrain officials and bureaucrats.
In essence, laws are rules governing human behavior in a given society.
Democracy is a rule intensive polity. In addition to the legal provision of civil rights,
there must be rules with regard to citizenship, election, distribution of power,
relationship between different branches of government, etc. The guidance provided by
those rules enables political actors to coordinate their behavior, thus helping reduce
uncertainty and create order in human interactions. Without rules, it is hard to imagine
how democracy can function.
For rules to be effective in guiding actors' future courses of action, they must
have the following three characteristics. (1) Rules should clear so that proper
interpretation is possible, general so that like case are treated alike, inclusive so that
no one may avail herself of loopholes, and non-contingent so that nothing can excuse
rule-breakers. (2) Rules are ex ante restrictions that bind the ex post behavior of all
parties. The purpose of rules is to define the way the game is played. Therefore, no
one in the game should be allowed unilaterally to change these rules after the fact.
Political actors' incentives are often not time-consistent. They may have incentive to
accept certain rules in principle; but when the situation changes, it may become
tempting for them to revise the rules. For rules to be effective, they have to be able to
restrain the ex post behavior of all parties. (3) Rules must be enforced in such ways
that ensure compliance. Although rules can be self-enforcing when it is in everybody's
interests to live up to these rules, another method to ensure compliance seems to be
more important in most cases: the threat of external sanction. Only with enforcement
of sanction against offenders can rules be sustainable (Wang forthcoming).
When rules meet the above criteria in a political system, we may call it highly
institutionalized. Only when a state is highly institutionalized can democratic
procedures be constraining. In contrast, if rules (particularly those defining the scope
and limits of power) are vague, unbinding, and not supported by a credible
enforcement mechanism, they work at best as a soft source of constraint on political
actors' options. There would be a considerable gap between the formal rules of the
game and widely accepted informal practices, and ex-ante procedures would not
matter that much. In such a context, democracy cannot operate properly because those
in power have too much discretion, while others lack effective means to restrain them.
When those in power retain widespread discretion in interpreting and applying rules
(laws), they could effectively turn the rules into a controlling mechanism against the
general public. Consequently, the accountability of the state would be low. In this
sense, a polity lacking the rule of law is not compatible with democracy.
To vitalize civil society
The last two decades of the twentieth century witness the revival of the
concept of civil society. Many believed that civil society played a crucial role, if not
the leading role, in fostering, deepening, and consolidating democracy. How does
civil society promote democratic transition and consolidation? Citing from
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Huntington, Larry Diamond’s explanation is brief yet to the point (Diamond 1999:
239):
“The first and most basic democratic function of civil society is to provide ‘the
basis for the limitation of state power, hence for the control of the state by society,
and hence for democratic political institutions as the most effective means of
exercising that control.’ After the transition, this involves checking, monitoring, and
restraining the exercise of power by formally democratic states and holding them
accountable to the law and public expectations of responsible government.”
If the 1980s and early 1990s was a decade of romantic adoration of civil
society, more recent years have become a time of reflection (Diamond 1994b; Foley
& Edward; Berman 1997; Verba, Schlozman & Brady 1997; Rieff 1999; Carothers
1999). While still treasuring the potential positive value of civil society for
democracy, people now come to realize that, on the one hand, civil society is by no
means a paradise epitomized by harmony, 9 and on the other hand, the state-society
relationship is far more intricate than unrefined civil society theorists tend to believe.
For the purpose of this paper, we focus on the latter reflection.
Today, even some of those most convinced of the indispensable role of civil
society agree that the relationship between the state and civil society is one of "mutual
empowerment" or "synergy," rather than a zero-sum one (Evans 1997). The two are
interrelated in many ways:
1. At best, civil society can act as a counter weight to the leviathan of state
power. But it can never provide a substitute for the organized public
institutions of the state.
2. When civil society acts as a counter weight to state power, it should check
and limit the despotic but not infrastructural power of the state.
3. It makes sense for civil society to aim the state as an object of its efforts
only when the state is an effective one. If the state is incapable of solving
any economic and social problems, there is no point of dealing with it.
4. Only robust state institutions can provide an arena in which civil society
can operate (Motyl 1993). A growing body of recent works suggests that
an effective state is a prerequisite to civil society. Crisis of the state more
often than not leads to a degeneration of civil society rather than its revival.
