Census detail as a proxy for state capacity
Noah Schwartz, Deborah Balk (P.I.), Melanie Brickman, Bridget Anderson, Marc Levy
Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University
Introduction
Methods
Governments perform a variety of functions, and
thus government capacity is multifaceted and
somewhat difficult to measure. Indirect measures of
a government’s ability to provide physical security,
foster economic activity, secure the trust of its
citizens, and fulfill various other responsibilities have
been developed. However, researchers possess few
if any proxies for assessing a government’s overall
capacity.
Spatial Resolution was regressed on Governmental
Effectiveness and, separately, on Legitimacy.
Filters were developed to control for extreme areas,
populations, and population densities.
Even with these controls in place, the linear
relationship between spatial resolution and
government capacity is not strong (though it is
present). Ten percent of the variation in Resolution
can be explained by variation in Legitimacy.
Temporal consistency is a stronger predictor of state
capacity than spatial resolution.
Resolution vs. Legitimacy
400
Resolution GPW3
Continent Name GPW3
This study was designed to investigate whether the
spatial and temporal detail of censuses can be used
as a proxy for government capacity.
Africa
Asia
Europe
300
200
100
0
North America
Oceania
South America
Linear Regress ion
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-2.0000 -1.0000 0.0000
1.0000
R-Square = 0.10
2.0000
Legitimacy
Hypothesis
The spatial and temporal detail of censuses
increases with increased capacity.
Data
Spatial data for 232 countries was obtained from
CIESIN’s Gridded Population of the World (GPW)
dataset, which represents the highest resolution,
affordably available sub-national census units.
Countries compile census data for administrative
units of varying sizes. The smaller the units, the
more detailed the census. The spatial resolution of
a census can be measured by calculating the
average size of these units:
country area
Mean resolution (km) 
number of admin. units
Fig. 3
Fig. 1
All small-area states (hollow circles), including those with low
Governmental Effectiveness, have resolution finer than 100 km. All
sparsely populated countries (orange), including those with high
GovEff, lie above – on the coarser side – of the fit line. Sparsely
populated countries are defined as those in which more than 75% of
the total area contains less than 5 people per square kilometer.
In small-area countries, the census data gathered
by governments of all capacity levels have fine
resolution, simply because the territory is small (Fig.
1). Conversely, in sparsely populated territories,
governments of all capacity levels tend to gather
coarse data. Both types of countries could cloud a
relationship between resolution and capacity that
exists in other states. For this reason, small
countries and sparsely populated countries were
excluded from analyses or labeled distinctly.
Resolution improves slightly with increased legitimacy. Countries with small
areas, small populations, and large uninhabited areas were excluded.
Nevertheless, mean difference tests consistently
indicate that resolution increases moderately with
increasing governmental effectiveness (Fig. 5).
Associations between state capacity and temporal
resolution were explored using similar methods to
those described above for spatial resolution.
Census frequency explains about 30% of the variability in both Governmental
Effectiveness and Legitimacy.
Results
Spatial Resolution is a moderately good indicator of
Governmental Effectiveness. The association is
stronger for more effective states.
Fig. 4
As Governmental
Effectiveness increases, the
median Resolution and
inter-quartile range
decrease, i.e. Resolution
becomes finer and less
variable. Outliers are
mainly countries with large,
sparsely-populated deserts
This would be the width of each unit if all the units
were square and equal in size.
Figs. 5 and 6
Implications
The bivariate analyses described above have laid
the ground work for the construction of a multivariate
model that may enable researchers to infer
government capacity from simple measures of
census detail.
Data on the temporal resolution, i.e. frequency, of
censuses from 1940 to 2004 were acquired from the
International Programs Office (IPC) of the US
Census Bureau.
References
Many measures of government capacity exist,
pertaining to different dimensions of governance.
Forty-two indices of governmental effectiveness and
legitimacy in political, economic, social, and security
matters were obtained from the World Bank Group,
CIESIN, and other data sources. This study focused
on focused on measures of effectiveness and
legitimacy.
“Strategic Warning for Fragile States: A Collection of
Quantitative Indicators,” CIESIN.
Gridded Population of the World, version 3
(GPWv3), http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/gpw.
Fig. 5
Points represent the mean
resolution for each category
of Governmental
Effectiveness. Error bars
represent 95% confidence
intervals for the means.
Fig. 2
As area decreases, the median and range of resolution decreases. All
small-area states have fine resolution, confirming Fig. 1. For states
smaller than 50,000 km2, resolution is strongly determined by area,
thereby obscuring associations with capacity.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Deborah Balk for guidance on every
aspect on this project; Melanie Brickman for
constructing the dataset; Bridget Anderson and Marc
Levy for help with interpreting governance
indicators; and Dallas Abbott for organizing the
Earth Intern program that funded this research.