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Around 1900, at least 97 percent of homicide victims in Japan were newborn children. Official statistics obscured this fact by reporting only a handful of infanticides each year, but they also preserved it in the guise of impossibly frequent stillbirths. We argue that this striking failure of law enforcement did not reflect insufficient state capacity. The statistics are best understood as the result of a performance, jointly delivered by subjects and officials to reconcile two conflicting values—the omote (façade) of the state's legal protection of newborns and the naishō (tacit arrangement) of household autonomy over family planning and reproduction. Political performances are often seen as deployed by those in power to deceive, discipline, or dominate the population. We observe instead a more collaborative dynamic that allows states to extend their reach into society while also respecting the autonomy of the population through compromise and indeterminacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to improve security and strengthen the rule of law in fragile states? Community policing programs have long been at the forefront of policymakers' efforts to address this challenge. These programs tend to be more expansive than those found in developed countries, focusing not only on building trust through meetings and foot patrols, but also on eliciting 'coproduction' from communities to supplement scarce police capacity and provide alternatives to vigilantism. I partnered with the Liberian National Police (LNP) to experimentally evaluate the effectiveness of this approach in Monrovia, Liberia, one of sub-Saharan Africa's most crime-ridden cities. Drawing on a large-scale resident survey and administrative crime data, I find that the program improved relations between police and citizens, strengthened social norms against vigilantism, and mobilized communities to participate in the police's "Watch Forum" initiative by forming and sustaining local security groups designed to facilitate cooperation with police. These changes were accompanied by a roughly 40% reduction in the incidence of mob violence. Despite these improvements, the program did not reduce the overall incident of crime, improve perceptions of security, or increase crime reporting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanization involves a process of state building. As manifest in its infrastructure, the state shapes its interactions with citizens. In this study, we link fine-grained geo-referenced points-of-interest (POI) data of government agencies with the 2018 Urbanization and Quality of Life Survey conducted in 40 localities experiencing rural-urban transition, and investigate how the presence of state infrastructure is associated with neighborhood well-being in China during a period of rapid urbanization. Our findings confirm that urbanization contributes to the expansion of local state: there is more evidence of state infrastructure per capita in newly urbanized areas than in potential sites of urbanization. Moreover, the association between state infrastructure and neighborhood well-being varies based on the type of government institution and the type of neighborhood. The presence of administrative infrastructure is positively associated with neighborhood satisfaction, which is likely due to residents' easier access to public services. In contrast, there is a negative association between coercive infrastructure and neighborhood satisfaction, but less so for urban neighborhoods than rural villages. The research provides nationwide evidence that the process of urbanization increases the state reach as well as its influence on local governance, but the effects of this influence vary considerably. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares state and nation building in Lat­in America with Eastern Europe, including the Balkans. It comes to the conclusion that different imperial legacies (land empires vs. maritime empires) have led to different interpretative paradigms of understanding the world, with national/ethnic problems dom­inating the literature in and on Eastern Europe, whereas a social and post-colonial paradigm has become the dominant key of self-understanding in Latin America. As one of the consequences, the terms „left“ and „right“ do not have the same meaning in both regions. The article concludes with outlining a research agenda for further comparative work.

Abstract Can wars truly build states and rationalize their structures? This study focuses on the administrative origin of state-building and finds historical evidence that seems contrary to the idea of "war-making states". As states acquire more territory, they become increasingly vulnerable to setbacks in subsequent military activities, even when facing state failure or demise. Drawing upon geospatial data spanning from 906 to 969 AD during Chinas Five Dynasties and utilizing a difference-in-differences method, our study reveals that (1) states did not progressively expand in size due to continuous warfare, and (2) larger territorial acquisitions were associated with decreased probabilities of state survival, as expanding net territorial areas corresponded to higher likelihoods of state failure in the following years. (3) The relationship between civilian and military systems within a state profoundly impacts the validity of the "war-making states" hypothesis. This study highlights that war makes states more susceptible to collapse if the military system dominates the civilian bureaucracy. Conversely, if the civilian system controls the military and forms a centralized regime, the "war-making states" hypothesis holds true. These findings revise the prevailing hypothesis of "war-making states" in historical sociology, showing that the "war-making states" hypothesis depends on a specific political structure and bureaucratic system.

