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The Strong and the Weak: Ups and Downs of State Capacity in Southeast Asia
Author(s) -
Larsson Tomas
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
asian politics and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.193
H-Index - 12
eISSN - 1943-0787
pISSN - 1943-0779
DOI - 10.1111/aspp.12040
Subject(s) - authoritarianism , state (computer science) , capital (architecture) , fiscal capacity , southeast asia , economics , variation (astronomy) , economic system , political science , geography , democracy , law , politics , sociology , algorithm , ethnology , physics , archaeology , computer science , astrophysics
Why are some Southeast Asian states strong and others weak? This article addresses this question by mapping state capacity across the region on two dimensions—fiscal and legal‐administrative—and then exploring alternative explanations. It argues that variation in state capacities relates to differences in regime type and industrial structure. The region's democracies have greater fiscal state capacity than authoritarian regimes, and economies dependent on capital inflows associated with complex exports have greater legal‐administrative state capacity than those dependent on other types of capital inflows.