Conversely, when the state is relatively strong and resilient, civil society is
more likely to thrive (O’Donnell 1993; Chazan 1994; Shue 1994). This is
so because “just as modern markets depend on economic decisions being
nested in a predictable institutional framework, likewise ‘civic
engagement’ flourishes more easily among private citizens and organized
groups when they have a competent public sector as an interlocutor”
(Evans 1997).
5. Civil society can improve the ability of the state to govern. When civil
society and the state both are relative strong, the vibrancy of the former
itself may make citizens more respectful and hence obedient to the latter
(Diamond 1994b). In Putnam’s words, "civic associations are powerfully
9
Civil society consists good as well as bad actors. Some may work at high-minded aims, but most are
simply single-issue groups that are preoccupied with the pursuit of parochial self-interests. The
proliferation of the latter “could choke the workings of representative institutions and systematically
distort policy outcomes in favor of the rich and well-connected or, more simply, the better organized”
(Carothers 1999). Moreover, when institutional environments are unfavorable, a strong civil society
cannot even save existing democracies, not to mention bringing about or helping consolidate new
democracies (Berman 1997).
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associated with effective public institutions…strong society, strong state"
(1993: 176).
If the above remarks are right, one may conclude as Evans does, “a sustained
efflorescence of civil society may well depend on the simultaneous construction of
robust, competent organizational counterparts within the state…[A] move toward less
capable and involved states will make it more difficult for civic associations to
achieve their goals, thereby diminishing incentives for civic engagement. (Evans 1997)
To meet peoples’ basic demands
For three reasons, democracy, especially a premature one, has to deliver some
basic public goods and services in order to survive. First, many people embrace
democracy not for the sake of democracy but as a solution for the crisis their country
faces, including political as well as social and economic crises. Second,
democratization is likely to heighten political and social citizenship, which may give
rise to the pressure for uniformity of treatment, the reduction of social risks, higher
living standards, better quality of life, and greater degree of equality. Third,
democracy itself offers people more freedoms, opportunities, and power to push for
policy changes.
To make the society a humane one, for instance, a democratic system must be
able to regulate the market so as to eliminate, or at least limit, the damage the market
may bring about. As Robert Dahl notes, “Democracy would almost certainly lead to
the destruction of certain economic orders… [including] a strictly free market
economy” (1993). Otherwise, unregulated markets will unavoidably generate
unfairness and chaos, which in turn may weaken the political support of the regime.
Moreover, in societies characterized by severe inequality, a democratic
government needs make efforts to more or less narrow the gap between the “haves”
and the “have nots” via some sorts of redistribution. As a matter of fact, all matured
democracies have established elaborate systems of social welfare to make their
societies more coherent. When a democracy fails to ensure basic economic security
for large segments of the population, it will become politically very fragile.
Regulation and redistribution are just two examples. More generally, if a
democratic system proves unable to provide such essential public goods and services
as external security, domestic order, justice, basic education, prevention of epidemic
diseases, some compensations for those hurt by market swings, and some alleviation
of gross inequality, its poor performance will make people increasingly more
frustrated, thus eventually leading to legitimacy crisis and probably the breakdown of
democracy (Linz & Stepan 1996: 12-13).10 This danger tends to increase as a brief
“honeymoon period” of democratization passes and “the memories of authoritarian
failure fade” (Huntington 1993: 10)11
Only a state with strong capacities is able to perform well in generating social
well being. Coupled with democratic institutions, it should also be willing to satisfy
people’s demands. That is why both Linz & Stepan (1996) and Pzeworski (1995)
consider the efficacy and effectiveness of the state is the key to democratic legitimacy
and stability.
10
Weil (1989), however, argues that poor state performance may lead to a crisis of confidence, but it is
unlikely to lead to a legitimation crisis or a rejection of democracy.
11
Pierre Du Toit (2001) noted, “At the end of South Africa's ‘miracle transition’ in 1994, carried along
by the momentum of positive thinking, we tended to be optimistic about the prospects of democratic
consolidation. Since then, however, much appears to have gone wrong, and a lot of this has to do with
the performance of state institutions, especially those engaged in delivering public safety.”