Under severe fiscal constraints that plagued colonial states, how did governments allocate their coercive power throughout the colonized territory? In this paper, I highlight the pre-colonial state consolidation as an important determinant of colonial coercion. When the state established control over society by appointing new local agents, the society became more compliant to state demands, reducing the need for coercion over the long run. To evaluate this argument in British Burma, I collected new data from indigenous land revenue inquests and colonial police reports, using the pre-colonial variation in local headman appointment after a plausibly exogenous extinction of a hereditary line. I find that places closer to locations that received new pre-colonial headmen experienced significantly lower colonial police presence. Neither spatial correlation nor the presence of other state institutions can explain the results. The findings emphasize the deep origins of contentious state-society relations that extend beyond colonial legacies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how aid activities by the World Bank and China, which take two competing approaches to building state capacity, affect a recipient government's effort to build state legitimacy vis-à-vis its population. The study operationalized legitimacy drawing on Levi's 'quasi-voluntary compliance,' and empirically analyzed the two approaches' effects at the local level. The study used the Afrobarometer survey conducted in Tanzania in 2014 and geocoded datasets for aid projects. Chinese aid, characterized by its 'Developmental State' approach, was associated with higher projection of state legitimacy at local level. Meanwhile, the World Bank's aid, which encourages building state legitimacy in a 'contractarian' way, did not demonstrate such a correlation, and there was limited evidence that the co-location of projects from both donors may condition the effects of the World Bank aid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits core pieces of literature on EU foreign policy studies to gauge how far the endogenous institutional quality of EU foreign policy structures has matured by assessing its growth over time. In revisiting two foundational studies, it discusses whether the EU's foreign policy capabilities are still so unequivocally below the state level. First, it will return to the "capabilities-expectations gap" [Hill, C., 1993. The capability-expectations gap, or conceptualizing Europe's international role. Journal of Common Market Studies, 31 (3), 305–328] to investigate the quality of the institutional structure in foreign policy and in how far the EU's institutions fulfil general functions of foreign policy today. Second, it will explore whether "Who Speaks for Europe?" is still a pertinent question [Allen, D., 1998. Who speaks for Europe? The search for an effective and coherent external policy. In: J. Peterson, and H. Sjursen, eds. A common foreign policy for Europe? Competing visions of the CFSP. 41–58]. The results of this assessment allow a conceptualisation of foreign policy capabilities evolving in long-term, slow processes, yet resulting in differences in institutional quality that may otherwise be overlooked. The paper contributes to the overall assessment of the EU's maturation in foreign policy by providing assessments on institutional growth and developing a scale of foreign policy capabilities to capture these slow incremental developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Helpem Fren, Michael Wesley's diplomatic history of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI), the Australian-led multilateral intervention in Solomon Islands from 2003-2017, is a near definitive study of the intervention from an Australian perspective. As such, it shares some of the failures of RAMSI itself, such as overconfidence in its success. The reviewer, based on his experience of living in the Solomons during many years of the RAMSI intervention, examines both the strengths and weaknesses of RAMSI and this volume, its semi-official history. These include RAMSI's early success in peacemaking and its more problematic long-term exercise in state building, including its inflexible entrenchment in law and justice, finance, and governance sectors to the exclusion of support for sustainable human development. The reviewer notes areas not dealt with in the book, including RAMSI's cost and its relations with the Solomon Islands Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the churches. While Helpem Fren is an essential study for understanding the Australian role in RAMSI, its strictly Australian perspective calls for further critical study of RAMSI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do countries repeal the inheritance tax? To investigate this question, we use a novel dataset on inheritance tax introductions and repeals worldwide. We argue that revenue requirements are the main determinant of repeal risks: The inheritance tax is resilient as long as it is central to the national revenue system; it becomes vulnerable to attacks once the rise of more efficient tax instruments marginalizes its revenue contribution. Devoid of fiscal purpose, its survival depends mainly on its redistributive features. Redistribution, however, is essentially contested and should be more important in democracies. The evidence is in line with our conjecture: The likelihood of inheritance tax repeal increases as other more buoyant taxes rise and non-democracies are more likely to repeal the tax than democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Anuario Colombiano de Historia Social y de la Cultura is the property of Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas, Departamento de Historia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Constitutional History / Giornale di Storia Costituzionale is the property of Giornale di Storia Costituzionale (Journal of Constitutional History) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Ayer: Revista de Historia Contemporánea is the property of Asociacion de Historia Contemporanea and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article focuses on the state diplomacy of the regent Christine Charlotte from the perspective of New Diplomatic History and informed by a cultural-historical approach. It analyses the patterns of argumentation and rhetorical strategies she used to persuade the emperor to support her in the domestic power struggle with the East Frisian estates. She used her inferior, weak position and asymmetrical relationship with the emperor as a strong argument to engage Leopold I on a moral level. Moreover, by rhetorically transforming her own problems into those of the emperor and the empire as a whole, she turned Leopold’s support into the emperor’s own interest on a rational level.

