Abstract:
This study examines the evolution of state systems in seven developing world regions,including Central and South America, North and Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, andCentral and Southeast Asia, from the date of political independence to the early twenty-firstcentury. The theoretical framework incorporates two propositions: that the central problemof Third World state formation has been the relative absence of the consolidation ofgeographic boundaries in response to external military threats, and the limited ability ofgovernments to project their authority over sparsely inhabited territories. Additionalhypotheses address the role of population and topography in public administration; theimpact of ethno linguistic divisions on governance; the dynamics of domestic protests andviolence; the political effect of external challenges to territorial integrity; and therelationship between boundaries and interstate conflict. These are applied at three levels ofanalysis. The domestic-level model introduces a measure of internal power projectioncapability that indicates the ability of political elites to administer taxation across territorialspace. A second international-level model estimates the impact of these domestic structuralvariables on the extent of state participation in militarized interstate disputes. The finallevel addresses possible interdependence between internal and external variables. Theoutcomes suggest that while several predictors have had a significant impact on trends ofconsolidation and conflict across systems, there is considerable variation in effects betweenregions, calling into question common generalizations about the intrinsic qualities ofdeveloping states
Machine summary:
2015 ____________________________________________________________________________ Abstract This study examines the evolution of state systems in seven developing world regions,including Central and South America, North and Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, andCentral and Southeast Asia, from the date of political independence to the early twenty-firstcentury.
Arguments related to the first position maintain that certain structural precedents condition the origins of political units: those "Third World" nations which possessed a core of defined territory or centralized administration prior to the period of foreign colonization (Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia) were provided with a subsequent advantage in the establishment of independent polities, while those which were essentially constituted by outside forces or geopolitical events (Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Sudan) have struggled repeatedly with competing definitions of statehood (Anderson, 1986; El-Khazen, 2000: 101; Nasr, violence, despite the initial decline of regional or "proxy" wars beginning in the late 1980s.
First, the empirical tests of the models demonstrate that the level of average population density per administrative unit is positively and significantly associated with internal power projection across a majority of regions, generating support for the first-order proposition that policy instruments such as tax administration are inherently affected by the habitation patterns of territories.
In both the Central American and North African state systems, ethno linguistic composition has had a positive effect on the ability of political elites to administer National territories where cleavages approach a plurality, while the reverse is indicated for South America, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and mainland Southeast Asia.