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In summary, if a democracy is to work and last, the state must be able to
define the community in which it operates, to protect citizens’ basic rights, to create
and maintain a rule-based polity, to vitalize civil society, and to meet peoples’ basic
demands. Only an effective state can perform those tasks. Without these capacities,
there can be no democratic governance.
How Does State Effectiveness Affect Democratic Consolidation?
Based upon the insight that an effective state is a prerequisite of sustainable
democracy, we intend in this section to derive some propositions concerning
conducive or adverse circumstances for democratic consolidation.12 Most of them
have been put forward by others before, but their underlying assumptions and logics
are not necessarily identical with mine. For us, the key intervening variable that
affects the outcome of democratic consolidation is the degree of state effectiveness
measured by the six capacities discussed in the Section II. The higher the degree of
state effectiveness is, the less difficult the democratic consolidation becomes.
Conversely, for whatever reason, where state infrastuctural power is deficient,
democracy is less likely to function well and survive. Of course, state effectiveness is
merely one of necessary conditions for democratic consolidation, not a sufficient
condition, for an effective state may or may not be a democratic one.
Proposition 1: There may not be any specific preconditions for
democratization, but an effective state is a prerequisite to democratic consolidation.
The third wave demonstrates that democratization can occur anywhere,
including such “the most unlikely and unexpected places” as Mongolia, Albania, and
Mauritania, but consolidated and stable democracies are much harder to find because
many of third wave countries do not have effective governments (Carothers 2002).
Proposition 2: Democratic consolidation is more likely to be successful where
state and regime was distinguished from one another under the old regime.
This is so because the previous regime types may define the characters of state
institutions. Under certain types of regimes (e.g., the sultanistic regime, the regime
ruled by a strongman or a hegemonic party), there are in effect no distinction between
the regime and state. Consequently, when democratization begins, the state apparatus
are likely to collapse along with the old regime. The statelessness gives rise to a large
number of difficult challenges that newly democratizing country has to face, which in
turn makes democratic consolidation extremely difficult, if not entirely impossible.
The regime under the Shah’s rule in Iran was an example (Fishman 1990; Shain &
Linz 1995).
Proposition 3: The more disruptive the transition process is, the more difficult
it is to consolidate democracy.
The type of transition that hurts state capacity least is more likely to produce
consolidated democracy. Transition may be initiated by reformist incumbents of the
old regime or by opposition forces. The form of transition may be gradual and
peaceful or radical and violent. As far as democratic consolidation is concerned,
incumbent-initiated transition (Spain, Korea, and Taiwan) are preferable to an
12
Limited by space, we are unable to test these propositions even in the most rudimentary way.
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opposition-led transitions (the Philippines); orderly and peaceful transitions are
preferable (the former Czechoslovak) to ones preceded by revolutionary wars, ethnic
wars, or widespread riots (Indonesia). Put differently, where a state remains intact
during the process of regime transition, it may help the new regime to consolidate;
where transition undermines state cohesion and institutional hierarchy, it is more
difficult for the new regime to consolidate (Di Palma 1990; Fishman 1990; Shain &
Linz 1995).
Proposition 4: The more heterogeneous a society is, the more difficult it is to
consolidate democracy.
It is far more difficult to consolidate democracy in multiethnic and
multicultural societies than in homogeneous societies. As Huntington points out, “the
more complex and heterogeneous the society, the more the achievement and
maintenance of political community become dependent upon the working of political
institutions” (Huntington 1968: 9). Thus, state-building challenges tend to be more
acute in a multiethnic and multicultural society than in a society where all people
consider themselves as members of the same community. When state building is not
very successful, what J.S. Mill calls “fellow-feeling” (1958: 230) would be absent
among the people. When a large proportion of the population do not want to be part of
the community upon which the state is founded, the issue of crafting democratic
norms, practices, and institutions becomes secondary to what Linz & Stepan call “the
problem of stateness” (1996). The presence of the stateness problem may damage the
prospects of democratic consolidation in two ways. First, to solve the stateness
problem, the new democratizing regime would have to make great effort in nurturing
national identity, which will inevitably divert tremendous amounts of scarce resources
and precious energy from its effort to consolidate democracy (Kuzio et al. 1999, 6-7).