Since South Sudan's independence, complex conflicts across the country have eroded trust, challenged nation-building, and displaced 4 million people, with hunger threatening millions more, continuing a long tradition of war inherited from the Sudan. This article examines people's perceptions of conflict in Aweil and Yambio and found that for trust in the government to return, citizens must believe that development is ethnically and politically inclusive and coherent. In addition to a credible program, government's effective communication of a "peace through development policy" could rebuild the torn social fabric within and across ethnic groups, and between them and Government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The civil service is a creation of the state and not of any social or economic forces and has no organic relationship to society. Therefore, when a new state is established a new civil service is also demanded. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution and the First World War, the civil service of the defeated imperial regimes was dealing with this reality. In Ireland, a parallel process of state destruction and state-building occurred. However, unlike the post-Versailles states, the Irish Free State achieved remarkable stability despite experiencing a civil war. It has been proposed that one reason for that stability was that the government of the new state maintained the civil service of the former regime and so ensured continuity in the administration. By reconstructing the experience of the civil service in the period of the Irish revolution that view is challenged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the state diplomacy of the regent Christine Charlotte from the perspective of New Diplomatic History and informed by a cultural-historical approach. It analyses the patterns of argumentation and rhetorical strategies she used to persuade the emperor to support her in the domestic power struggle with the East Frisian estates. She used her inferior, weak position and asymmetrical relationship with the emperor as a strong argument to engage Leopold I on a moral level. Moreover, by rhetorically transforming her own problems into those of the emperor and the empire as a whole, she turned Leopold's support into the emperor's own interest on a rational level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article explores the trials and tribulations of the Romanian state in building viable institutions and acquiring independence in the latter half of the 19th century. Starting from a flurry of diplomatic exchanges on the eve of the Russian-Turkish war (1877--1878), which were aimed at securing experienced General Staff officers for the young Romanian army, this article shows how intimately interconnected the domestic and international dimensions of state building were for such fledgling states and explores the inversely proportional relationship between Krasner's notions of sovereignty -- legal-international and Westphalian. The article thus proposes a more institutional-oriented approach to state building in South-Eastern Europe and seeks to bring the state and the pragmatics of its creation back into a discussion of independence and sovereignty in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Internasjonal Politikk is the property of Cappelen Damm Akademisk and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Bulletin of Ablai Khan KazUIRandWL: Series 'International Relations & Regional Studies' is the property of Kazakh Ablai Khan University of International Relations & World Languages and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Ayer: Revista de Historia Contemporánea is the property of Asociacion de Historia Contemporanea and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Indonesia situated within the volatile Ring of Fire, faces recurring and devastating earthquakes that pose significant economic threats. The Government of Indonesia (GoI) has initiated a disaster risk financing strategy to address these challenges. However, the implementation of disaster insurance within this strategy remains limited. This study examined the GoI’s disaster risk financing methods, assessed the effectiveness of existing disaster insurance practices, and proposed strategies for improving disaster risk reduction (DRR). Literature review was used to analyse disaster fund and insurance implementation. A building vulnerability simulation, based on Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) P-154 rapid visual screening, determined the appropriate financing strategy. State buildings were assessed using nine vulnerability factors and categorised by seismicity. The research found that disaster financing mostly relied on national funds to cover all disaster damages. Existing disaster insurance lacked clarity in defining insurable buildings, resulting in broad inclusion. Vulnerability assessments showed that each building type exhibited different potential earthquake damage levels. Consequently, insurance coverage is recommended for high-damage categories but discouraged for low to moderately vulnerable buildings. Contribution: This study offered insights into Indonesia’s current disaster risk financing and insurance landscape, and provides a strategic framework for optimising these mechanisms to better protect state buildings from earthquake-related risks.

This study deals with the definition of the aristocracy in the late Habsburg Monarchy (1848-1916). It attempts to grasp this phenomenon in the “bourgeois age” from two perspectives: firstly, it is assumed that the state - with the establishment of a centralised administration—also ‘bureaucratised’ membership of the nobility in the nineteenth century. In the Habsburg administrative apparatus, there were therefore structures that regulated entry and advancement in this social class and established categories that defined and standardised the nobility from a state perspective. Social mobility was made primarily dependent on the achievements of the applicants. On the other hand, the social implications of the institutional decisions of the nobility and the policy of ennoblement are analysed. This form of honour was, as it were, worthless—for the applicant as well as for the state—if it did not receive public attention and recognition. It is therefore also necessary to ask from the opposite side how the public identified and defined the nobility and how those wishing to be ennobled tried to assert their claims with the help of official and informal channels.

