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Origins of the Fragile States

Lack of Social Control

Though governments for most of the countries seem to be functioning well and representing their people on the world stage, Joel Migdal looked into the relationship between state and society, where there is a disparity between the officially announced policies and the actual distribution of state resources. The list of countries included India, Mexico, Egypt and Sierra Leone etc. He traced this disparity to the lack of social control by the government - “the actual ability to make the operative rules of the game for people in the society." This not only includes existence of government agencies over the territory and extraction of resources but also the ability to appropriate resources and to regulate people's behavior.

Migdal stated the expansion of European economy and world trade in the 19th century led to drastic changes in people's strategies of survival in countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. State policies enforced by Europeans, including land tenure laws, taxation and new modes of transportation, changed people's life situation and needs in these countries rapidly and deeply. Old rewards, sanctions and symbols became irrelevant under the new situation and previous social control and institutions were eroded.

However, unlike western Europe in the earlier centuries, these countries did not establish a new concentration of social control as the base of a strong and capable state. This is because although these countries had the necessary condition for creating a strong state - old social control weakened by the world trade before World War I - they did not have the sufficient conditions: 1) world historical timing that encourages concentrated social control; 2) military threat either from outside or within the country; 3) the basis for an independent bureaucracy; 4) skillful top leadership that would take advantage of all the above conditions.