Relative political capacity: A dataset to evaluate the performance of nations, 1960–2018

Measuring the ability of governments to implement policy remains one of the most significant questions of political science. This paper presents the latest iteration of the Relative Political Capacity (RPC) dataset and introduces the Absolute Political Capacity measure. It then investigates the trends in political performance measures across time and space, and different political and economic characteristics. Covering 168 countries from 1960 to 2018, the RPC offers a comprehensive measure of state capacity that allows direct comparisons to be made across countries from all levels of development and will help researchers explore different dimensions of capacity and power

Demographic and Economic Consequences of Conflict

Research on conflict traditionally focuses on its initiation, duration, and severity, but seldom on its consequences. Yet, demographic and economic recovery from the consequences of war lasts far longer and may be more devastating than the waging war. Our concern is with war losses and post-war recovery leading to convergence with pre-war performance. To test this proposition, we choose the most severe international and civil wars after 1920. We find that all belligerents recover or overtake demographic losses incurred in war. Economic assessments differ. The most-developed belligerents recover like a “phoenix” from immense destruction in one generation. For less-developed societies, the outcomes are mixed. The less-developed belligerents recover only a portion of their pre-war performance. The least-developed societies suffer the most and fall into lasting poverty traps. The overlapping generation growth model accounts for such differences in recovery rates based on pre-war performance challenging arguments from Solow's neoclassical growth perspective. Our results imply that foreign aid is incidental to the post-war convergence for the most-developed societies, can prompt recovery for the less-developed societies, and is not effective—unless it is massive and sustained—for the least-developed societies. World War II may provide a poor guide to current post-war challenges in Iraq and in Afghanistan

Replication data for: Relative Political Capacity Dataset

This measure represents a sign along the road to developing a social science indicator similar to the ubiquitous applications of GDP and GDP per capita in economics. Political science has long valued the universality of these concepts and the powerful applications they allow for measuring and comparative purposes. It was the chase after the elixir of a political science counterpart that led to this volume. Despite its universal appeal, as a concept GDP remains limited in some ways. It does not include the non-monetized economy, the black market, the subsistence economy, or volunteer work, and it fails to address why the public sector is approximated by inputs not outputs. Yet, GDP remains the gold standard for cross national economic comparisons. And GDP per c apita is the measure of choice for assessing the average productivity of individuals across and within nations. Is there a GDP- like indicator that would allow scholars to compare governmental functions across time, space and across types of governments? That was our challenge. Various attempts have been made to develop proxies for government performance but none of them have allowed scholars to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of governments, the performance of governments, vertically and horizontally--from the international to local levels. In order to find our GDP-like political indicator, the various scholars contributing to this effort developed, tested and integrated three distinct measures of political performance. They are Extraction, Reach, and Allocation. Extraction approximates the ability of governments to appropriate portions of the national output to advance public goals. Reach gauges the capacity of governments to mobilize populations under their control. Allocation evaluates the share of public revenues provided to competing national priorities contrasted to the optimal allocation based on maximizing economic growth. Each of these measures was tested empirically to determine if significant and substantive results followed from their application. These tests, as cataloged in this book, establish the universality of the political performance concept

Political Performance

Why do some nations fail while others succeed? How can we compare the political capacity of a totalitarian regime to a democracy? Are democracies always more efficient? The Performance of Nations answers these key questions by providing a powerful new tool for measuring governments\u27 strengths and weaknesses. Allowing researchers to look inside countries down to the local level as well as to compare across societies and over time, the book demonstrates convincingly that political performance is the missing link in measuring..

Demographic and Economic Consequences of Conflict

Research on conflict traditionally focuses on its initiation, duration, and severity, but seldom on its consequences. Yet, demographic and economic recovery from the consequences of war lasts far longer and may be more devastating than the waging war. Our concern is with war losses and post-war recovery leading to convergence with pre-war performance. To test this proposition, we choose the most severe international and civil wars after 1920. We find that all belligerents recover or overtake demographic losses incurred in war. Economic assessments differ. The most-developed belligerents recover like a phoenix from immense destruction in one generation. For less-developed societies, the outcomes are mixed. The less-developed belligerents recover only a portion of their pre-war performance. The least-developed societies suffer the most and fall into lasting poverty traps. The overlapping generation growth model accounts for such differences in recovery rates based on pre-war performance challenging arguments from Solow\u27s neoclassical growth perspective. Our results imply that foreign aid is incidental to the post-war convergence for the most-developed societies, can prompt recovery for the less-developed societies, and is not effective-unless it is massive and sustained-for the least-developed societies. World War II may provide a poor guide to current post-war challenges in Iraq and in Afghanistan. © 2012 International Studies Association