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The literature on early modern state-building in Europe has focused on war as its main driver and therefore on states' relationships with men. Feminist scholars have critiqued the Weberian conceptions this literature relies on as being gender biased. I suggest an alternative theoretical starting point for theories of early modern state-building: the political imperatives created by the demographic fluctuations of the Malthusian trap. Harnessing Foucault's concept of biopower and its application to the construction of gender, I argue that population fluctuations incentivized demographic regulation, in particular of childbearing, in order to keep birth rates high and maternal and infant mortality low, implying that early modern European states were constituted through the construction and maintenance of gender regimes. I propose strategies for empirical investigation and argue that a more accurate account of early modern European state-building needs to incorporate demographic regulation and therefore requires gender to be at its center.

ABSTRACTIn recent years over half of all African states have re-introduced some form of universal basic service provision, though many more have done so in education when compared with health. Most existing explanations of these developments have emphasised the importance of demand side factors associated with democratisation. This paper argues that while democratisation has been important in generating pressure for reform, alliances with actors outside the state – such as donors and non-state service providers – have been the critical enabling factor allowing weak states to overcome their capacity constraints and respond. Two illustrative case studies are used to show how variation in alliance opportunities has led to differences in outcomes both between social sectors and across countries. An inter-sector comparison of health and education policy in Tanzania shows how a difference in donor policy preferences between sectors – donors having converged behind the principle of universal primary education but not universal healthcare – has led to variation in alliance opportunities and hence policy outcomes. A 'least likely' case of healthcare reform in Lesotho shows how an alliance with a non-state provider has made difficult reforms possible.

PUBLISHED ; States that are both strong and democratic are the most capable of delivering human development. Existing rational choice accounts of collective action and credible commitment have provided us with the answer as to why this is the case: effective social order depends on the ability of the state, as the external enforcer of collective agreements, to monitor compliance and punish free-riders (credible enforcement) and that the state is constrained to only act in the collective good (credible commitment). However, what these fundamentally static accounts do not provide is answers to the question of how credibly constrained Leviathans emerge, and how the two processes ? of the ac- cumulation of power and the constraining of power ? interact over time. We make a theoretical contribution by presenting a dynamic model of the state which shows that the sequencing of these two processes lead to fundamentally different outcomes. Specifically, we argue that while credible enforcement before credible commitment (i.e. democratizing after the state has become strong) can lead to a constrained Leviathan, credible commitment before credible enforcement (i.e. democratiz- ing before the state has become strong) cannot. We illustrate the theoretical argument with two con- trasting case studies of Ireland and Sweden. Our conclusions suggest that what matters for benefi- cial social outcomes is not democracy per se, but the timing of democracy in state development.

PUBLISHED ; What is the relationship between democracy and taxation, under conditions of `reverse? sequencing? Existing theories about taxation and democracy have presumed this relationship to be positive, but they have largely been predicated on the West?s historical evolution where the state became strong before it became democratic. The `reverse? sequencing most developing countries are experiencing ? democratizing before they consolidate their statehood ? may have important implications for their ability to tax. The paper argues that taxing in a context of weak state capacity necessitates state-building with intrinsically coercive elements, as citizens have few incentives to voluntarily comply. The paper hypothesizes that democracy reduces the ability of the state to coerce and that thishasimplicationsforhowitcantax. Theempiricalsectionusesamostsimilarsystemsdesign to compare a democracy, Lesotho, with an autocracy, Rwanda, demonstrating how the mechanics of this process operate: how governments incentivize bureaucracies into certain kinds of tax collection, depending on regime type; how this then affects the different levels of state-building activities the tax authority engages in; and how this cumulatively impacts on tax outcomes.

PUBLISHED ; How does democracy impact on public goods provision? This question has provoked a wealth of empirical and theoretical investigation, but few answers that satisfactorily explain emerging patterns in Sub-Saharan Africa. Most existing accounts have focused on only one channel of influence ? that between rulers and voters, arguing that democracy articulates demand for public goods provi- sion through this mechanism. This paper focuses on a different relationship ? that between rulers and elites ? and argues that this mechanism can help to explain what has been happening on the supply side in public goods provision on the continent. The paper argues that democracy increases rulers? need for patronage as a means of elite management, leading to a decline in capacity, and an inability to effectively supply public goods. The need for patronage is increased as democracy, by creating more routes to power, destabilizes rulers in relation to elites, who constitute their main rivals for power, and reduces their ability to employ strategies of control, thus making those of exchange more important. The argument is illustrated with a `most likely? case of food security policy reform in Malawi.