Drawn from ethnographic fieldwork and documentary research, this article examines three shifts in national-scale planning in Palestine. In the period after the Oslo accords, Palestinian planners were tasked with the responsibility to create formal structures of governance and build for a future, eventual state there. Through that process and especially after the second intifada, national planning came to focus almost exclusively on market openness, privatization, and capitalistic development as part of a state and economy building project. Increasingly since 2015, planners have attempted to re-take some kind of formal authority. This article argues that such regimes show how Palestine is increasingly crafted at the state-scale as a node in wider global political economies in order to ostensibly stabilize the political situation, and in ways that have wide consequences for Palestine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Adab Al-Kufa is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Educational Studies (1673-1298) is the property of Journal of Educational Studies Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article explores Africa's shifting international relations through two important international gateways to the continent: Kotoka International Airport in Accra and Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa. Case studies drawing on archival, fieldwork and secondary data examine the history and development of both airports, and find these gates represent a fruitful but neglected vantage point for understanding Africa's shifting connections to the wider world. Theoretically, whilst the article affirms the value of using such critical nodal points – or 'gates' – to understand the international dimensions of African politics, it also highlights the limits of extant concepts such as 'gatekeeping' and the typology of the 'gatekeeper state'. The article instead advances an alternative approach which it calls 'gatemaking' to enhance our understanding of Africa's international relations by looking at how gates such as airports help to make (and remake) Africa's place in the world (rather than looking only at how gates shape domestic state forms, as in the gatekeeper mould). Evident to different degrees in both airports, this concept foregrounds Africa as a place that both originates and shapes key dimensions of the international, contributing to emerging debates in critical approaches to international relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indonesia situated within the volatile Ring of Fire, faces recurring and devastating earthquakes that pose significant economic threats. The Government of Indonesia (GoI) has initiated a disaster risk financing strategy to address these challenges. However, the implementation of disaster insurance within this strategy remains limited. This study examined the GoI's disaster risk financing methods, assessed the effectiveness of existing disaster insurance practices, and proposed strategies for improving disaster risk reduction (DRR). Literature review was used to analyse disaster fund and insurance implementation. A building vulnerability simulation, based on Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) P-154 rapid visual screening, determined the appropriate financing strategy. State buildings were assessed using nine vulnerability factors and categorised by seismicity. The research found that disaster financing mostly relied on national funds to cover all disaster damages. Existing disaster insurance lacked clarity in defining insurable buildings, resulting in broad inclusion. Vulnerability assessments showed that each building type exhibited different potential earthquake damage levels. Consequently, insurance coverage is recommended for high-damage categories but discouraged for low to moderately vulnerable buildings. Contribution: This study offered insights into Indonesia's current disaster risk financing and insurance landscape, and provides a strategic framework for optimising these mechanisms to better protect state buildings from earthquake-related risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State formation has received serious attention in the literature on modern Greece yet some certain parameters of state transformation remain overlooked. One of them is the expansion of the security capacity of the state in a wartime period and particularly the mechanisms associated with internment and captivity. This article uses as a case study the Balkan Wars of 1912 and shows how a state of emergency brought by military conflict and the need to settle, monitor, and control thousands of prisoners of wars and “unreliable” civilians forced the state to expand its bureaucratic machinery and thus strengthen its coercive capabilities. As will be explained, in 1912-13, the Greek state faced an impending crisis. The masses of prisoners of war that arrived in Greece created security concerns for an administrative mechanism that was not at the time capable of dealing with these kinds of challenges. Likewise, the need to monitor “dangerous” ethnic groups in the newly conquered lands enhanced this threat and added further pressures on the Greek bureaucratic machinery. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, this security crisis provided an opportunity for state expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bosnia and Herzegovina have progressed extremely well in the last few years on its path towards the European Union. The latest success was represented by the opening of the accession negotiations after they successfully improved their compliance with the political criteria. But their EU membership is still far away, and they need to confront major challenges. The goal of this paper is to analyze the level of community security by looking at the influence of identity politics in both the internal political life of Bosnia and the European Union's state-building strategy during Ursula von der Leyen’s Commission. This paper answers the question of a new Dayton Agreement to be worked upon by the political leadership from BiH and together with the European incentives. By looking at the rhetoric of several levels of leadership in both national and European dimensions, this paper outlines the impact of ethnic discrimination as the key factor that affects the European integration process. As a result, it could be argued that if BiH wants to achieve membership, it clearly needs to create a new constitutional framework that goes beyond ethnic narratives, reduces the interests of political elites, and needs the support of actors such as the High Representative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Federalism is a system of government in which competency and