States & Underdevelopment

Question 1

Tilly vs. Evans

Answer 1

• Tilly notes that states can offer both benign and malign protection
• Peter Evans focuses on malign effects of states on development and refers to these states as “predatory states” that impede development instead of promoting it

Question 2

Mobuto’s Zaire

Answer 2

• Mobuto Sese Seko ruled Zaire for 31 years until 1996
• Personalized the state: Took taxes as own personal money, had billions of dollars in overseas accounts
• Limited development: State did not attempt to develop or offer goods/services that benefitted the population
• Predation: State used military to quash any resistances, dominated the population, and allowed police/military to brutalize people
• Result: The population was worse off because of the state

Question 3

Evans’ Continuum

Answer 3

• Evans uses “predatory state” and “developmental state” as ideal types on two ends of a continuum
• Most states find themselves somewhere in between the two extremes, some being predatory in ways and developmental in others
• Evans asks what causes states to be more predatory or more developmental
• The answer is there are two main determinants, combined in the term “embedded autonomy”

Question 4

State Embeddedness

Answer 4

• Refers to the ties that state has with societal actors
• Argues that these ties help to restrain the state and push it to act in ways that follow public interests
  – In this regards, it helps to make the state grounded and responsive to popular needs
• Without these ties, states act autocratically and pursue the interests of the rulers, not the public
  – Similar to de Tocqueville’s—society restraining state
• Evans also argues that embeddedness strengthens the state and improves development policy
• State is able to engage with the public and exploit the know-how, knowledge, skills, and work of the public
  – Prevents top-down policy that doesn’t take into consideration real-world conditions
  – Allows public and state to combine their efforts

Question 5

James Scott and States

Answer 5

• From his personal work, agrees with Tilly’s claim that states commonly offer malign protection
  – Worked with peasants in SE Asia (Myanmar, Malaysia)
  – Found that they often did everything possible to avoid the state because state activities hurt them
• Taxes, forced labour, coercion, took land, etc.
• Irony: Scott found that the state was not always trying to exploit the peasants, not purposefully predatory
  – Usually trying to implement some developmental policy that was intended to “help” the population

Question 6

Scott’s Determinants of Developmental Disasters

Answer 6

• The main problem Scott saw is that states commonly tried to implement grandiose, modernizing policies that negatively affected the peasants
• Seeing Like a State: Title suggests states saw issues in a certain way that led to developmental disasters
• Argues an ideology of “high modernism” is the cause of this
  – Ideology proclaiming the ability and need of humans to engineer “modern” societies
  – Therefore sees state developmentalism as cause of hardship
• (1) Ideology of High Modernism
  – Belief that humans have the knowledge to engineer better societies
  – Attempt very complicated and transformative policies without consulting “backward” people affected
• (2) Administrative Ordering of State and Society
  – Over-simplification and abstraction cause incorrect information and ideas about society
• Censuses, cadastral maps
• Result: They think they understand what’s happening on the ground but have abstract and inaccurate information
• (3) Authoritarian Regime
  – State elites able to implement policy without consultation with others
  – Public can’t hold them accountable
  – Fixated on the “ends” and not the “means”
• (4) Pro-State Civil Society
  – Limits social pressure against state actions
  – Allows state free hand to pursue policies

Question 7

High-Modern Disasters in Canada

Answer 7

• Policies toward Indigenous peoples
  – Supposed to do “good” (from Modernization view)
  – Destroyed their livelihoods in ways limiting their abilities to pursue their well-beings
• Residential Schools: Supposedly modernizing Indigenous peoples through education
  – Getting the “Indian” out of them so they can participate in “modern” society
  – Result: Enormous pain and suffering in an attempted cultural genocide
• Inuit Sled Dog Cull: After WWII, Canadian Government sought to “modernize” Inuit by making them sedentary
  – So could provide schools, clinics, electricity
• Means: killed their sled dogs
• Effects: eliminated their way of life
  – Were stuck in one place with little to do
  – Difficulty providing for themselves because new jobs didn’t miraculously appear

Question 8

Evans and Scott: Common Ground

Answer 8

• Democracy: Like Scott, Evans says democracy vital for making sure state doesn’t brutalize the population while pursuing “development”
• Embeddedness and Civil Society: State engagement with vibrant civil society provides enormous information about society
  – Also a big constraint on policies against public interests
• Development as Freedom: Focuses on human development, not simply industrialization and “modernization”
  – Helps to focus more attention on the means and not simply the ends

Question 9

Predatory States

Answer 9

Some states are predatory, exploitative and only look out for interests of leaders

Question 10

High Modern

Answer 10

Some states are actually trying to be developmental but do horrible things
– Suggests state leaders need to take seriously the Hippocratic Oath—“First do no harm”