AbstractThe arguments that property rights and taxation positively affect development are well established in separate literatures, but the link between property rights and taxation is under-studied. To address this gap, we theorize, in the fiscal contract tradition, that property rights assigned and upheld by the state, as opposed to other political authorities, increase individual assent to taxation. We apply this argument to property rights on land in sub-Saharan-Africa, where the majority of land is governed by traditional authorities. Empirically we examine (1) the link between the state-assinged property rights on land and assent to taxation using individual-level data from Afrobarometer, and (2) the effect of state-led formalization, measured through novel data on state-produced cadastral records, and revenue from taxes on individuals in a panel of 37 sub-Saharan African countries across 35 years. We find support for our argument that there is no taxation without state-assigned property rights.

The arguments that property rights and taxation positively affect development are well established in separate literatures, but the link between property rights and taxation is understudied. To address this gap, we theorize that formalization of individual property rights facilitates economic exchange at scale, providing a viable opportunity for individuals to improve their economic standing, in exchange for which property owners assent to pay taxes. We illustrate the argument by comparing the historical evolution of tax states in early modern Europe and colonial Africa. Empirically, we examine the links in sub-Saharan Africa between (1) the ease of access to state-recorded information on land ownership and assent to paying taxes using individual-level data from Afrobarometer, and (2) the formalization of individual property rights on land, measured through novel data on the extent of cadastral records, and government revenue from taxes on individuals at the cross-country level.

AbstractWhat explains variation in tax outcomes between European states? Previous studies emphasise the role played by political institutions, but focus mostly on the input side of politics – how access to power and policy making is structured – and the institutions of relatively recent times. It is argued in this article that output‐side institutions related to the implementation of political decisions also matter and have deep institutional origins. As the classic literature has argued, the early modern period from 1450 to 1800 was formative for the development of fiscal capacity, but European states diverged in the stock of capacity they acquired. This article tests whether these differences still affect contemporary tax outcomes using a novel measure of fiscal capacity, based on the age, extent and quality of state‐administered cadastral records. The empirical analysis shows that, on average, countries with higher early modern fiscal capacity have higher tax revenue today, compared to countries with lower early modern fiscal capacity. This association is robust to different model specifications and alternative measurements. The findings have important policy implications as they indicate how deeply the current fiscal problems of the continent are entrenched, but also point to what needs to be prioritised within ongoing tax reforms.

This article presents a theoretical argument of how and why democratization at different levels of state capacity matters for public goods provision and subjects the argument to empirical tests. Building on rational choice theories of public goods production, we argue that credible enforcement before credible commitment—democratizing after the state has acquired high levels of state capacity—leads to a more efficient social order than the opposite sequence. Using a theoretically grounded and novel indicator of historical state capacity—the extent and quality of cadastral records—the analysis shows that those countries where the state developed extensive enforcement capacities before democratization exhibit, on average, better provision of essential public goods and are less corrupt.

How does decentralization affect patronage and rent seeking? While centralization is seen as enabling these practices, many expect decentralization to reduce them. With few examples of meaningful reform it is difficult to establish if this is the case in the context of African states. We look at the impact of decentralization on rent seeking and patronage in Kenya, where the devolution of significant powers to county governments has recently taken place. We suggest that devolution has not removed these practices but rather brought them down to the local level in response to popular expectations that it is "everyone's turn to eat". The realization of this expectation for a broad constituency of ethnic groups and elites has facilitated – so far – the embedding of these reforms. Our findings thus suggest that the implementation of meaningful decentralization has been achieved via the decentralization of patronage networks, meaning that the "our turn to eat" character of ethnic patronage politics persists. As a result, although a greater number of groups now have their turn, ethnic minorities within some counties feel marginalized, including certain trapped minorities from politically relevant groups.