Second, “some ways of dealing with the problems of stateness are inherently
incompatible with democracy” (1996: 29).13
Proposition 5: The larger state size is, the more difficult it is to consolidate
democracy.
This proposition is partially related with the last. A large population is
statistically more heterogeneous: The larger a society, the more likely it encompasses
many religious, racial, ethnic, and linguistic groupings, which increases the difficulty
of governance. In addition to the heterogeneity problem, larger countries are also
likely to encounter considerable problems of vertical integration and horizontal
coordination, which further lowers the effectiveness of the state. Indeed, there is
empirical evidence suggesting that the quality of governance is correlated with the
size of the country (Treisman 2000). As a result, it is much harder for larger
democracies to consolidate.14
13
Dahl’s 1971 study confirmed that the higher degree of subcultural pluralism, the less likely a
political system is to be democratic or nearly so. Among the 114 polities he studied, 58% with a low
degree of subcultural pluralism, 36% with moderate pluralism, and only 15% with market pluralism
were polyarchies, or near-polyarchies (1971: 110-111).
14
Dahl & Tufte (1973) and Diamond (1999: 117-160) find significantly greater incidence [of stable
democracy] in very small countries. Another study discovers that the predicated probability of being
democratic is much higher in small than large countries. Interestingly, if a country is both small and an
island, the predicated probability for it to be a democracy is even higher (Ott 1995). This makes sense
because it is relatively easy to govern a small island that is protected by a nature from foreign invasion.
Perhaps, we should put forward a related proposition: In those countries that face less challenges to
their governance capabilities, it is easier to develop and consolidate democratic regime.
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Proposition 6: Stable democracy is more likely to appear in old than in new
states.
The longer time a country has existed, the more likely it has been successful in
crafting state loyalty. On the contrary, new states are very likely to run into the
challenges of nation building, unless only one nation with nearly cultural uniformity
exists in each of them. Such perfect congruence between the nation and the state is
rare among newly independent countries, especially those in Africa. It would be
logically and empirically impossible for a new state to consolidate democracy before
it solves the problem of national identity. If the priority were given to nation-building,
however, at least for the time being, either democracy would not emerge at all, or it
emerges but would not be stable (Linz & Stepan 1996). Even if the new state chooses
to pursue democratization and nation-state at once, its chance to consolidate
democracy would be smaller than its older counterpart, because the former confronts
simultaneously the problems that the latter may enjoy the luxury of solving
sequentially over fairly long historical periods (Huntington 1968: 397-397). This
explains why the most stable democracies in today’s world are still those that
emerged from the first wave of democratization.
Implications
The central argument of this essay is that, without an effective state, there can
be no stable democracy. If our basic points are right, then it would be suicidal for
democratic reformers intentionally or unintentionally to undermine or weaken state
institutions in the process of democratization, especially in those countries where
states are nonexistent or extremely weak to begin with. Of course, during the
democratic transition, the ways state power being exercised must change, but state
power itself should not be enfeebled Rather than single-mindedly trying to restrain
state power, democratic reformers should make more efforts to build national state
institutions where none existed before, and to strengthen state capacities where they
are weak.
There are three additional reasons for democratic reformers to pay more
attention to the issue of state building when studying democratic transition and
consolidation. First, where state effectiveness—a precondition of stable democracy—
is lacking, it cannot be supplied through the practice of democracy itself (Emerson
1966: 7). Specific efforts must be made to strengthen state capacities. Second, the
democratic regime probably needs a more effective state as its foundation than other
types of regime, because it allows more social forces to take part in political
competition. While non-democratic regimes may be able to survive with low levels of
state building, a functioning and stable democracy is possible only in the presence of
a set of effective state institutions. Otherwise it cannot meet the new challenges set off
by liberalization and democratization. Finally, democratization may unleash forces
that are likely to put enormous pressures on the system. For instance, the breakdown
of authoritarianism may trigger territorial disintegration; popular respect for
government may plummet in a new political environment; rising expectations may
overload the government, exceeding its capacity to respond; the demise of the
previously dominant party may leave both the state and society disorganized, thus
creating institutional vacuum; and pressures for greater uniformity (a result of
expended citizenship) may expose regional, ethnic, class, and religious differences
previously obscured and to stimulate resistance (Przeworski 1995).
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