power of governance belong to center and provinces. Federalism considered being appropriate to a cohesive political society in order to create mutual co-operation and harmony in the administrative, political, and socioeconomic spheres. However, federalism endows with a fragile balance between the squabbles demands between the center and provinces. This article begins with an analysis of centralized federalism historically and goes on to examine the conceptual paradigms of federalism in Pakistan. This article discusses the different patterns of Pakistani federal reactions formed over time in the form of various political factors. The article highlights the reasons for the failure to develop an organic federal covenant in Pakistan as well as highlights how the federal form of government has worked in the context of the constitution of 1973. The article concluded by presenting the way forward for federalism and offers some key suggestions and recommendations for strengthening federalism in Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study deals with the definition of the aristocracy in the late Habsburg Monarchy (1848-1916). It attempts to grasp this phenomenon in the "bourgeois age" from two perspectives: firstly, it is assumed that the state - with the establishment of a centralised administration--also 'bureaucratised' membership of the nobility in the nineteenth century. In the Habsburg administrative apparatus, there were therefore structures that regulated entry and advancement in this social class and established categories that defined and standardised the nobility from a state perspective. Social mobility was made primarily dependent on the achievements of the applicants. On the other hand, the social implications of the institutional decisions of the nobility and the policy of ennoblement are analysed. This form of honour was, as it were, worthless--for the applicant as well as for the state--if it did not receive public attention and recognition. It is therefore also necessary to ask from the opposite side how the public identified and defined the nobility and how those wishing to be ennobled tried to assert their claims with the help of official and informal channels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the state's uneven capacity to deliver public social goods to the periphery. It does so through a comparative analysis of two agencies in Thailand, the Ministry of Public Health and the Ministry of Education, which have exhibited a marked disparity in serving rural citizens over the past twenty-five years. The author traces these outcomes to a divergence in how the agencies perceive the significance of their rural policies in meeting Thailand's security threats and economic growth strategy. This perception produces contrasting organizational norms between central and local bureaucrats, which informs incentives for capacity-building. When an agency's central office believes that rural policy matters significantly for national goals, norms develop that encourage local agents to invest in serving rural needs. But when an agency deems rural policy to be less urgent in meeting key national objectives, the converse ensues. The article finds that how an agency strategically considers the rural sector influences its decisions to invest in the periphery, with lasting consequences for state capacity and the rural-urban divide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Investigaciones Historicas is the property of Universidad de Valladolid, Facultad de Filosofia y Letras and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Does the legacy of precolonial statehood affect contemporary levels of civil conflict outside Europe? I argue that places with higher levels of precolonial state development were more likely to end up as weak modern-day states because precolonial state structures and authority structures established by European colonizers came to exist in parallel. This created opportunities and motivation for civil conflict still present in many countries today. I illustrate the argument in the cases of India, Burma, and Ethiopia and test it statistically in a global sample covering 109 countries outside Europe. The results strongly support the theory. Countries with higher levels of state development 3500 BCE–1500 CE have weaker state monopolies on violence and markedly higher levels of intrastate armed conflict in modern times (1946–2018). The findings remain robust across numerous alternative specifications, including using the timing of the Neolithic Revolution as an instrument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argentina exhibits an overall trend toward centralization, although not linear across time or policy areas, accompanied by strong centralization in the fiscal sphere, and greater politico-institutional autonomy for the provinces. These findings arise from a unique dataset gathered by 22 research assistants and curated by 18 experts for 22 policy areas, 5 fiscal dimensions, and 3 politico-institutional autonomy areas. In 1862, the country was very decentralized, but state building soon consolidated the federal government's role in policymaking and fiscal relations, while provinces struggled to keep their politico-institutional autonomy until the 1960s, when challenges to their autonomy started to decrease. A centralization peak is observed in 1949, while decentralization junctures took place after the military coups of 1955 and 1976, and during the 1990s. Regime change cannot explain these changes. Instead, policy and fiscal de/centralization is best explained by the state-building process, the strength of presidents, and the economic trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rwanda's mid 2021 military intervention meaningfully degraded the capability of the jihadist insurgents terrorising northern Mozambique. Rwanda's early battlefield achievements were due to a combination of factors, including a suitable operational concept and strong infantry skills and combat motivation. These qualities were more a function of institutional history and internal state building, however, than of foreign-provided equipment or training; outside aid helped make the intervention possible but did not instil the critical drivers of Rwandan combat effectiveness. Because similar circumstances do not pertain in Mozambique, the prospects that the Rwandan armed forces can transfer the capability to prosecute a successful counter-insurgency to their Mozambican counterparts are dim. The Cabo Delgado campaign provides only a qualified vindication of American security co-operation and suggests important limits for western counterterrorism strategies predicated on African proxies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]